Page 49 of Campus Muscle

The chair opposite me scraped against the floor as he pulled it out and sank down.

“Seriously?” Trace asked, his voice low but laced with tension.

I looked up slowly, allowing him a moment to calm down before I spoke. His hands rested on the edge of the table, knuckles white. For a moment it looked like he would change his mind and leave, but I knew I wouldn’t be so lucky.

“You read it,” I said calmly.

“It was hard not to,” he quietly seethed. “No one else on campus could ignore it either.”

I snapped my notebook shut. “Is there something you’d like to talk to me about?”

“‘Wunderkind with more promise than he can handle?’” The veins in his neck bulged with the effort it took for him to whisper-scream the subheading at me. “You didn’t have the balls to insult me to my face, so you do that?”

Now that was an angle I didn’t expect. I knew Trace would be mad, and that he’d probably confront me, but I didn’t expect the sub to be his first issue, especially not with all the other things he could’ve picked apart.

“It was a question.”

“It was a shot at me.”

I rolled my eyes. “It can only be a shot if it’s true. Is that what you’re admitting?”

Trace let out a humorless laugh. So cold it was actually scary. Then he leaned forward, and his expression darkened in that dangerous way that I had gotten used to.

“You don’t get to decide things like that.”

I swallowed the urge to give him as much as he was handing out. “No, but nothing can stop me from asking questions.”

“And what about making conclusions without talking to me first?”

“That’s rich. I tried talking to you a million times.”

The color drained from his face, and I could tell that he was replaying every single encounter we had in his mind. How he’d walked away or tried to shut me out because he thought it would be better for the team. Well, he was about to learn that sometimes silence isn’t the best answer.

“That wasn’t talking,” he stammered. “That was badgering me for information I couldn’t give.”

I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. “I was asking questions, and you avoided giving me answers. It couldn’t possibly be simpler.”

“You were using me while digging for something that doesn’t exist.”

My eyes narrowed. “Are you really going to pretend that none of that stuff is true?”

Trace opened his mouth to respond but closed it again when the words died in his throat. He could argue this as much as he wanted, but at the end of the day, we both knew the truth.

“You don’t know enough about the topic to write what you did,” he eventually said.

I sighed. “I know enough to question it.”

“That’s not what you did, though.”

I tilted my head and admired him. “You seem to be very nervous for someone who believes what I said is wrong.”

His grip on the table tightened, and I knew I had hit a nerve. He was just as afraid of the consequences this article would have as I was.

“I’m pissed, not nervous. There’s a difference.”

“Most times I’d agree, but this isn’t one of them.”

“That’s because you don’t know when to stop.”