Page 89 of Campus Muscle

I broke away just enough to catch my breath, my lips swollen and tingling. I trailed my mouth down the line of his throat, tasting the salt on his skin, my teeth grazing the pulse point that gave away how much of an effect this had on him too.

“Trace,” I breathed against his skin, my hands sliding lower, gripping the hard planes of his hips.

He let out a choked sound, fighting to even out his breathing. “You’re right. Tara will be back any second.”

I reached up and smoothed a stray lock of hair from his damp forehead. “I want you to go out there and kick ass in the final game. Leave Frank Delaney to me.”

32

Trace

I sat on the bench in front of my locker and picked at the loose piece of tape on my wrist. There had never been a day in my life when I was so nervous. It was our final game of the season.

I’d woken up with a buzz of pure adrenaline, but as kickoff drew closer, that excitement soured. Every tick of the clock was a reminder that our reputations were currently on the chopping block.

Winning the final game last year had saved the program, but it also raised the bar to a terrifying height. Today was the make-or-break moment. A win meant new sponsors and a future. A loss meant watching our hard work dissolve into irrelevance.

“Okay, guys, gather round,” Coach said. He sounded as nervous as I felt. “I have a few things to say, and I need you to hear them.”

The only sound was the scuff of cleats on the floor, a hollow shuffle that no one dared break. A thin layer of excitement pulsed through the air, but the sense of dread worked to smother it. I watched their faces, wondering if this same suffocating silence had followed them the last time they were in this position.

“It’s our last regular season game,” Coach said, scanning our faces. “I know it’s scary. It’s a lot. But take a moment to understand how far you’ve come. Allow yourselves to be excited about this because you deserve it. You’ve come a long way since the last season, and honestly, we’re evenly matched this time around, unlike we were back then.”

“Yeah, the Bisons aren’t too bad,” Ethan said. “They might be older and more established, but their guys are just as sucky as we are.”

Coach stifled a laugh. “We are even on wins, four games to four. So today is all about the last man standing. If we take this win, we’re in the playoffs. Just let that sink in for a second…” We did. Nobody breathed a word. The atmosphere in the locker room was electric. “Last season we hadn’t won a single game, and now we’re aiming for the playoffs. That’s a real achievement right there. We’re so close to reaching the next level, I can taste it.”

The pressure valve finally hissed open, and relief flooded the room in a visible wave. Suddenly, the silence was replaced by the low, rhythmic cadence of players remembering why they loved the game. Malik threw out a jab about a trash-talking linebacker who couldn’t back it up, and Ethan nodded along, his eyes distant as he brought up the razor-thin margins of their last championship run. The excitement was a physical thing now, vibrating in the floorboards, but it snapped shut the moment Coach raised his hand. He still had the floor.

“I’m proud of you. Every damn one of you,” Coach said, his voice dropping into a gravelly register that commanded the locker room. “A year ago, you were looking at the powerhouses of this league with envy. Today? You’re holding your own with most of them. But more than the wins, you’ve become a brotherhood. You’ve got each other’s backs. Including mine. Thank you for taking a chance on me when the rest of this school was looking for my replacement. It’s been the honor of my life to lead you.”

Malik was the first to break, letting out a thick, watery sniffle before lunging forward to pull Coach into a rib-crushing bear hug. Ethan turned his head, a single, traitorous tear tracking through the smudge of eye-black on his cheek, while Cam dived into the fray with a wide, toothy grin. It was an unfiltered display of loyalty. The kind I’d spent months convinced didn’t exist in this program. In fact, I felt like a fraud just watching it.

“It hasn’t always been easy,” Lucas said, wrapping an arm around Dylan. “We stopped believing and even had a few fights. But now that I’m looking at it from this end of the season, I can see it was totally worth it.”

“Hell yeah,” Coach agreed. “And you know what? I would go through all that again if it means I get to call you guys my team.”

I stayed quiet. The moment belonged to them. They were the ones who’d struggled from the start. They were the ones who’d dragged each other through the wreckage of last season.

I was still just a substitute.

When Coach stepped back to let the guys have their space, I followed the wake of his silence. We stepped into his office and I closed the door behind us before taking a seat at his cluttered desk.

“You’re not here to give me a hard time about that speech, are you?” He gave a small laugh, but couldn’t fully hide the emotion he felt.

“No.”

He studied me for a long second, his gaze searching mine as if trying to gauge exactly how much trouble was about to land on his desk. Finally, he gave a stiff nod and sat down too, leaning back until his chair creaked.

“Out with it, then.”

I looked down at my hands. I’d spent so long trying to be the hero of my own story that I’d ignored how many people I was dragging down with me. It felt like I was suffocating. Like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs no matter how hard I breathed.

“I just wanted to apologize,” I began, finally forcing myself to meet his eyes. “For getting all mixed up in this whole Frank Delaney thing. I know my actions come with consequences. You warned me, and I didn’t listen. I think I lied to myself about how bad it really was, and because of that, I put you all at risk.”

I paused to wrestle back the crushing wave of guilt before it obliterated me. He’d talked about family, and I’d spent most of this season not giving a fuck about any of that.

“Is that it?”