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TWENTY

TRENT

“I’d kill for a Wawa,” I groaned, exiting the car, arms stretched overhead.

I’d lost track of our location as we ricocheted around the southeast, driving on single-lane state highways only served by off-brand, rundown gas stations.

“I don’t think they have those in Tennessee.” Kit rolled out her neck, back arching. “Are we still in Tennessee?”

“A Buc-ees, then. I’d eat my body weight in gummy worms and brisket.”

“Best I can do is hot, fresh pizza,” she said, reading off the faded sign on the window. Judging by the cobwebs, I doubted she could promise that much. “At least we can grab some chips and soda. I’m starving.”

The car rally stops were a far cry from the five-star hotels and resorts I normally stayed in. Even when I played away games, at worst, the team would at least stay at a hotel with a breakfast bar. But the cut-rate places that served as check-ins barely had running air conditioning, let alone a continental breakfast bar.

“I’ll fill it up.” I held my hands out for the keys. “Pick me out whatever. I think I’ll just be disappointed if I go inside.”

While I wasn’t militant about my diet, three days of roller meats and packaged food had grown old. My stomach churned at the prospect of another greasy slice of stale pizza or sugary drink.

“Actually, grab me a water and a granola bar!” I called after Kit. “And we’re stopping somewhere with actual food for lunch,”

She waved a hand back at me. A “yeah, sure, whatever” hand wave that dismissed me without so much as a glance back. I grinned.

If I’d been worried the kiss the night before would change anything, I had no reason to worry. Kit wasn’t like that. She wasn’t bowled over by a kiss. She wasn’t infatuated over a dare. She hadn’t even liked the kiss.

And if that disappointed me just a little, I kept that to myself.

Kit returned to the car with a full bag of snacks in her hand.

“Want me to drive for a bit?” I offered.

She surveyed the state highway. Not a single car had passed while I’d pumped gas and we’d already traveled through the Blue Ridge Mountains into the flatter western part of the state.

“Okay.” She held out the keys but didn’t let go when I grabbed them. “But take it easy with the clutch. I swear I heard some weird clunking earlier.”

“You want to check it out?”

She shook her head. “I’m probably just being paranoid.”

“Well, no worries. I heard you loud and clear: shift with abandon,” I said, snatching the keys from her grasp.

She closed her eyes, tilting her head up. “I’m trusting you, Texas.”

“Second time in as many days. Must be a record.”

Kit wiggled into the passenger seat hole, as she liked to call it. She bolstered her against the door with my pillow and pulled my hoodie over her chest like a blanket before pulling out her phone. “And the best part is it’s my turn to pick what we listen to.”

“I don’t think we established that as a set rule.”

“This is for your education. Future women who have the dubious honor of meeting you will thank me for it,” Kit insisted, disconnecting my phone from the Bluetooth and adding her own.

I shifted in my seat, chafing at the way she said “future women.”

“It’s a book called Invisible Women . You’ll love it. It’s about data bias in a world designed for men.”

“Sounds riveting.” I mentally prepared myself for a college lecture series mid-car rally. “I introduced you to beef and dairy, and this is how you repay me?”

“And you get to drive. What a treat.”

“You know, navigation isn’t actually that easy,” I teased. “You’ll want to switch back by lunch.”

She plugged her phone into the charger and rifled through the bag of snacks, handing me a water and opening the bag of Doritos which she then dropped in the cup holder closest to me. “Probably not.”

I ground the car into third, pulling onto a road as the audiobook played. By the third stop of the day, not only had my driving improved, but my righteous indignation of a world of misogyny had grown to a full boil.

“You know, I have half a mind to talk to Coach Simmons about our lack of female coaches. We’ve only got one. That’s insane, right? And sports trainers? Less than ten.”

Kit didn’t respond, her nose buried in her phone.

“Did you know the cheerleaders don’t even get a full-time salary? I thought that was screwed up before, but now I’m mad about it.”

“Fuck.” The plaintive whisper caught my attention. Rather than listen to my diatribe, Kit had her phone in her hands, face pale.

“Fuck what?” I straightened, chest growing tight. “Everything okay? It’s not Derek, is it?”

She closed her eyes, a glint of tears misting her eyelashes. “No. He’s fine. It’s dumb. I should have double-checked before I left.”

“Double checked what?” I split my attention between the road and her, a sense of foreboding growing in the car.

Her mouth worked as her eyes darted out the front windshield. “I didn’t submit my last case study.”

“Case study?”

“For graduation. I presented it, but between that and final exams and the rally, I forgot to actually turn in the paper.” Her voice wavered.

“Okay,” I said, mind racing. I’d rubbed up against enough deadlines in college to have some idea of how to navigate her predicament. “Not a big deal. Do you have the paper backed up somewhere?”

Kit grimaced.

“You don’t have it backed up to a cloud? Maybe one we could access from your phone?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be freaking out.”

I frowned. “So, where is the paper?”

“On my computer. In Norwalk.”

“Can Derek grab your computer and send it in?” I shook my head, my conversation with him this morning rushing back. “Nope. He’s not getting discharged until tomorrow.”

She scanned her phone again. “The paper needs to be turned in my midnight. The only reason the professor even mentioned it is because I normally turn in my reports early.”

I reached across the car and rubbed her shoulder. “Well, it’s not a big deal, right? It sucks to get a bad grade, but it’s not like you won’t graduate.”

A tear fell down her face.

“The case study is the grade,” she ground out. “The presentation was a part of it, but I can’t graduate if it’s not submitted.”

“Can you ask the professor for an extension?” I asked.

“I’m not a fancy football player, Texas. Just a regular student, bound by the same rules as the plebes.” She groaned, tipping her head back. “Sorry. That’s not helpful. No. I can’t.”

“Okay.” Just like the guide book, I could fix this. “But the case study is on your laptop?”

“On my laptop in Virginia. Even if we turned around now, we’d barely make it home in time.”

I pulled the car over to the side of the road. Setting the parking brake, I turned to her. “Kitten, there isn’t a problem on earth that money can’t fix, and I have a lot. Give me five minutes.”

She opened her mouth, but I shot out of the car before she could argue.

The dusty stretch of country highway had nothing but fields in either direction. My phone had two bars of service, which was plenty to call the one guy I knew who’d have an answer to Kit’s dilemma.

“I’m not bailing you out!”

“Nice to talk to you, too, teammate!” I greeted Rob Grant with an overly animated reply. “And no worries, I’m not in jail. I just need a favor from a friend.”

“Make it quick,” he grumbled. “I have daddy-daughter gymnastics in ten.”

I paused on the image of the defensive lineman in a unitard doing flips with his six-year-old but shook the distraction out of my head. “No problem. I need an incredibly reliable person fast. You know anyone?”

“I’m going to gymnastics.”

“But after gymnastics…”

“Mila wants ice cream.”

“And maybe on the way, you both could stop so you can do a favor for her favorite Uncle Trent?”

“She does not call you ‘Uncle Trent.’” He sighed. “I have an assistant. He can probably fit it into his schedule, for the right price.”

“Perfect. What’s his number?”

Rob sent the contact information and after two more calls, I had a solution. As I finished my third call, Kit slinked out of the car. She wasn’t crying, but close enough to tears that it twisted my stomach.

“Great news!” I said with an exaggerated smile. “You’ve got an assistant. He comes highly recommended and well vetted. He’ll get the keys to your apartment from Derek, and you can walk him through sending the assignment.”

“How much?” she asked.

I opened my cash app and sent the money with a click. “Too late. Besides, you couldn’t afford it. My teammate made sure the assistant jacked up his normal rates. It’s atrocious, but he’s making you his top priority.”

Kit worried her bottom lip. “You didn’t have to do that.”

I pulled her into a hug before I thought that hug all the way through. One minute, she was standing next to me, eyes rimmed red and face sallow. The next, she was nestled into my arms, her hair brushing my chin, reluctantly wrapping her arms around my waist and collapsing her weight into my chest.

“I needed to do that,” I said, dipping my chin and inhaling cherries. “Because I need you to be focused on winning this race. And if you fail out of college, that’ll put a real damper on our win.”

She released a muffled laugh, her grip tightening.

“I mean it. You’d just spend the next two days crying and probably do a shit job at driving. And then where would we be?”

“We’re not going to win this race, Texas.”

“I know,” I admitted. “But trying to win the race is turning out to be a lot of fun, too.”

I didn’t pay attention to how long we stood on the side of the road like that. Long enough for a trucker to race by, blaring his horn like he’d caught us doing something a lot more salacious than hugging.

Kit pulled away first. She turned her face away, rubbing her cheek before looking up. “I don’t want to say thank you again.”

“Then don’t,” I shrugged. “I probably don’t deserve it.”

Kit raked a hand through her hair, eyes following the road into the distance. She took a step back. A step away.