Page 28 of Penalty Box

Hunter gave me a look from the hallway, but I just shook my head and kept walking.

Coach’s office was small, cluttered, and harshly lit by a single fluorescent bar. I stood just inside the doorway, still in full gear, sweat cooling on my skin.

He didn’t invite me in, or tell me to sit. Hell, he didn’t even look at me right away.

“I saw the video.”

His eyes lifted slowly and the look in them was calm, but deadly.

“Coach, I want this. I promise I won’t—”

“Officially,” he said, leaning back in his chair, hands folded over his stomach, “I can’t tell you who you can and can’t date.”

I swallowed hard, and waited for the other shoe to drop.

“Unofficially?” His steely gaze pinned me like a butterfly to a wall display. “Keep your filthy paws off my daughter.”

The word hung in the air like a threat.

Daughter.

I didn’t know if he’d said anything after that. Couldn’t remember hitting the showers or walking back out to my car. The lot was empty when I finally got buzzed out of the spiral in my head, and I pulled my phone out.

Cass:GG. Wanna come over and read hate comments on our video with me?

My thumb hovered. All day I’d been dying to talk to her, and now I didn’t know what to say.

She’s the coach’s daughter.

9

Cass

The smell hit first… Grease, gasoline, and metal. All my favorite things in one. I stepped into Mason’s garage, a six-pack swinging from my fingers.

He was under his truck, legs sticking out from beneath the chassis. But he wasn’t fooling me.

“The way you’re working that wrench almost makes all this believable.”

The random clanking stilled.

“Cass?”

I kicked his leg lightly. “Are you always this hospitable to uninvited guests?”

He slid out on a creeper, face streaked with oil and glistening with sweat. He wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t look mad at me either. I took it as a small win.

His gaze moved from my face, to the peace offering in my hand. “Are they cold?”

“I’m not an animal.”

He sat up and took the beers from me, popped one open without breaking eye contact. “Then I guess you can stay.”

His tone was flat, but the fact that he didn’t tell me to leave gave me the tiniest spark of hope. I looked around, pretending to care about the basic setup he had going on.

“What are you working on?”

“Ball joints.”