In the morning, I get up and run five miles like it’s nothing, and then meet Matty at the weight room.
“That smoothie this morning tasted fucking awesome. What d’you think she put in it?” he asks.
I think back. “Spinach, because it looked green. Banana. Maybe strawberries?”
“Papaya,” Hammer grunts between blows of the sledgehammer on the tire. “Got to be because it tasted sweet.”
“Papaya? Where the fuck did that come from?” Matty scoffs. “It was pineapple.”
“We had pineapple three days ago, and this tasted sweeter, so it was something else.” Hammer jabs twenty pounds of iron in Matty’s direction. “Papaya is a sweeter fruit.”
“Where the fuck are they getting papaya?” Matty sits up and places his hands on his hips.
“Same place they’re getting the pineapple and bananas, dumbshit.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or ask Matty to hit me in the head with a fifty-pound weight. The conversation is ridiculous, but if Matty and Hammer weren’t arguing about something then it wouldn’t be a day ending in Y.
“Hey, Masters, got a minute?” Campbell steps up by the weight bench. I nod but don’t stop because I’m nearing the end of my second set of seated dumbbell front raise lifts with the twenty-pound weights.
“What’s up, Campbell?” I set the weights down on either side of the bench and reach for my water jug. Campbell doesn’t answer but looks pointedly at Matty and Hammer, who are still arguing.
“How do you even know if papaya is sweeter than pineapple?” Matty scowls.
Hammer lifts the sledgehammer over his head and brings it down on the tire. “Papaya has a higher fructose level.”
Jack and I exchange looks because neither of us can believe these two are still arguing about the fucking fruit.
“Matty, Hammer, I think Jesse needs some help.” Jesse didn’t need a damn thing, but it’s obvious Jack wants to talk privately, or as privately as you can in a weight room where fifty guys are lifting, throwing ropes, and doing chin ups.
Campbell lifts his chin in thanks as the guys wander off to see if Jesse can mediate their dispute. “What’s with the shrug before you do the dumbbell front raise?”
“Isolates the rotator cuff muscle.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Nice. Didn’t learn that at juco.”
“Small weights, more reps are my recommendation but I suspect that you didn’t come to talk to me about that.”
“Yeah.” He drags a hand through his pretty boy hair—about the same shade as his sister’s. The other guys on the team are blind. Ellie and her brother have many similarities—the color of their hair, the deep brown of their eyes. Ellie's a lot shorter, but she’s got the same kind of internal strength that Campbell has. “I don’t know what’s going on with you and my sister. She’s an adult, so I can’t prevent her from dating anyone, but if you hurt her, I’ll come after you. I’m psyched to be playing here, but I’d give up my place on the team if that’s what it came to.”
If Campbell meant to scare me off, he’s not doing a good job of it. Knowing she’s got a brother who cares about her? That her brother is the kind of unselfish guy who’d put his family first? I rub a hand across my chin while I think of a good way to respond. I won’t lie and say I’m not interested, but I also don’t need to tell him that I intend to bone his sister into next year, or that I spend most of my down time thinking about her naked, spread, and ready.
“I watched your tapes when I heard we made you an offer and hoped you would be a solid fit here. When you showed up and worked your ass off without complaining once, I knew that Coach had made the right choice.”
“That’s real nice of you, Masters, but that’s got shit all to do with my sister. She’s…a sweet kid. She might talk a good game, but she’s pretty soft under that outer shell.”
“I hear you. And you absolutely should kick my ass if I hurt your sister, but I have no intention of hurting her. I’m dead serious about her.”
He looks confused. “You barely know her.”
“I know enough. Sometimes it happens in an instant and sometimes it grows. Like you said, she’s an adult and can make her own decisions, but I appreciate that you have her back and that she has yours. Reminds me of the relationship I have with my brother.”
I pick up my dumbbells and start my third and final set. Campbell stands there watching me.
“You need anything else?” I ask.
He looks suspicious but shakes his head no. Matty and Hammer must have been watching us like a hawk, because they reappear almost immediately.
“It’s papaya,” Jack says before he goes back to the offensive squad. “Saw her put it in this morning.”
“I knew it,” Hammer crows. He shoves his hand toward Matty. “You owe me two beers tonight.”
Of course they bet over what fruit got put in the smoothie. I wonder what bets they’ve made over me and Ellie. Then I think it’s better I don’t know, because I’d have to kick their asses and that wouldn’t do a hell of a lot for team unity.
14 Ellie
I don’t sleep well…at all. The whole night I keep replaying the bathroom scene in my head and it often morphs into something dirtier. Like Knox gesturing with his free hand to come closer. When I do, he points to the ground, and I fall to my knees and open my mouth.