Sworn Enemies - Rebel Hart Page 0,72

Widows. We’ve been working non-stop in anticipation of our rematch. We were in the stands, watching and horrified by what we saw.” His face looked anguished. “I do have to accept the role I played in all of this. Texts I sent to an official member of the Athletics Board were used to fabricate a conversation between myself and Lila. I can’t speak to the motive, but I believe it had something to do with my falling in love with the captain of the Black Widows, Quinn Dallen.”

Goosebumps covered my skin. In love. I thought about how awful I felt for the past week, and how losing our chance at semi-pro status and breaking up with Zeke carried nearly the same weight. He was the only thing that threatened to mean more to me than football, and losing both at the same time had nearly taken me out. If I were to think about it logically, didn’t that mean that I was probably in love, myself? It didn’t take much for Zeke to wind me up, even long before we started dating. Maybe I’d been falling the whole time and just didn’t realize it.

“He’s probably just trying to save his own ass,” Alec growled, crossing his arms.

“Shh,” I hissed.

“The Vipers voted last night, and we unanimously decided that we would still like to have our rematch with the Widows’ next week. We realize that their road to the semis was cut short by what happened, which is why we’re willing to wager our status. If the Black Widows are willing to play the Vipers next Friday and win, we will give our already secured semi-pro status over to them and step down.”

I gasped. “What!”

All Zeke had dreamed of was going pro. With the way things were going for the Vipers lately, in a season or two, he could actually get picked up. Why would he give all of that up?

Alec flicked my forehead. “Quinn, you’re not falling for this, right? He’s betting it because he doesn’t think you can win, just like last time.”

“Zeke’s phone provider confirmed that the messages were, in fact, fabricated, though they weren’t able to confirm who had manufactured them,” the reporter repeated. We’d caught back up to where we started. “There has been no word yet on whether the Black Widows will accept the Vipers’ request for a rematch.”

There was a knock at the door, and Alec walked over and opened it. “No,” he barked. “Leave, and don’t come back.”

“Please.” My body turned hot in an instant at the voice. It was Zeke. “Just let me show her the proof, and if she wants me to leave, I won’t bother her again.”

Alec looked over his shoulder at me, and I nodded. Alec looked back out the door. “I still think you’re shady, so make it quick.”

Alec stood aside, and Zeke walked through the door. My gut reaction was to run over to him, but I stayed put. I wasn’t yet convinced that he wasn’t just saving face, either. He had a stack of papers in his hands and walked over and sat down on the couch next to me.

“Hi,” he said, and his voice was the saddest I’d ever heard. “I missed you.”

“Ah-ah.” Alec snapped his fingers. “Talk. You’re on a three-minute countdown.”

Zeke handed the papers over to me. The first of them was the official paperwork showing a string of texts. The responses I’d seen Zeke sending to Lila were listed, but the questions he was getting were totally different. The number he was responding to wasn’t Lila’s either. The documents were all on official letterheads from the company, proving that they weren’t fake. Zeke hadn’t sent Lila to Colorado.

I continued to flip through the papers, and the next few were applications for apartments in Montpelier, dated before the game against Colorado. In one of the applications, there was a string of emails between Zeke and the complex agent. He made a joke about hoping to convince his girlfriend to move in one day. She asked if a wedding was in the future, and he said he hoped so. The relationship was still new, but he just had a feeling.

The last of the papers were plays from Zeke’s playbooks with notes on how to be more synchronized as a team and combat the Widows’ power, Lila included. The papers were wrinkled with fading writing—at least as old as us starting our semi-pro bid. He didn’t plan on Lila being gone and was taking our