False Start - Jessica Ruddick Page 0,43

delivered.

In my bedroom, I flopped onto my bed then reached for my phone and noise-canceling headphones. Wanting to drown the world out for a little while, I selected a meditative music playlist on Spotify and closed my eyes.

***

THE SILENCE IN my headphones woke me. Groggily, I pulled my earphones off my head and inspected them. Damn. The stupid things barely held a charge anymore. I should have taken the time to find the cord instead of using the Bluetooth feature. Oh, well. I’d been dozing for nearly an hour, and if I slept any longer, I was in danger of being up all night.

Pulling the towel off my head, I padded into my bathroom to comb out my hair. As soon as I caught sight of how tangled it was, I was angry at myself for being too lazy to deal with it before I’d lain down. I tugged at the knots with a comb, cringing when huge tufts of hair stuck in the teeth. Next time Lucy wanted to put so much gunk in my hair, I was putting my foot down. I cleaned the hair out of the comb and smiled at it. If I was feeling mischievous, I would save it and play a prank on Carson later. I’d had no idea wet hair grossed him out so much. Granted, pulling wet clumps of hair out of the drain wasn’t my favorite thing to do, but it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Thinking of Carson made me remember we’d put the leftover Chinese food in my fridge. Score! I wandered out into the kitchen to retrieve it. As I was dumping what was left of the General Tso’s chicken onto a plate, I heard Lucy rustling around in her room. Huh. Rehearsal should have ended by now, which meant she was supposed to be on her way to New York.

“Did you forget something, Lucy?” I called. It must have been important if she’d come back for it. She’d been so eager to get on the road that she had even considered sneaking out of rehearsal early.

I stuck my plate in the microwave, hit the reheat button, then walked toward Lucy’s room. Spying her phone-charger cord on the couch, I backtracked to grab it. “Your charger is out here!” Ever since the cord she normally kept in her car went missing, she’d been taking this one with her everywhere, at least when she remembered it. But she would definitely need it for a solo eight-hour road trip at night.

I got to her door just as it flung open, hitting me with a smack. I yelped, putting a hand to my forehead, where there was sure to be a mark. “What the hell?” I knew Lucy was excited for New York, but cheese on a cracker. She didn’t have to maim me.

Instead of Lucy’s chagrined apology, I heard a grunt. I stepped back, and my eyes widened at the sight of a man I didn’t recognize standing in the doorway of Lucy’s room. His dark eyes locked onto mine, and I backpedaled, but there was a wall at my back. “You’re not Lucy,” I whispered, which was the most idiotic thing I could have said, because no shit.

The man snapped out of his stupor and slammed into me, flinging his elbow into my temple. My head knocked back into the wall, then everything went dark.

***

Carson

“FLECK! WHAT THE hell are you doing?”

I stopped in my tracks at the assistant coach’s shout and surveyed my teammates. Damn it. I had run the wrong route. I had never made such a rookie mistake, even when I was a rookie. The playbook was the one book I didn’t mind studying.

I jogged back to the line of scrimmage. “My bad, Coach.” Fuck. After the hard loss to Miami, the last thing I needed was for Coach Coyle to think I was incompetent.

Wyatt stood with his hands on his hips. “You’re supposed to run the burst four route.”

“I know,” I muttered.

He shook his head and handed the ball to the center.

Jake clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. It’s the first mistake you’ve made in a long time.”

It was a stupid mistake, though, because that route was beyond basic. The truth was I’d been off all practice. My personal life had never affected my game before. True, it was only practice, but I practiced like I played—hard. And I didn’t mess up easy stuff. I couldn’t seem to get my shit together