Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 145402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 582(@250wpm)___ 485(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 582(@250wpm)___ 485(@300wpm)
"I'm sorry," Neil said.
Nicky waved it off, thinking Neil was apologizing for the wait, and went to grab his bag. Neil watched them gather their things, looking from one face to the other and trying to savor these last impossible seconds. Wymack watched over them all from the corner, an unlit cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth and a triumphant smirk still twitching at his lips. Abby was repacking her bag; she'd likely been checking on the scrapes her team picked up in the brawl.
The five feet between Neil and his team could have been five thousand miles. Looking at them all, Neil was as sad as he was proud. He was destroying their chances of making it through the season, but the girls still had one more year. They'd be bitterly disappointed by the near-miss but they were fighters. They'd come back swinging next year and they wouldn't let anything stop them.
He was sorry to leave them with all of his lies, sorry they'd have to get the truth from Kevin after the fact. They were all right here with him still but he missed them with a ferocity that threatened to turn him inside-out.
Only Andrew saw the strain in Neil's mask. He crossed the room to stand in front of Neil, a silent demand in his stare. Neil wanted to answer that, but he didn't know how. German was the obvious answer because it would afford them a little bit of privacy, but Romero and Jackson didn't understand German. They wouldn't know what he was saying and they would have to react like he was spilling every dark secret. Neil couldn't allow that. He didn't want to leave Andrew with nothing, but what could he possibly say?
"Thank you," he finally said. He couldn't say he meant thanks for all of it: the keys, the trust, the honesty, and the kisses. Hopefully Andrew would figure it out eventually. "You were amazing."
He meant it for Andrew's ears only, but Allison was close enough to overhear. She sent Matt a significant look. Neil saw it in his peripheral vision but didn't take his eyes off Andrew to see Matt's reaction. He didn't want to look away, as if by holding Andrew's gaze he could somehow save this moment. Then Wymack was motioning for them to head out and Neil had no choice but to turn his back on his teammates.
They left the stadium in a line, Romero in front and Jackson in back. Neil had been closest to the exit, so he was right behind Romero. He hated being that close to his father's man but he liked thinking his body was a shield between Romero's cruelty and his unsuspecting team. He tried to keep his stare on Romero's back, but he kept looking for Lola in the crowd. Only half of the fans had headed home for the night. The rest were having a post-game party on the stadium lawn. The smell of alcohol was so thick Neil could almost taste it.
The Foxes' fans were lined up to one side of the walkway, and they cheered the team's arrival. They were swiftly drowned out by vile insults from the other side where the Bearcats' fans stood. The Foxes ignored both sides and kept moving. Even Nicky was smart enough to keep his mouth shut, not wanting to rile the bitter fans further, but it didn't matter in the end. They were halfway to the parking lot when a bottle came flying out of nowhere. Aaron's florid curse a few spots back said it'd hit him, and Andrew shot a deadly look at the crowd. A shoe was hurled next, then another empty beer bottle.
More police shoved their way toward the team, yelling for order and pointing fingers. They might have succeeded in restoring order, except the next thing thrown was someone's cooler. Dan dodged in the nick of time, and it crashed into a drunk fan on the Foxes' other side. There was a furious outcry from the man's friends that was swiftly picked up by the crowd at their back.
Romero caught Neil's wrist in an iron grip. Neil dug his phone out of his jeans pocket with his free hand and stuffed it into the netted end pocket of his duffel. He just made it when the crowd's tension hit a breaking point. Students and fans went at each other's throats with the Foxes caught in the middle. Bodies crashed into Neil hard enough to take him off his feet, but Romero hauled him up and away as fast as he could. Neil dropped his racquet and let his bag get ripped from his shoulder. Andrew and Kevin knew he'd never let go of these things willingly. It wouldn't tell them where he'd gone, but they'd know he hadn't left them by choice.
Somewhere between the riot and the parking lot Romero lost his reflective vest. As soon as Neil's shoes hit asphalt Neil started struggling, but Jackson was right behind them. He yanked Neil's arm up behind him so sharply he almost dislocated Neil's shoulder. Neil gasped at the white bolt of pain that shot through his back.
"You won't get away with this," Neil said, voice strained. "My teammates will know I'm missing. They can't leave New York without me."
"They'll be busy for a while," Romero said. "Your coach will spend half the night trying to figure out which ER the lot of you were taken to. By the time he realizes you're gone it'll be too late."
They pushed him into the backseat of a highway patrol car. Lola was waiting for him on the far cushion. Neil stared dumbly at her, at a face that had aged but would always be familiar. The toothy smile that curved her mouth too wide, threatening to split her face in two, was the same as it'd always been, and Neil instinctively recoiled from her. There was nowhere for him to go with a locked door at his back and a protective grate between him and the front seats.