“Did you yell at him?” Lenny asks.
“I fucking yelled, I tried knocking on his damn door, but he never answered.”
Lenny howls with laughter.
“I thought something was going on,” Palmer says. “I came out with my golf club.” He stepped into the hall in his underwear, ready to fight—a testament to our friendship.
“I’m so fucking sick of this dude and living in the dorms,” I say, my exhaustion and long day catching up with me, making me sound less like the easygoing, funny, and sarcastic guy I’m known as and more like the pessimistic asshole role that Grey already fills.
“Too bad your family’s not local,” Perry, a freshman who’s been working under me, says.
I release my weights, sweat building above my brow that I wipe away with a towel. “Why would that matter?”
“Nolan’s Chicago connections aren’tthatkind of connections,” Palmer says with a grin.
“Because of that caveat in the rules that says we can live off campus with a relative.” Perry shrugs dismissively as he reaches for the weightlifting bar.
“Wait. Hold on. What did you say?” I’m already halfway to the bench he’s lying on.
Perry’s a skinny kid, who’s not as fast as some of the other freshmen, or as coordinated, but every time I try to write him off, he impresses me again by working twice as hard as the others. Still, he flinches as I get too close. “It’s in the rules,” he stutters. “The packet we all signed.”
I shake my head. “What are you talking about? Everything is all about our appearances and how we reflect on the school. Shit like not dying our hair unnatural colors or facial tattoos…”
Perry shakes his head as he sits up. “In the section that talks about the dorms and taking care of the living space, and not having overnight guests—”
“We can’t have overnight guests?” Corey asks.
“Busted,” Lenny says, moving to elbow Hudson because his girlfriend, Evelyn, spends at least three nights a week in his dorm.
“I won’t tell anyone,” Perry says quickly, raising both hands in the air.
I shake my head. “No one’s going to say shit, but what does it say about moving out of the dorm?”
Perry’s eyes are still wide with a hint of terror as he glances at Hudson and then at me. “That you can live with a relative as long as they’re over the age of eighteen and so many miles of campus.”
“Can you show me where it says that?” I ask.
“I turned my packet in,” Perry says. “They were due on Monday.”
Hudson shoots me a knowing look that I ignore and grab my bag, rifling through the miscellaneous papers different professors have handed out until I come across the packet Coach Peters distributed that requires us to sign and initial a couple of hundred blank spaces. Stephens and Krueger, our offensive coordinator, went over every damn rule with us, but I’m sure as shit they didn’t mention being allowed to move out of the dorm—because if they had, I’d have been moved out already.
I push the papers in front of Perry. “Point to the exception.”
Perry gives one final look of hesitation to Hudson before flipping through the pages, stopping halfway through where he points at a paragraph. “Right here. Students must live in their assigned dorm unless the student has a relative over the age of eighteen that lives within twenty miles of campus.”
I grab his cheeks between my hands and smack a kiss on the top of his head. “Perry, you just became my favorite fucking person.” I pull the sheath of papers from his hands and slide them back into my bag feeling lighter and freer than I have in weeks—years. “Sorry, Captain, but I’ve got to pack. It looks like I’m moving.”
Hudson stands, wiping a towel across his brow which is heavy with doubt and concern. “I’ll walk you out.”
Guilt peppers my steps as we make our way out of the facility. The entire team is here, working their asses off, preparing for what may be a defining season for all of us as well as Camden. For years, Camden went unnoticed, never seen as a threat, but over the past several years, that’s changed. Now, guys are riding on this season—their futures relying on a winning record.
I make a silent pledge to make up this session and help them achieve their goals as I push through the doors that take me outside.
“Are you sure about this?” Hudson asks as soon as we clear the facility.
“Am I sure that I don’t want to live in the dorms? Hell yes.”
“I know you hate living here and that soccer player is a fucking dick but think about four AM practices and nights when we get home at midnight and can barely crawl to the dorms.”