Chapter 6 Our Story

The clip had three million views by breakfast.

I knew because my phone would not stop buzzing against the nightstand, and because when I finally dragged myself downstairs, a sixty-inch television was playing it on a loop. Dax at the podium with the microphone saying she's mine in a voice that carried across the whole room.

Someone had already put music under it.

"Turn it off," I sighed.

"I'm not the one who turned it on." Dax stood at the stove in a gray T-shirt, flipping eggs like nothing in the world had happened. "The TV does that by itself. It's a smart TV."

"It's a stupid TV."

He grinned at me over his shoulder. "Good morning to you too, Tadpole."

I was about to throw a banana at his head when somebody pounded on the front door, three sharp knocks, then the doorbell, and three more knocks.

"That's Priya," I groaned.

"How do you know?"

"Nobody else would be that rude before seven-thirty."

Dax opened the door. Priya Nair walked in like a tiny storm in a team hoodie, a paper cup of coffee in each hand. She looked at Dax, then at me, then at the TV, then at Dax again.

"Girlfriend," she screamed.

"Priya—"

"Mine," she looked at us in surprise. "He said mine, Quinn. On camera. In front of Callie Frost. I haven't slept, I rewatched it forty times. My mother called me, and she doesn't even follow football."

"It's fake." I felt like screaming.

"Is it?"

"Yes."

Priya held out a coffee. I took it. She studied my face for a long, uncomfortable moment, and then she took a sip of her own.

"Then you need to learn to lie better," she said, "because your face is doing something."

"My face is not doing anything."

"It's doing a lot," Dax said cheerfully, and I seriously considered throwing the coffee at him instead.

Priya dropped into a kitchen chair and pulled a notebook out of her hoodie pocket. An actual notebook, with a spiral binding and tabs.

"Okay. Here's the thing. Every person on this campus is going to ask you the same question, and you need to have the same answer. How did it start?" She clicked her pen. "Because if you're a couple, you have a story. Couples always have a story. And if your stories don't match, Callie Frost will take you apart in about forty minutes."

I opened my mouth.

"I've got one," Dax said.

I turned slowly. "You've got one."

"Mm-hmm."

"You've had, what, a night to think about this?" I arched my brows.

"More like a few years." He slid the eggs onto a plate, set it in front of me, and sat down across the table with his arms folded. "It started in September. After a late film session at Coach's office. You were exhausted, you fell asleep on the couch in the film room, and I covered you with my jacket."

The kitchen went quiet.

"That's not what happened," I said.

"Isn't it?"

"I fell asleep for, like, five minutes."

"Nine. I checked."

"Why would you check?"

Dax shrugged, but something moved behind his eyes, there and gone. "Because you were drooling on my jacket."

Priya made a delighted noise and wrote DROOLING in her notebook with a star next to it.

"I did not drool." I felt embarrassed.

"A little."

"Dax." I yelled his name.

"I'm just saying, it adds authenticity." He leaned back in his chair. "People want details, Mercer. If we say we just woke up one morning and decided to date, nobody's going to believe it. But a girl who falls asleep after a long night of film, and a guy who can't stop looking at her?" He gave me a look that was a little too steady. "That's a story."

I stared at him. The way he said it, so easy, so smooth, almost like a thing he had said before. Almost like he had been thinking about it.

I looked away first. "Fine," I said. "It started in September. After the film. But I'm the one who said something first."

"Absolutely not."

"I'm the starting quarterback. I make the calls."

He laughed lightly. "You made a call, all right. You asked me if I wanted to split a pizza." 

"I did not say that!"

"You said it with your whole face."

Priya was laughing so hard she had to put her pen down. "Okay, okay. First kiss. When was it?"

"We're not doing a first kiss," I said.

"You have to. Everyone's going to ask."

"We'll say after the Alabama game."

"In the tunnel," Dax added.

"In the parking lot." I argued.

"In the tunnel. It's more dramatic."

"It's less private!"

"We're a couple, Tadpole. We're not supposed to be private."

Priya wrote it all down, grinning like a woman who had been handed the best gift of her life. "Okay. Last thing. You'll both be at the dining hall at noon. The entire team will be there, and about half the athletic department. Walk in together. Hold hands. Smile like you mean it."

"Do I have to hold hands?"

"You do," Dax said, and held out his hand across the table. 

I looked at his hand. Then at him. "The cameras aren't on," I said.

"No," he said, "but practice makes perfect."

I did not take it. But I thought about it for a second longer than I should have.

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The dining hall at noon was a war zone.

One hundred and fifty athletes, a few dozen staff, and what felt like every phone on campus pointed at the door. I could feel them before we even walked in, a low hum in the air like a stadium before kickoff.

"Breathe," Dax murmured beside me.

"I am breathing."

"You're doing the thing with your jaw."

"I don't have a thing with my jaw." I clenched my fingers.

"You've had it since you were twelve." His fingers slid between mine, warm and steady. "Smile."

I was startled at first, but then I had to quickly regain my composure.

We walked in.

The room erupted. Someone whistled. A table of linemen started pounding their fists on the wood. Marcus Deal stood up on a chair, which was a mistake, because he was six foot five and the ceiling was low, and he bumped his head on a light fixture and didn't even seem to notice.

"THERE THEY ARE!" he bellowed. "RIDGEMONT'S FIRST COUPLE!"

"Oh my God," I whispered.

"Keep smiling," Dax said through his teeth.

What have I gotten myself into.