[THE WAYARKE SERIES, BOOK #1]
"Take it easy."
"It's never easy with you."
"Good."
୨୧
Ever since Austin Chanler was young, the NBA has been his dream. The one thing he's wanted for himself. Now a 19 year old sophomore, eligible for an academy one ste...
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AUSTIN
"You've got a problem, Boss," Hayden's voice echoes through the locker room, which at this hour, sounds creepy as hell.
"Christ," I strangle out, throwing the towel that I was using to dry up my freshly-showered hair in the direction of the voice just seconds before I recognized it as Hayden's. The white towel falls onto the floor a few feet away from Hayden's feet as he comes into view. "Don't sneak up on me like that. Are you crazy? I could've killed you." I look up to find my best friend standing in the alleyway, in between two sets of lockers.
"With a towel?" Unfolding his arms, Hayden walks over to where the towel had fallen, picking it up and striking it at me, my head snapping to the side in instinct. Yanking the towel out of his hands, I pin him with a glare. He ignores it and continues by asking, "What are you doing here so late?" Truthfully, I had practically locked myself into the gym, buying through time to hold off on going home and facing my dad.
"I could ask you the same," I say, rising from my seat on the stone-made bench in order to throw the white towel into the dump bin. "How did you know I was here?"
"That one girl who watched our stand." Shaking his wrist to look down at the time, he frowns. "I mean, who in their right mind stays here to work out this late?" He continues, the worrisome part of Hayden slithering to the light.
"Me," I reply plainly before registering the full length of his words. "Evelyn?" I ask cautiously. "Evelyn told you where I am?" What the hell would she know about where I am?
"I have a class with her. She sits rows down but I can still hear her. She talks about you a lot," he emphasizes. He watches me for a moment before his brows pinch together. "You're fucking her, aren't you?" He accuses me.
"No," I grit out. "I wouldn't touch her with a ten-foot pole." Hayden's brows shoot up at my confession but I shut it down before it starts. "That's besides the point. How did she know where I was?"
"She didn't. She sort of hinted at it." He shrugs his shoulders, sitting down on one of the stone-benches diagonal from me. "She was just gossiping to her friends about how you work out a lot after school. Since Boston were her choice of words," he muses, quirking a curious eyebrow at me. I hadn't told Hayden about the Evelyn-business because there wasn't much to tell. The girl was obsessed with me and it made me uncomfortable.
"And?" I urge him to continue.
"You really want all the details? It's pretty vivid." His lip curls into a half-smirk, and I already know enough. It's disgusting what people say behind your back. The idea alone of her touching me makes my skin crawl, but what's even worse is the thought that she's out there telling her friends that we're in some kind of relationship.
"I was just gonna go home but thought I'd stop by in case she was right and when I saw the gymnasium lights on..." he laughs, playing with the hair at his nape. "I know all of the players on the team. There was no way anyone was staying back to work out the night before our break. Except for you!" He stands up, pulling a pair of keys out of the pocket of his jeans, spinning them on his finger. "The busses don't run this late. I'll drop you off," he offers.
