Book #4 in the Medley Series
ARCHER SALISBURY:
We're in the last sprint before the Olympics, and my spot on the Medley team is hanging by a thread.
I don't have time for distractions... or competition.
But I get both in the form of an aggravating...
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The car door opens, and a person steps out. She shields her eyes from the sun with a hand and sends me a blinding smile when our eyes meet. "Troy!"
If I ever shared similarities with a young Zac Efron, those days should be long gone, but the nickname sticks. It's only mildly infuriating.
"Hey, Soph, thanks for coming."
Sophie leans against the hood of her SUV, crossing her arms over her chest. "Sure. Are you gonna tell me why you dragged me here on a Saturday of all days?"
When I called earlier, Sophie had been with Ollie at the skate park, but she immediately jumped into action, as I knew she would. She told me it would take her an hour to be ready, which fitted perfectly with the half-formed plan in my head.
It took me twenty minutes to bandage Leroy's feet, which took the brunt of his disastrous trek across campus. After convincing him to text Coach Matthews from my phone and call in sick from dryland later, I finally got him to lie down. He was out like a light by the time I left the room ten minutes ago.
My chest hurts in a way I can't quite explain when I think about him asleep in my bed, curled up in a ball like he wanted to disappear, but it's overshadowed by the sheer fury coursing through my veins.
"Did you get the stuff?" I ask Sophie.
"Mhm."
"And the thing? From Sennels?" The pièce de résistance for our little adventure and half of the reason why I involved Sophie in the first place.
The other half concerns her habit of flirting with the line between illegal and inadvisable.
"I did," she says, not making any move to fetch it.
"Cool." I shift on my feet. "Um, well?"
Sophie pins me with a look that makes me feel ten inches shorter. "I'm not giving you shit before you tell me what the fuck is going on."
I take a deep breath. "It's Leroy. Someone messed with him."
Her eyes flash, and Sophie stands up straighter. "Oh."
"Do you remember Nick? My ex?"
"Apathetic hockey dude, who absolutely didn't deserve you?"
Warmth spreads through my belly as I hide my smile. "That's the one."
"He went after Leroy?" Her tone is ice cold. That doesn't surprise me. Sophie is famously picky about who she allows into her life, but once you are in, there's nothing she wouldn't do for you.
I remember how she'd all but snarled at Nick during the U-M banquet my freshman year when I still thought he'd hung the moon.
"Yes. He and his palls pulled a 'prank,' but it went way too far." It shouldn't surprise me if Leroy got pneumonia for walking barefoot in wet swim trunks. I fist my hands.
