His eyes widened a fraction. "Oh yeah…"

Oh goodness. Here we go again.

"Um…okay, this is really weird to say, but…uh… My mom wanted me to invite you to our house tomorrow night."

"Why?"

"For dinner." He looked down now and almost jumped back a foot. He frowned, twisted at his shirt's collar, and looked away. "This is so uncomfortable."

"And perplexing." I grabbed his shirt and hauled his face down so he was eye level with me. "Why does your mom want me over for dinner?"

"Because of Coach."

"Explain."

"Oh, uh, they're dating." He reared back. "You didn't know?"

My heart shrunk. "I had hoped to forget it. Thanks for reminding me."

His mouth twitched up now. "Hey, no problem. Okay, so she wants you to come over around six. Can you bring a bottle of wine?"

"I'm underage."

He shrugged. "Get one from your mom; tell her it's for the dinner."

"And is it?"

He grinned again. "Nah, man. We can drink it later. I figure you can come to dinner and then we can take off for the party afterwards. It'd look cool to show up with a bottle of wine, you know. It's like we're mature and grown up."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"The Kade party." He frowned at me. "You didn't know?"

I glared at him. "Well I do now, don't I?"

"Yeah, it's going to be awesome. They're throwing it in some huge suite at a hotel. My dad's stayed there a few times. It's supposed to be out of this world."

So they had time to spread the word about a party, but not invite me? I folded my arms over my chest and leaned back against my locker when Mark bounced away. He slapped hands with another guy as he did so and they started laughing. I watched his lips and knew he was talking about the Kade party, the one I hadn't been informed about. Then again, I shouldn't have been surprised. Mason and Logan disappeared after Tuesday. They were with their mother the whole week. James went to their hotel one night, but Analise and I hadn't been asked to go along.

I never heard from them the rest of the week. A part of me tried to be reasonable. They were busy. They had lots of practices and I knew both were intent on demolishing Roussou, tonight's game.

It made sense why I had slipped their minds.

I groaned and let my head fall back with a thump against my locker. It made no sense. They should've called me, or texted.

"Hey." A soft voice spoke and I opened my eyes. Adam stood in front of me with a grim look on his face.

"Hey."

He looked around. "Do you think we could talk somewhere?"

I gestured for him to lead. I had no idea where to go.

He gave me a small grin before he started off and looked back every now and then to make sure I was following behind. As we passed the bathroom, Lydia and Becky popped back out. Their eyes went wide again and there was a repeat performance from before. They scurried back in with hands over their mouths and heads together.

I rolled my eyes and saw a mirrored reaction on Adam's face.

When he pushed open a door, I saw we were in some room with televisions, keyboards, and computer screens loitering around. Cords were everywhere. "What is this?"

"It's where the media geeks hang out."

"Won't they need this room?"

"I don't care. They won't come in until we're done."

And with those words, an awkward silence fell over us. I looked at him, he looked at me. Neither of us spoke. So I slumped down on some couch. When did the media geeks get a couch for their room? Then I stopped caring as Adam cleared his throat and fiddled with his thumbs.

"Just say what you need to say, Adam. We can leave as soon as you're done."

He expelled a deep breath. "That's the thing; it's harder to do this than I thought it would be."

"To do what?"

His eyes found mine and pierced me. "To apologize. I've been trying to do it all week, since Tuesday, but I couldn't muster the courage."

"You need courage to be nice to me?"

He laughed. "I need courage to humiliate myself for you again."

I frowned. Humiliate?

He ran a hand through his hair and rubbed at his jaw. "Look, I'm real sorry about everything that's happened. I've been a huge ass and I know that doesn't even cover how I've been towards you."

I looked away. Did I want to hear this? Then I sighed. It didn't matter. Here it went…

He continued, "You know that I liked you, I still do if I'm being honest. When I found out that you were tight with the Kade brothers, I went crazy. I was jealous and I was a prick and you have every right to never talk to me again. I was acting like a spoiled douchebag who didn't get his prize."

I looked down. "I think that's putting it mildly."

He chuckled. "Yeah, probably. Look, Mason had every right to knock me out. I said something horrible about you to him."

My head jerked up. "What'd you say?"

He choked on his next words. "What? He didn't tell you?"

"No, he didn't so you tell me. What'd you say?"

He grimaced. "I'd rather not."

"Adam."

"You're going to hate me even more now. I thought you knew."

I couldn't ignore how he kept looking at the door. "Adam. Speak now."

He groaned and messed up his hair. "Oh—fine. I might've mentioned something about if he was dropping off his whore…or something like that. I'm not sure what word exactly I used, but it wasn't a nice one."

I swallowed a lump of coal down my throat. "And what'd he say in return?"

"Besides the punch? He might've said something like I looked pathetic, I'm not sure. That whole day was jumbled up to me. I was stupid that day, real stupid. I deserved what happened to me."

"You deserve to get hit again, if you ask me."

He grimaced. "I know and I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. My dad asked me what I said to piss off Mason Kade. When I told him, he said the same thing. He said I was being stupid and then my mom told me I was acting like a spoiled brat."

"Why were you? I never told you I was going to date you."