The Wrong Play: A Football Romance (The Wrong Player Series Book 2)
The Wrong Play: Chapter 21

I leaned back in my chair, staring at my laptop screen, frustration burning a hole in my patience. The party had somehow failed to get Riley kicked out of her dorm. I blamed her hotness. And her sweetness. And her overall perfection. Campus security would have had no choice but to let my baby angel face off.

I should have thought of that.

Planted a body in there or something. I bet they would have had to kick her out then. Except I was trying to get her kicked out of the dorms…not the school…so maybe murder was a bit too extreme.

And then I’d thought after I’d taken care of her that she would just want to move in at that point, unable to part with the love of her life.

But nope. Riley was nothing if not stubborn.

So, I was on to my next plan.

“I thought the World Wide Web was supposed to be helpful,” I muttered, scrolling through another article titled “How to Get Evicted From Student Housing Without Actually Committing a Crime.” It was shockingly unhelpful. And possibly fake, because these ideas were really bad.

“Why do you always call it ‘World Wide Web’? Why don’t you just call it the internet?” Matty mused.

He was across the room, lying on our couch, eyes glued to his phone, idly scrolling through whatever nonsense occupied his tiny attention span.

“Because that’s not its name. What do you think ‘WWW’ even stands for, Matthew?” I drawled, clicking out of yet another worthless article. He let out a half-hearted grunt, which evidently was about as much effort as he was willing to put into this conversation.

I sighed, rubbing my temples because it turns out thinking was hard.

I was too pretty for this.

“What’s your worst nightmare as far as sleeping arrangements go?” I mused, willing my big brain to wake up.

Mine was clowns. Waking up with one of the freaky devils leering over me with those red balloons. Not sure they all came with balloons, but they probably did. That would be sure to get Riley out of her room.

And possibly into a mental institution.

An image of Emma’s poster came to mind then. Riley had to look at that every day. Apparently, clowns weren’t actually an issue for her.

I shivered thinking of the poster…and Emma.

I would still only go there as a very last resort. Just in case. There were some things you just couldn’t come back from.

Matty didn’t even look up. “A cult moves in next door and tries to recruit me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Be serious.”

“I am being serious.”

“Okay, give me a different one.”

“Darla’s mouth.” He shivered and then finally glanced at me. “Why?”

I shrugged, feigning casual interest. “Just curious.”

Matty squinted at me. “Why are you saying it like that? It’s definitely for a reason.” He sighed. “Am I going to have to track you again? Because I really don’t think I can do it.” His gaze took on a wide, haunted look. “I can’t go through that again.”

I snorted. I still wasn’t convinced of his whole cowboy hat story.

That shouldn’t make you haunted. That should make you…learn technology better.

“You’ll only need to track me if it’s a worst-case scenario, Matty,” I told him reassuringly. He shivered like he was imagining it right now.

The front door opened, and Mr. QB himself, Parkie-Poo von Davis, walked through the door. Alone. Which was surprising. Casey was usually attached at the hip with him outside of football hours.

“Just the man I was looking for, since Matty over here has the imagination of a geriatric squirrel.”

Parker raised an eyebrow, a smirk on his face as he glanced between the two of us. Matty was muttering to himself, but that wasn’t anything new, so I ignored him as I continued in my quest.

“What’s your worst nightmare as far as sleeping arrangements go, Davis?” I drawled, clicking on another link that was titled “Kidnapping and Why It’s Effective.”

He stretched, cracking his neck as he thought about it. “I dunno. Rats? No, wait—roaches. No, wait—bed bugs.” He shuddered. “Yeah. Definitely bed bugs. Once you got ’em, you gotta burn your whole damn life down and start over. Walker once had bedbugs in a hotel during an away game, and he had to get rid of everything he had with him.” He shivered again.

Something clicked in my brain.

I straightened in my chair and typed buy bed bugs into the search bar. The second the results loaded, I grinned and let out a victorious whoop.

Parker cocked his head. “Why do I feel like I just helped you with something crazy?”

I winked at him. “It’s only crazy if it doesn’t work. Everyone knows that.”

Matty shook his head. “Literally no one says that. How have I become the reasonable person in this group? Do you know what that says about us?”

“Good things, Matty, my man. Only good things. You’ll definitely need that level head once you fall for that stalker of yours,” I said, clicking on a sketchy-looking pest control supplier.

Matty scoffed, but I ignored him again, because my plan was finally back on track.

I looked up at Parker. “Davis, I could kiss you. This is definitely going to work.”

Matty sat up, alarm creeping into his face. “Oh no.”

I turned the screen toward him. “Oh yes, you mean. You can buy dead bed bugs in bulk. Bulk, Matty. This is my destiny.”

Matty recoiled like I’d just suggested we start eating raw sewer rats. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Where do I even start?” I clicked Add to Cart. “We sprinkle some of these in her bed, tip off the RA, and boom—housing crisis. She’ll have to leave.”

“Okay, first of all, this is deranged. Second, do you hear yourself? You are willingly ordering dead bugs off the internet.”

“Sounds like true love, if you ask me,” Parker said, sounding completely serious. A man above men right there, obviously.

“Your cock hasn’t experienced true love, Matthew. It’s still tainted by Darla. One day you will understand.”

Matty groaned and flopped back onto the couch. “For the hundredth time, Darla’s mouth did not touch my cock. And also, you better pray I never do fall in love. Because if I become like you—something that will never happen, mind you—we’ll be lost and probably all end up in prison.”

I ignored him, clicking through the checkout process. “Standard shipping or overnight?”

Matty covered his face with both hands. “Oh my God.”

“Overnight it is.”

I hit confirm, then sat back, feeling deeply, profoundly satisfied.

Matty peeked at me from between his fingers. “You do realize that when Riley replaces out, she’s going to actually murder you, right?”

Parker leaned on the table next to me, grinning as he looked at the screen. “You mean if she replaces out.”

I also grinned. “If is my new favorite word.”

Matty let out a long sigh, staring at the ceiling. “I’m totally going to have to use the tracker again.”

RILEY

I dragged myself into the room, every muscle in my body aching. I was still recovering from my episode, and even though I was a lot better—thanks to Jace—I wasn’t back to normal. Or at least my normal…which was still much more exhausted than most people.

Now that I’d opened up to Jace…now that I told him that I loved him…a strange terror had taken over my insides. Like any moment he might replace out about Callum and change his mind. I’d been tempted to tell him about it while we lay on his bed yesterday, tempted to test how far that “always” extended…but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Jace…was becoming a necessity, a tether to what felt like my own personal miracle when the rest of my world felt like it was slipping through my fingers. He was the sun cutting through my storm clouds, a god I wanted to worship even as I feared what it meant to need him.

I just needed sleep, I decided. I needed to let the darkness pull me under for a few hours, and when I woke up…my head would be on straight, and I wouldn’t be so weirdly terrified.

Emma was staring at a textbook and not me at the moment, so I might as well take advantage of it.

I yanked my covers down, desperate to disappear beneath them—until I saw it.

Something small and dark. And scuttling.

I shrieked, scrambling backward so fast I nearly fell off the bed. My pulse was pounding in my ears as I watched the tiny shape disappearing into the folds of my sheets.

“No, no, no,” I muttered, pressing a hand to my chest, forcing myself to breathe. “Woman up, Riley. It’s probably just lint. Lint with legs. Lint that moves.”

I glanced over to see Emma…watching me.

Because, of course, she was. Now I’d gotten her freaking attention.

“I thought I saw something in my bed,” I offered lamely, even though I didn’t owe her an explanation. Not since she’d solidified herself as the world’s worst roommate a hundred times over after that party.

When she didn’t say anything, I turned back to the bed, tempted to just sleep on the floor rather than deal with this.

I leaned forward and peeled the covers back again. My stomach twisted.

Definitely not lint. It was small, oval-shaped, and a sickening reddish-brown. Okay, but it wasn’t moving.

Any relief went away when I pulled the cover back and saw a whole bunch of the same spindly-legged creatures.

I was going to be sick.

“Ahh,” I screamed. Across the room, Emma was moving off her bed. “What—” she murmured, before stiffening. Her eyes flew open. “What is that?!” she shrieked, flinging herself upright, her hands slapping wildly at her arms and legs like she was being electrocuted.

“Oh my gosh. They’re on your bed too?” I gasped, standing on my tiptoes like that would protect me from the infestation currently happening.

“THEY’RE ON ME! THEY’RE ON ME!” she wailed, still swatting at herself.

And then, in a truly spectacular display of blind panic…she turned too fast, lost her balance, and smacked straight into the wall with a thud.

Silence.

“Emma?” I whispered.

She slid down the wall, eyes fluttering shut as she crumpled into a heap on the floor.

Okay, sometimes it felt like I actually lived in an alternate reality since coming to this school…and this was one of those moments.

I gawked at her unconscious body, my heart still racing.

Shoving my hair out of my face, I forced myself to move, peeling back more of my sheets. My stomach churned as more of the tiny brown shapes scattered.

Nope. Nope, nope, nope.

My whole body recoiled as the realization sank in. Bed bugs.

As if summoned by my misery, the RA burst into the room, breathless. “What’s going on? I heard screaming—” Her gaze dropped to Emma, still unconscious, then to my bed, then back to me.

“Emma?” she yelled, dropping to her knees next to Emma’s body.

“There’s bugs,” I squeaked, pointing to my bed.

On cue, Emma groaned from her place on the floor. Her eyelids fluttered, and for a second, she just lay there, blinking sluggishly at the ceiling. Then, realization dawned in her expression. Her head snapped up, her gaze darting wildly around the room until it landed on me, then the bed.

“Are they gone?” she asked, her voice small and hoarse.

I hesitated. “Uh⁠—”

She let out a blood-curdling scream. “THEY’RE STILL HERE! FUCK! THEY’RE IN MY HAIR!”

Emma shot upright, flailing like a possessed marionette, slapping at her arms and shaking out her hair so violently that I instinctively took a step back.

“Emma, breathe⁠—”

“I CAN FEEL THEM CRAWLING! THEY’RE EVERYWHERE!” she screeched even louder, spinning in panicked circles before she ran straight into the dresser. The impact sent her sprawling back onto the floor with a groan.

The RA exhaled sharply, rubbing her temples. “Fucking hell. I don’t get paid enough for this.”

Emma groaned from her place on the floor. “Where are we supposed to go?”

The RA pinched the bridge of her nose, looking genuinely stumped. “That…is a great question. You can’t sleep here, but I don’t exactly have a backup plan for a full-on bed bug infestation. Umm…” She glanced around like someone was going to pop out from the closet or something and give her an answer.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out with shaky fingers, my brain still trying to process the nightmare unfolding around me.

I stared at the screen, my heart stuttering. My chest felt tight, like the weight of the entire evening had suddenly doubled. Before I could overthink it, I typed back.

The three little dots appeared almost instantly.

I blinked at the screen, still dazed. I wasn’t sure what response I expected, but it definitely wasn’t that.

Barely ten minutes later, the sound of heavy footsteps pounded down the hall. The door flew open, and there he was—Jace, dressed in sweatpants and a Tigers hoodie, his eyes immediately scanning the room before locking onto my sheets. He took one step closer, leaned over the bed, and squinted.

Then he gagged. Loudly.

“Nope. Absolutely not,” he announced before marching straight toward me. Before I could protest, he scooped me up effortlessly and slung me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing.

“Jace! Put me down!” I yelped, pounding at his back.

He ignored me completely, adjusting his grip like I was a damn duffel bag. “Buckle up, buttercup. You’re staying with me.”