The next morning, after a breakfast of leftover celebratory pizza (which was second in deliciousness only to Pepito's carne asada tacos) and green tea (to provide the illusion of health), I popped in my headphones and made my way onto campus ten minutes before passing period, to avoid the crowds.

It was an ungodly hot Tuesday.

I'd worn shorts and a floral-print top as thin as tissue paper, but by the time I marched up the concrete steps of the biological sciences building on the far side of campus, there was sweat everywhere—under my arms, between my boobs, in the small of my back.

Just, everywhere.

So stepping into some air conditioning was a massive relief.

I hiked the straps of my backpack up on my shoulders and headed for the elevator, which I had all to myself today. But, of course, my thoughts went to Bodie St. James—like he was there with me, broad shoulders and six and a half foot frame filling the tiny space.

I had no idea how many people at Garland actually bothered reading the Daily, but it seemed obvious that word would get to Bodie pretty quick that someone at the Daily had used his interview to offer compelling evidence against Truman Vaughn. The thought of him having even the slightest bit of resentment towards me made my stomach churn, but I was able to comfort myself with the knowledge that he probably had only the vaguest, most fleeting memory of what I looked like.

Brunette, on the tall side, desperately uncomfortable making eye contact.

And besides. Whatever betrayal he felt when he saw his own quotes in the article would likely be overshadowed almost immediately when he learned his head coach had been doing drugs and assaulting young girls.

I knew Bodie would be heartbroken.

I'd be heartbroken, too, if a man I looked up to had been hiding such a depraved side of himself.

But I had faith that, once Bodie read the article in its entirety, he'd understand why I'd interviewed him. He'd appreciate the investigation, and he'd forgive the faceless girl who'd asked him about Vaughn's obsession with The Godfather.

I was sure of it.

Down in the basement, the lecture hall was mostly empty, since there were only a handful of people who'd beaten me to class. They were scattered around the auditorium, heads bent down over their phones and laptops as if in prayer. I sauntered down the aisle to the pair of seats three rows from the back where Andre and I had been sitting since the first day of class, dropped my backpack to the floor, and plopped down into a chair.

Eight minutes until class.

I tapped open Candy Crush, my go-to time killer, and took my time working through one level, then another, while students trickled in and the lecture hall filled. I was halfway through a third level—and had just tucked my knees to the side so a pair of guys could slip past me and take the last pair of empty seats further down in my row—when my phone buzzed with a text.

It was from my dad.

I think they were talking about your article on the radio this morning!

My eyebrows pinched together. I read the text again. Then a third time, because it felt like there had to be some mistake.

My dad lived two hours from Garland. He was still in Southern California, technically, but far enough north of Los Angeles (into the suburbs and rural stretches of the Central Valley) that he usually listened to the local radio stations that were nothing but static on this side of the Grapevine. They couldn't be talking about our article. Could they?

I started to type out a response.

Are you sure?

My thumb was hovering over the send button when a backpack hit the floor beside my feet, startling me so bad I jumped an inch in my seat.

I looked up just as Andre sat down next to me.

He was in a pair of baby blue shorts that hit just above his knees and a short-sleeved button-down shirt with little pineapples embroidered on it, and his face was freshly shaven. Like he'd had time to kill that morning and had spent every minute of it on looking nice.

"Yo," he greeted.

"Look at you!" I teased. "Did you just come from a photoshoot, or—"

"Thank you," he interrupted, "but how fresh I look today ain't important right now. I got an email from Coach Gordon this morning saying practice was cancelled. And some guys in the team group chat were talking about your article."

The tinge of panic in Andre's voice made my blood pressure soar.

"Well, what are they saying?" I asked.

"Um," Andre drawled, averting his eyes. "Hey, you thirsty? I didn't drink my Gatorade this morning—I usually kill it during practice no problem, but—"

He reached for his backpack.

I leveled him with an unamused stare.

"Andre."

He winced, then reached a long arm up to scratch the back of his neck.

"They're saying it's not true," he said very quietly.

I reared back in stunned disbelief.

A shaky snort of laughter tore from my chest. It was the kind of laugh you force out when something awful is happening and you hope it's a bad joke.

"Wh—how do they know?" I asked. "Do—did they say they had proof? Or one of our sources was wrong, or—"

Andre reached across the armrest between us and grabbed my hand to cut me off.

"It's not like that," he insisted. "I'll show you the texts. It's just Fogarty and some of the other guys hyping each other up. I shoulda said something this morning before it got bad, but they just added me to this group chat last week, after that Baseball House party, and—"

And Andre didn't want to be excommunicated. Not when he'd just managed to wedge his foot in the door with the starters.

I gave his hand a tight squeeze.

"It's not your job to stand up to them," I told him.

Andre sighed, seeming frustrated and embarrassed in equal measures.

"But I should anyway," he grumbled. "You're my friend, and that's your article. And I know it's true. But Fogarty and these guys—they're talking like someone's trying to sabotage their season, or some paranoid shit like that. They're convincing themselves the Daily—like, you and Ellison and everyone else in that big-ass list of names at the end of the article—just made it all up."

The sudden burst of anger I felt was hot and acidic in my throat, like bile.

"They think we just made it up?" I repeated, incredulous.

Andre's eyes blew wide. He pressed a finger to his lips, then tipped his head pointedly at the other side of the room.

I turned and followed his gaze.

Kyle Fogarty, Scott Quinton (the offensive tackle with the thick neck and cherubic face) and a few other first string players were settling into a cluster of seats on the far end of the center column of seats, two rows down from us. They weren't looking our way, thankfully, which meant they hadn't noticed my outburst. But they looked on-edge. Restless. Upset.

Fogarty's face was pinched into a gnarled scowl. His faux-hawk glinted neon green in the auditorium lights as he drop into his seat with an audible huff, then turn to the others to say something in a low, furious whisper I couldn't make out.

I sunk lower in my seat, feeling suddenly cold and jittery under the blast of the AC.

They think you made it all up.

I scoffed in outrage.

"Why would we make it up?" I whisper-hissed to Andre. "We're the fucking school paper! Why would we try to sabotage our own football team?"

Andre shrugged, then ghosted his fingers over the racing stripes buzzed into the side of his face.

"I don't know," he said. "But Vaughn might get suspended or something. I mean, I personally think he should be straight up fired. But the guys are probably just scared it's gonna ruin the season."

I ground my teeth together.

One of the two pairs of doors at the top of the lecture hall popped open and our professor, Nick, appeared. He was wearing his usual t-shirt and blazer combo, despite the sweltering heat outside, and he had his leather laptop bag slung over one shoulder.

He stopped two steps into the room, an arm stretched back to hold open the door for someone behind him.

"You can just bring it down to the front," he said over his shoulder.

My stomach dropped when Bodie St. James slipped through the door.

He was carrying an old-school projector—a big, heavy hunk of plastic with a light box on the base and a stand mirror to cast the image onto a wall. The thick, corded muscles in his arms were straining under the short sleeves of a white Garland University t-shirt, but there was an easy smile on his face, like helping our lanky hipster of a professor was genuinely making his day.

His dark hair was mussed, like he'd slept in that morning and hadn't bothered brushing it. He usually wore it pushed back from his face, but today, a lone chunk of it curled down onto his forehead.

He looked well-rested. Happy. Blissfully ignorant.

"Yeah, just right there's perfect," Nick said as he set the projector down next to the podium up on stage. "Thanks so much, Bodie."

"No problem," Bodie said, heartfelt.

I would've rolled my eyes at the chumminess of it all if I weren't so busy trembling in ice-cold panic.

I watched Bodie's face very carefully as he turned to start up the aisle towards Fogarty and the others, thumbs tucked into the straps of his backpack like a third grader on his way to school. I watched his smile dissolve, ever so slowly, into a confused frown as he took in the sight of his teammates, with their grim expressions and tensed shoulders.

"Bodie doesn't know yet," I murmured.

Andre nodded at this hypothesis.

"I don't think he read the group chat."

We both watched Bodie shrug off his backpack and lower it slowly in front of the empty seat on the aisle, like he wasn't quite sure if his teammates were going to let him sit there.

"What's up?" Bodie asked, his eyes on Fogarty. "Practice was cancelled this morning, right? I didn't screw up or—"

Fogarty whipped out his phone, tapped the screen harder than totally necessary a few times, and handed it to Bodie wordlessly.

And so I got to witness the exact moment Bodie St. James had the world as he knew it pulled out from under his feet.

The headline Ellison had settled on was Truman Vaughn spotted breaking pledge of sobriety in Cabo San Lucas.

It went downhill from there.

On stage at the front of the lecture hall, Nick clicked open his PowerPoint for lecture and then look up and surveyed the room. His eyes landed on Bodie, who was still standing in front of the seat on the aisle, eyebrows pinched and mouth half-open as he stared down at Fogarty's phone in stunned silence.

"Alright," Nick teased pointedly. "Why don't we all take a seat and we can start."

There was a little titter of snorts and giggles throughout the lecture hall.

Bodie blinked at Nick for a moment—like he couldn't seem to remember where he was and didn't understand why people were laughing—before he glanced down at Kyle Fogarty, who tipped his chin towards the empty seat. Bodie braced one hand on the back of the chair, like his knees might give out beneath his weight, and sunk down into it obediently.

He stared forward for a moment, eyebrows pinched.

Then he looked back down at Fogarty's phone.

And I knew then that Bodie St. James hadn't known the truth about Truman Vaughn's trip to Mexico. It was a gut feeling—just an instinct—but I liked to think I had a good track record with those.

"Alright," Nick said, clapping his hands together and shooting us all a smile that was perhaps a little too cheery given the subject matter we were about to tackle. "Today we're starting unit three, STIs and STDs."

I wasn't paying attention.

I was watching Fogarty put a hand on Bodie's shoulder and lean in close to whisper in that quick, furious tone again. I had the sudden urge to chuck my mechanical pencil across the room, like hitting Fogarty in the back of his dumb green faux-hawk with a tiny stick of plastic and graphite might keep him from spewing poison into Bodie's ear.

Bodie nodded along half-heartedly as he kept reading.

And then, suddenly, his head reared back like he'd been slapped, and I knew he'd gotten to the part about Josefina Rodriguez.

I winced and realized that my hand had drifted to my mouth and I'd been picking at my lips. When I licked them, I tasted iron. I bent over and fumbled with the outside pocket of my backpack, searching for lip balm, but found none.

When I sat upright again, Bodie wasn't looking at Fogarty's phone anymore. His head was up, moving side to side, like he was searching the room.

Like he was looking for someone.

I watched, with a growing pit in my stomach, as he scanned each row of the lecture hall. There was a girl my shade of brunette three rows down. Bodie paused, craned his neck a little, then continued his search when the girl turned her head and he saw her profile.

Mierda.

I propped one elbow on my stupid little swivel desk and braced my hand over my eyes, shielding my face as discreetly as I could. But this felt pretty conspicuous, so instead I clasped my hands together in my lap and tried my best to pretend I was watching Nick read off a PowerPoint slide about genital herpes.

I risked another glance at Bodie, who was twisted around in his seat.

His eyes landed on me. They stopped.

I looked away, because I was a coward, but I wasn't quite quick enough. Our eyes locked and held for a split second—just long enough that I caught the flicker of recognition that settled over his face.

I caught the shock, too. The disbelief. The hurt.

Bodie St. James remembered me. Under other circumstances, this might've been a cause for celebration. Popping open pinot noir with Hanna, blasting the Jonas Brothers, dancing around our kitchen celebration.

Instead, I swallowed back the lump in my throat and realized that, for perhaps the first time in my life, my invisibility had failed me.

❖   ❖   ❖

Author's Note: This chapter was the most fun I've had writing something in years. YEARS. It took over 20k words of buildup to get to this turning point, but now the "enemies" portion of the enemies-to-lovers trope I love can begin.

I also want to shout out Anshika, who made the most gorgeous character aesthetics I have ever seen in my life for Laurel and Bodie. You can find them in her aesthetics book here on Wattpad! She's 100littledevils !

Your friendly author,

Kate