By the time I get back to the hotel room, it's nearly eleven, which according to Coach, means lights out.

After his usual if I come by your room and find out you're not there tonight, I'm going to run you so hard in the morning you're going to wish you were dead speech, he watched us all unload from the bus and file into our rooms, two per person, before finally retiring into his own down the hall.

Win or lose, Coach has a zero-drinking policy for away games. Although, in the entire time I've known him, he's never stayed awake long enough to enforce it.

"You sure you don't want to come with us?" James asks as he pulls off his shirt and smooths out the short sleeve button-up he's now dousing in cologne.

Since he wasn't there for the paintball game last night, he's the only one on the team without at least one huge bruise coloring his skin a deep purple or blue. Our targets were on our chest and back, so most of us managed to hide our battle scars from Coach, who would have been so pissed off, he would have sent us out onto the UCLA track to run before the game.

Aaron Penn, one of our freshmen, was the poor unfortunate soul that Abby shot in the arm four times. He managed to hide his four huge bruises with a compression sleeve, but I could tell by how he was moving in warm-ups that he was hurting. Luckily, he's a second-string who barely gets off the bench, so it didn't impact the game.

"Yeah, I'm going to stay in and study." I peel off my hoodie and toss it on my bed. The weather in LA is a lot warmer than Pullman, and paired with the post-game adrenaline still coursing through my veins, I feel like I'm about to overheat. James doesn't call me out on the lie as he laces up his shoes, but I can tell by the twitch of his cheek that he knows exactly what I'm doing. "Text me if you need help, though. Don't let Micah or Luke get too fucked up; Coach will kill them if they puke on the plane," I say, squeezing the back of my neck to release some of the tension built up from the game as he crosses the room and picks up his wallet, phone, and room key from the dresser near the door.

He nods absently as he types out a text. When he finally stops texting, he looks up. "Luke wants to know how big the after-party can be on Friday."

"I don't care."

"It's your birthday party," he counters.

"Just tell him to go easy on the invites. I don't want to wake up the next day to a fucked up house." I shrug.

He nods and types the reply. "I never thought I'd see the day you'd ditch post-game beers," he says, slipping his phone into his back pocket.

I shrug again, uncapping my Gatorade to take a sip. "Priorities, man. Have to study."

He nods sarcastically as he pulls open the door and pops his head out into the hall to double-check that Coach is still in his room. When he walks out, he starts to close the door but pops his head back in quickly, his gaze falling to the phone in my hands.

"Tell Abby I said hello." He pulls the door closed with a soft click before I can flip him off.

I've been thinking about calling Abby to help her study tonight since she has a closing shift at the diner tomorrow—or at least, that's what was written in her planner.

Scrolling through my contacts, I click on her name.

I hesitate, looking at the time. It's kind of late to randomly call her. She could be studying, or writing an article for the paper, or hanging out with Nia and Jenny, or she could already be asleep. Hovering over her contact for a second longer, I click out and open Instagram. Abby's the kind of girl who barely ever uploads pictures to her actual account but will update her story throughout the day, which has become quite entertaining for me over the past few weeks.

As expected, her icon appears at the top of my feed, and I click it quickly. A few pictures of a bowling alley, one of cheese fries, and then two more of her holding up a wine glass in front of the camera pop up. The last picture was uploaded fifteen minutes ago.

Scrolling back to her contact, I click the FaceTime button.

I sit back in bed as it begins to ring, running my hands through my hair to make sure it didn't dry in a fucked up way after my shower. When her face appears on the screen, I can't help but grin at the look of utter confusion knotting her brows. Her hair is pulled into a messy knot on the top of her head, and she's wearing the same hoodie I let her borrow last night for CTF.

I conveniently forgot to ask for it back, the same way she conveniently forgot to give it back before leaving.

"Hey." She looks more shocked than anything as she stares at her phone, and I can tell by the two quick hiccups that rattle her shoulders that she's drunk.

"Are you drunk?" I laugh.

She looks at the wine glass in her hands and brings it up into shot, a demure smile on her lips.

"I may or may not have had a drink or two or three when I got home," she says, taking a sip of the pink liquid which has been poured to the brim of her stemless wine glass.

"From bowling?" I tease.

"Yes, from bowling." She grins. "How did you know that?"

"You post about a million times a day on your Instagram story." I laugh.

"You watch my stories?" She blanches.

"Where do you think I get my daily entertainment from, Ryan?" I grin. "One night, you're baking chocolate chip cookies while watching The Bachelor, and the next, you're out bowling. You're a wild woman; it's riveting to watch."

She sticks her tongue out at me and then rests her head back against her headboard. Her cheeks are flushed a pretty pink, and she looks like she's swaying slightly as she giggles.

"Hey, I can be wild," she defends.

"I know. I remember." I grin.

She looks over the camera toward the door as if to make sure no one can hear us before looking back down. Her cheeks flush an even prettier hue, and I grin as she brings her wine glass up and takes a long sip before another hiccup shakes her shoulders again.

"I saw your game."

I uncap the Gatorade and down a few gulps, wishing I wouldn't have forgotten to grab a few water bottles before leaving the UCLA arena.

"They said you have a lot of swag." She uses air quotes around the word.

"Are you quoting yourself?" I grin.

"No, I'm not quoting myself. I'm quoting Greg Bradshaw, or whatever his name is, from USASN." She takes another sip of her wine.

"Sounds like something Bradshaw would say." I nod. I've met the guy a few times, and he sounds like a perpetual frat douche when he talks, but he always seems to hype me up in post-game reports, so I don't mind him too much.

"Some guys were watching it at the lane next to us," she says quickly, tapping her finger on the wine glass while her eyes focus on the liquid. "They said they were going to celebrate the win at an after-party."

"Sounds like USW—any excuse to get drunk."

She nods slowly and then drowns the rest of her glass, which was almost entirely full. I raise my brow as she looks back at the camera. Her eyes are unsettled as they flick between the empty glass and the camera.

"Why aren't you hanging out with UCLA girls tonight?" Her voice is soft but harsh at the same time, like an accusation she doesn't want the answer to.

Drunk Abby is cute.

Drunk and jealous Abby is something else entirely, something that makes me wish I wasn't hundreds of miles away right now.

"Do you want me to be hanging out with UCLA girls tonight?" I try not to smile, but I can't help it because her face pulls into a scowl and then flattens out quickly as her drunken mind tries to piece together my response.

"No." She squeaks, shaking her head. "No—I mean, I don't care. You can do—" Hiccup, hiccup. "—Do whatever you want to do." She shrugs, not at all convincing.

"I am doing what I want to do," I say.

She stares at me for a moment as the words hit her, and then she looks away, smiling.

"Okay then." She nods.

"Okay then." I grin.

She leans out of the shot, and I can hear the sound of her wine glass being set onto what I assume is her nightstand, and when she comes back into the shot, she burrows down further into her sheets. I can't see much of her surroundings, aside from her gray pleated headboard and the mound of pillows surrounding her head.

"Why are you calling anyway?" She laughs.

"I was going to help you study for the exam, but it seems like that might be a lost cause at the moment since you're drunk."

She purses her lips, contemplating the idea of studying, and then shakes her head. "Definitely too drunk to study."

"That's a shame." I grin.

"Why's that?"

"Now, I don't have an excuse to stay on here." I adjust my pillows and slide further down under the duvet.

"Hmm." She hums, resting her head against a pillow. "I could think of a few things that don't involve studying."

"Are you propositioning me for video sex right now, Abby Ryan?"

"No." She gasps, her eyes widening quickly.

Even her drunk self blushes at the thought.

"I was talking about the interview."

"Mhm." I hum.

She ignores me with a roll of her eyes. "I was thinking that it might be nice to get a few quotes from your family for the article," she says quickly. "To add a more personal touch."

I can already feel my mother's excitement at the prospect of being interviewed. "You might just make my mom's entire life by interviewing her." I chuckle, rubbing my hand through my hair.

"Your mom is very sweet." She grins.

"She is." I nod. "She's the best."

Her smile twitches and then fades slightly as she looks away.

"She likes you a lot," I add, hoping to pull her smile back.

She looks back at the camera, and her eyes widen with amusement. "Yeah, she told me." She grins. "She messaged me on Facebook earlier."

My head falls back onto the stack of pillows, and I groan. "She added you on Facebook?"

"Mhm." She hums. "She sent me the cutest message about how happy she is that I'm writing the article on you."

"Of course she did." I laugh. Sounds like something my mom would do.

Abby's eyes dart up, and then the screen goes black as she shoves the phone under her covers. I can barely make out the green and red plaid pattern on her pajama pants in the darkness.

"Are you talking to someone?" Nia's voice is barely audible, but I turn up my phone volume to try to hear what she's saying.

"No." Abby's reply is a little louder but too quick to properly feign innocence.

"You definitely are," she counters, her voice growing louder. "I heard a guy's voice when I walked by."

"Must have been the TV," Abby says, but I can tell by her tone that she's already told on herself by smiling.

"Is it Mr. Big?" Nia asks. "Oh, my God, is he still on the phone?"

I raise a brow at the nickname.

Mr. Big? I think that's a compliment, right? I'm definitely going to take that as a compliment.

"Nia, go. I'll talk to you after."

"Are you having phone sex right now?"

"Nia." Abby squeaks, and I hear Nia laugh as the sound of a door closing echoes through her room.

Abby waits a few seconds, probably to make sure Nia isn't going to pop in again, before pulling her phone back up from under the sheets.

"I am so sorry about that," she says in a whisper.

I can't hold back my smirk, so I just decide to go with it. "Mr. Big, huh?"

Her face pales and then flushes quickly. "You heard that?"

Tucking my hand behind my head, I nod. "I've had a lot of nicknames, but I've got to say, Mr. Big might be my favorite."

"It's not what you think." Abby shakes her head quickly. "It's from a show."

"Mhm." I grin. "Sure it is, Ryan."

"I'm serious. You can look it up." She laughs. "I wouldn't even know what your—" Her eyes widen, and she clamps her lips closed. Even drunk Abby has a filter, albeit a much more delayed one, but her words linger between us, and I can't help the laugh that practically echoes through my hotel room.

"I just mean, it's not like a descriptive nickname." She bites down on her lip and looks away, mortified.

"Right," I agree, reveling in the sight of her—cheeks flushed, face bare, hair pulled up while wearing my hoodie. I watch her face with a wicked grin, knowing that my words are about to light her cheeks on fire. "But it could be."