All Chapters of Touchdown For The Devil : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The football stadium looked different at night. Without the screaming fans and flashing cameras, Westbridge finally lost some of its arrogance. The empty bleachers stretched silently beneath cold floodlights while the field glowed green under the midnight sky. Ariana adjusted her camera bag higher on her shoulder as she crossed the lower stands alone. She should have gone home an hour ago. Instead she'd stayed late in the media building editing fundraiser photos until her head hurt, and now all she wanted was quiet. Unfortunately, quiet apparently belonged to Dante Cole tonight. She spotted him halfway up the bleachers immediately, black hoodie, head tilted back, one arm resting over his knee. From a distance he looked calm, but up close he looked wrecked. His knuckles were bruised again, a fresh cut marked the side of his jaw, and an unopened bottle of water sat beside him while the rest of the stadium echoed with silence. For one brief second he looked lonely, and the realization

Ariana knew something was wrong the second she stepped onto campus. Students looked up from their phones when she walked past, conversations stopped mid sentence, and a group of girls near the student center whispered behind their hands before immediately looking away when she caught them. Her stomach tightened."Ariana!"She turned to find Zoe hurrying across the courtyard, and one look at her face told Ariana everything she needed to know. Without wasting her time Zoe handed over her phone.Ariana looked down and froze. Photos. The first image showed her pulling Dante out of the gala ballroom, her hand wrapped around his wrist, his attention completely fixated on her, the crowd blurred around them. The second photo hit harder. The balcony. She remembered that moment with uncomfortable clarity, the city lights behind them, the cold air, the way Dante had stepped too close with one hand braced against the railing beside her, his attention fixed completely on her face. From that angle

Ariana made it six hours before she started losing her mind. It wasn't even about the rumors, or the scholarship meeting, and not even because Dante had almost broken Ryan Mercer's face. She kept thinking about that one sentence. The first time you walked into Economics freshman year… I couldn't stop looking at you. She kept hearing it at strange moments, while she brushed her teeth, while she walked to the dining hall, while she tried to read. The words just kept repeating in her head and refused to stop. She didn't want to believe that Dante meant it, because then everything she thought she knew about him would be wrong. And she had no idea what to do with that. "Dante Cole did not spend three years obsessed with me." Zoe looked up from her cereal. "What?" "Nothing." "That wasn't nothing." "It was absolutely nothing." Zoe put her spoon down and stared with the expression Ariana recognized as dangerous. "You finally figured it out." "Figured what out?" Zoe's eyes went wide.

Six Months Earlier Ariana shouldn't have been at that party in the first place. Her mother had called twice that afternoon, the landlord once, and the electric bill was overdue again. By the time Zoe dragged her to the football house she was already exhausted, and the music and the crowd and the spectacle of half the campus getting drunk didn't help. "Try not to look miserable," Zoe said. "I am miserable." "You're welcome." Ariana rolled her eyes. Then her phone buzzed and her stomach tightened immediately. Her mom was calling again. She already knew why she was calling, money, always money, always another reminder that failure wasn't an option she could afford. The call lasted less than two minutes, which was somehow worse than a long one. When she looked up again she caught Dante watching her from across the room. He immediately looked away when she noticed, like he'd been caught doing something he hadn't meant to. Which made no sense, because Dante Cole didn't get c

Ariana knew something was wrong when her mother called three times in one day. The first call came during class, the second while she was editing photos, and the third just before midnight. Her mother never called three times unless something had gone wrong, and by Saturday morning Ariana was driving forty minutes home with a knot in her stomach that the radio couldn't distract her from. The apartment building looked exactly the same as always, old brick, faded paint, the place she'd spent most of her life simultaneously trying to escape and never quite wanting to leave. Her mother opened the door before she could knock, and for one second they just looked at each other. "What's going on?" Ariana asked. Her mother's smile didn't reach her eyes. "Come inside." That was all it took. The kitchen table told the story before her mother even said a word, a stack of envelopes Ariana recognized immediately. Electricity, rent, medical. This wasn't new. It was just worse. Her mother s