'Prove your worth'

NESSA'S POV

I was pretty sure that I had walked around the house for no less than twenty minutes after the boys left me alone in the living room, and the longer I searched the more I realized just how big the place really was. Every hallway always turned out to be longer than the last, and every door I opened either led to another empty common area or to rooms that clearly belonged to the players based on the clothes and equipment scattered around inside them. 

I kept moving, determined to find the one room the coach had told me was mine, and after what felt like far too much time spent going in circles, I finally found the guest bedroom he had allocated to me. It had not been easy to find at all since it was basically downstairs and at the back of the house, tucked away in a corner that put a pretty fair distance between me and wherever the boys’ rooms were upstairs. 

The coach had told me that he had placed me in this room for my own good so that the boys would not make me uncomfortable, but I was almost too sure that he was basically telling me not to cross any lines with the boys while I lived under the same roof as them. That idea would have saddened me if I had ever had such ridiculous intentions in the first place, and even if some small part of me might have considered something foolish before coming here, now that I had met them, or at least a good number of them, there was no way in hell I would cross any lines with any of them. 

That included the three jackasses who had caused my heart to beat ridiculously fast the second they walked into the living room earlier and who had even made me believe for a moment that I had heard their voices inside my head saying the word mate. 

I had already concluded that those voices had to have been my mind playing tricks on me, because there was no other reasonable explanation for something like that, and I was not about to start inventing supernatural reasons just because three good looking football players had looked at me a certain way.

I entered the room with my suitcase still in my hand, and the moment I saw the bed my entire body felt tired all at once. The long day of traveling, the argument downstairs, and the sheer effort of finding this corner of the house all seemed to land on me at the same time, and all I wanted was to get some sleep so that I could have the strength to deal with the boys whenever I had to face them again. The bed looked soft enough, the room was simple and clean with a small bathroom attached, and for the first time since I had stepped through the front door, I felt like I could finally breathe. 

I decided not to unpack just yet. There was no point in settling everything into drawers when all I really needed right now was a shower and a few hours of rest. I simply brought out more comfortable clothes from the suitcase, a shirt and a pair of shorts, and then I started to open the case wider so I could find my toiletries. Just as my hands were moving through the clothes, a knock on the door distracted me, and I immediately frowned as I wondered who it could be. 

None of the boys had seemed interested in talking to me after the way things had ended downstairs, and the idea of one of them standing outside my door already made my shoulders tense.

I reluctantly got up and walked to the door, pulling it open only far enough to see who was on the other side. Standing outside was the same boy who had opened the front door for me earlier, the nervous first year with the brunette hair who had looked so unsure of what to do with me when I first arrived. He still looked just as nervous now, shifting his weight from one foot to the other while he avoided meeting my eyes for more than a second at a time. 

“Your attention is needed in the halls,” he said in a quiet voice, like he was only delivering a message he had been told to pass along and wanted no part in whatever was about to happen.

“For what?” I asked, not moving from the doorway yet. I was tired and still annoyed from the earlier confrontation, and the last thing I wanted was to walk back into another room full of staring faces without knowing why.

He simply told me to come with him, his tone making it clear he was not going to give me more details even if I pushed. I was skeptical, every instinct telling me this was probably going to be another power play from the same three who had already made their opinions about me very clear, but I followed behind him anyway. Leaving the relative safety of my room felt like stepping back into the middle of a fight I had only just walked away from, yet I knew that hiding in my room would only make things worse in the long run. 

He led me through the same hallways I had already wandered earlier, the house still quiet except for the sound of our footsteps, until we reached the kitchen. As soon as I entered, I found all the boys waiting there, including the three idiots that I was unfortunately still strangely pulled to even after everything they had said. 

The pull sat low in my chest the second I saw them again, warm and unwanted, and I hated that it was still there after I had already decided those voices in my head earlier had been nothing more than my mind playing tricks. 

The blonde with the buzz cut leaned against the counter with that same arrogant set to his shoulders, the brunette watched me with the same mix of interest and irritation he had shown before, and the quiet one stood a little apart from the others with his arms crossed like he was already waiting for me to fail whatever test they had decided to throw at me next.

“What is going on?” I asked, stopping just inside the doorway while the nervous boy who had fetched me quickly moved to the side and out of the way. 

The kitchen was large and open, with plenty of space for the whole group to stand around without feeling crowded, and I could already see ingredients lined up on the counter that I had not paid any attention to when I first walked in.

The blonde with the buzz cut was the first to speak, his tone just as rude and audacious as it had been earlier. “You said you were our nutritionist, right?”

“Yes, I did,” I responded, even though I could already tell from the look on his face that I was not going to like where this conversation was headed. My stomach tightened with a mix of tiredness and rising irritation as I waited for him to get to the point.

He pointed at the ingredients on the counter with one hand, the gesture casual like he was pointing out something obvious that everyone else had already noticed. “In that case, you should whip up something healthy for us for dinner.” He checked his watch with an exaggerated movement before adding, “You have exactly one hour to cook something for us since you are so determined to do your job.”

I scoffed in pure disbelief at the demand, the sound leaving me before I could even think about holding it back. “I am your nutritionist, not your personal chef,” I said, looking straight at him so he would not miss the point.

“Same thing,” he responded without missing a beat, the arrogance in his voice making it clear he did not care about the difference. “So get to work.”

I was in complete disbelief. 

I looked around at the other boys, hoping that at least one of them would be a little bit sensible and speak up against the ridiculous order that had just been thrown at me, but their faces told me everything I needed to know. Some of them were watching with open interest, others looked like they were enjoying the show, and not a single one of them seemed ready to step in and say that making me cook dinner on my first night was going too far. 

I realized then that I was expecting way too much from these morons. They had already shown me how they operated downstairs, and this was just another version of the same attitude.

The quiet one from earlier, the one I still suspected was the real leader of the group, simply told me to prove my worth. “Prove your worth, Ms. Wilder,” he said, his voice calm and final in a way that made the words come out even more rude than the blonde’s had. “If you cannot do something as simple as preparing us dinner, then you have exactly one hour to get out of our house, or we will kick you out ourselves. And I am sure you would not want that.”