All Chapters of Touchdown For The Devil : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Mason texted at seven forty-three on a Tuesday morning. The message was brief. Call me. Now. Dante dialed his number back immediately, his boots hitting the cold floorboards as he swung his legs out of bed. Mason picked up on the very first ring, his breathing heavy through the line. He skipped any form of greeting, cutting directly into the quiet room. "Have you seen the campus paper yet?" "I just woke up," Dante muttered, running a rough hand over his face. "Look at it," Mason told him bluntly, his voice laced with an aggressive sort of tension. "Front page. Right now. Call me back when you've actually read it." Dante didn't call back. Instead, he kept Mason on the line while he opened the browser on his phone and loaded the university’s student publication home page. It took a few agonizing seconds to buffer in the morning quiet, the blue light of the screen reflecting sharply in his eyes, and then the massive headline appeared in bold black text at the very top of the layout:

Three weeks after their Saturday in the city, Ariana knew the layout of Dante's room better than her own dorm. She knew the room by heart. She could walk through it in the pitch dark without tripping over a single thing. She knew the exact spot where the floorboards groaned under a heavy step near the closet. She knew the way the winter cold leaked through the window glass, making the air smell like frost. She knew the tiny desk lamp gave off a soft, golden light that was much better than the ugly overhead bulbs. She knew the third shelf of his bookcase had a small gap right next to a row of thick football playbook binders. That gap was his personal landing pad. It was the exact place where he dropped his phone charger, his heavy car keys, and his loose pocket change at the end of every grueling day. She knew he brewed his coffee way too strong, using double the normal grounds. He did it every single morning, he saw absolutely no problem with it, and he was never going to change his

Zoe had not planned on falling in love during her junior year. She told Ariana this on a Sunday morning. Zoe sat cross-legged on her bed with a mug of tea she had made and then completely forgotten about. The steam was long gone, and the tea was cold. Across the room, Ariana sat at her desk, editing photos on her laptop with only half her attention. "I had a plan," Zoe said, staring into her cold mug. "Get through school. Get an internship somewhere with actual standards. Avoid anyone with a sports scholarship because they're either insufferable or emotionally unavailable, sometimes both." Ariana did not look up from her screen. "Eli doesn't have a sports scholarship." "That's not the point." "What's the point." "The point is I had a plan and the plan did not include—" Zoe gestured vaguely. It was as if Eli were a weather storm rather than a real person. "This." Ariana looked up from her laptop. "You sound upset about being happy." "I'm not upset." Zoe picked up her tea, found

February arrived fast.Dante drove to the franchise facility on a Wednesday morning, leaving campus at five thirty while it was still pitch dark outside. Ariana was already awake when he left, she hadn't slept particularly well and didn't pretend otherwise. She stood in the doorway of his room in the football house, watching the shadows stretch across the wall while he checked his bag one more time."You have everything," she said, her voice quiet in the early morning stillness."Yeah.""You've checked that bag three times.""Just making sure." He zipped it and looked at her. He was dressed in dark, clean clothes, carrying the particular contained energy of an athlete ready for a massive challenge. "Go back to sleep, Ari.""I wasn't sleeping anyway.""I figured." He crossed the bedroom floor, stood right in front of her, and put both hands on her face. His palms were warm against her chilly cheeks. "I'll call you tonight as soon as I'm clear.""Count on it."He kissed her, then he pic

The email arrived on a Thursday morning at eight forty-two.Ariana sat on her bed with her laptop open. She still wore the oversized shirt she had slept in. Her first coffee of the day sat going cold on the nightstand. She was not checking her inbox specifically. She was looking over her notes from the Webb project, trying to find a thought she had lost the night before, when the notification appeared at the top of her screen.Westbridge Regional Arts Residency Programme — Application DecisionShe stared at the text for a second. Then she clicked it.The email was short, consisting of just three quick paragraphs. It listed her name at the top, the programme name, and the dates. She read it once, but the words did not fully sink in. She read it a second time much more slowly, starting from the very beginning, making sure she was reading the text correctly.She was. She got in.She placed her laptop down on the mattress beside her and sat there in the quiet room. Zoe was still asleep. T