The Quarterback Next Door novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Dare

"What dare?" I said again.

Cade stared at me for a long moment.

Then he reached into his pocket and took out his phone, fumbling it with his healing hands.

It dropped onto the floorboards between us, screen up.

Neither of us picked it up.

"On the day of the rally," he said slowly.

"At seven in the morning, before school."

"Paisley texted me."

"She said she was doing me a favor."

"A favor," I repeated.

"She said you'd bet twenty dollars with some girls that you could make me say something stupid at the mic."

"She said you were going to confess in front of everybody, and then record me."

"She said you'd get me on camera looking like a fool."

"She sent me a picture of the chat, and a voice memo to go with it."

"I listened once and couldn't stand to hear it again."

I picked up the phone.

My hands were suddenly very steady.

He had left the thread open.

At the top of it was Paisley's name, and below it a long grey screenshot of a group chat.

I recognized the bubbles, the little hearts, the names of the three girls who had been in it with me.

And there was my message, in the blue bubble, exactly as it had been on the screen above the bleachers.

"I dare myself to tell Cade at the rally. Pay up, $20."

My stomach turned.

"This is wrong," I said.

"Is it?"

He sounded so scared that I looked up.

"It's wrong in about four places," I said.

"Look at the timestamp, it says June 14th at 9:41 p.m."

"I never texted anyone at nine forty-one that night because I was at your house watching the Reds game."

"You were there."

"The font is different on this bubble."

"It's slightly bigger than the ones above and below it."

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