No One Left Behind, Except for Me novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Count

Nobody in the ballroom said a word after Tate's last one.

Then a chair scraped at table six.

Rhett Maddox stood up with his phone still in his big hand, and his face was wet.

"She's not lying," he said.

"Rhett," Tate said into the microphone, very low. "Sit down."

"He told me on Thursday." Rhett's voice cracked and carried. "At practice, after the film session. He said we'd put Nat on the app early so the bus wouldn't wait on her, because she'd make us late for the party. I laughed."

A woman at table four said, "Oh my God," out loud.

"I thought he was kidding," Rhett said. "Then Saturday I filmed her from the bus, and I still thought it was a joke, and I put it in the chat."

He looked at me across three hundred people.

"I'm sorry, Nat. I'm not asking you to say it's okay."

He put his phone on the table, face down, and walked out through the center doors.

Nobody stopped him.

The head coach stepped up to the lectern and took the Captain's Cup out from under Tate's hand.

"Tate," he said, and his voice shook with a flat, quiet rage. "Take the patch off your jacket."

"Coach, you can't..."

"You're not my captain. You're not on my bus. Give me the patch."

Tate stood still for a long moment.

Then he tore the captain's patch off his tuxedo jacket with his left hand and laid it on the table.

The sound of the Velcro was the only sound in the room.

At the head table, the athletic director got to his feet.

"This is highly irregular," he said. "These documents have not been authenticated. I will be speaking with the university's lawyers..."

"You will be speaking with me," said a woman in a gray suit, and she rose from the table beside the stage.

I had not noticed her before.

She wore a small badge on her lapel.

"I'm from the president's office," she said, in an ordinary voice that went all the way to the back. "Our general counsel received Dr. Dahl's file and the department's export on the nineteenth, from Doc's own university address. The attachment is on the mail server with its time. Nobody can correct it."

← Chapter 14 · All chapters · Chapter 16 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend