Free Betrayed by Melinda Metz - Fingerprints - 5 Page A

were moving all over her body, she'd never felt the way she did during that one kiss with Anthony.
    Not that Anthony gave any sign of ever wanting to kiss her again. But now that she'd realized what a kiss could feel like, how could she return to sweet? There had to be somebody out there who could make her feel the way Anthony did. Someone besides Anthony.
    "Rae?" Marcus said. Her name formed a question, the question. Did she still love him? Half of her wanted to say yes and throw herself into Marcus's arms. Where it would be safe, safe and sweet.
    "Marcus," Rae managed to get out through the lump that had formed in her throat. The way she said his name gave him his answer. She could see it in his face, in his eyes, before he turned away.

Chapter 6
    "I don't know what was going on in the firsthalf," Coach Mosier said, speaking so softly,Anthony could barely hear him. "I don't want to know," he continued. "All I want is for it to stop. You have fifteen minutes to figure out how to accomplish that."
    He turned around, walked slowly and deliberately to his office, and shut the door behind him with extreme care. A moment later the blinds slithered down, covering the big window that looked out over the locker room.
    Anthony hadn't been on the team for long, but long enough to know that Mosier was a yeller. When you did good, he yelled. When you screwed up, he yelled louder.
    "Do you think he's really a robot?" McHugh asked. "Or possessed by an alien, like in that movie The Faculty?"
    "He is pissed," Sanders said. "If we don't figure out a way to turn this around-"
    "We don't need fifteen minutes for that," Ellison interrupted. "We don't need fifteen seconds. All we need to decide is who's going to take Salkow out back and put him out of his misery." "Shut up," Marcus muttered, eyes on his feet.
    "The man speaks the truth," McHugh bellowed, looping his arm around Ellison's shoulders. "And the truth cannot be silenced."
    No one laughed. The thing was, Ellison was right. Marcus had been messing up since the first play of the game. It was like somebody had opened up the guy's brain and fried every part that knew anything about football. They'd removed some muscles from his hands, too. Or that's the way it had looked out there from the number of times Marcus had dropped the ball.
    "What was going on with you?" Sanders asked Marcus.
    "Nothing, all right? You worry about yourself, Sanders," Marcus snapped. "Like none of the rest of you have ever messed up," he muttered as he stalked toward the Gatorade cooler. He grabbed abottle and chugged it without returning to the group.
    "Maybe he's on the rag," McHugh suggested. He got a few guilty-sounding laughs with that one.
    Anthony expected one of the guys to go over and talk to Marcus. But no one made a move. Okay, so I guess it'll be me, Anthony thought. And why the hell not? I'm the guy's friggin' Dear Abby. He grabbed a towel off the closest bench and wiped some of the sweat out of his hair as he made his way over to the cooler. He grabbed an orange-flavored Gatorade and took a swig. Because he had no idea what to say. He had no idea why he'd even thought that he should attempt to say something.
    "I know you said I should give Rae time," Marcus burst out. Crap, Anthony thought. Rae again. Crap.
    "But I couldn't just wait around, doing nothing," Marcus continued.
    Anthony squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. "What did you do?" he asked.
    "I made a list of all this stuff about her. A stuff-I-love-about-Rae list," Marcus answered. "A girl should die for something like that, right? I mean, Dori would have-"
    "You didn't start going out with another girl while Dori was in the hospital," Anthony cut in. Heknew he was supposed to be helping Marcus get back into game head, not busting his chops, but the words had come out flying out of his mouth.
    "Yeah, yeah, I know," Marcus mumbled. "But the list. You should have seen it. It was three pages long. And it had everything on it. Like how she used