He elbowed me in the side, apparently having seen my moment of weakness. The whole chummy thing wasn’t impressing me though.
“Hey, you’ll never guess what I heard around town.”
I cocked a brow at him. “No. What?”
“That you were back and were dating that chick you were seeing while you were here.”
I nodded. “Lauren. Yeah.”
“Man, she turned weird after you left. I hate to speak ill of anyone, but she really fucked around, man. I just wanted to give you a head’s up, you know? Bro to bro. No dude wants to dip his dick where half the fucking campus was, man.”
Though my foot made the move to step forward, I froze in place at his words.
It didn’t matter that I knew damn well and good that Lauren had been a vir
gin until we got involved three weeks ago, what fucked me off was that this bastard had slept his way through more than half the campus as he was accusing Lauren of, but it was okay for him to have done that, but not her.
“Double standards, much?” I asked him, watching the jovial look on his face melt. “If I recall, didn’t Coach Edel have you sent off for an STD check when you came in with that weird rash?”
Jed’s eyes widened. “What the hell are you talking about, man?” he bluffed, but I just sneered at him.
“If anyone’s the slut here, it’s you. And whether she’d fucked half the continental US or not, that’s none of your goddamn business. Now, if you’d like to fuck off, I want to take a trip down memory lane without some SOB whose best and last greatest years were right here on this campus.”
I left him stuttering when really, I wanted to leave him in a ground-up puddle of goop on the sidewalk.
Impugning Lauren’s name and reputation didn’t sit well with me, and I hated my rational brain for not picking a fight.
It would have been so goddamn easy too.
My fists curled into tight balls and my fingers ached with the need I had to stalk back to that bastard’s side and pound his skull in, but instead I strode off and went to sit on the bleachers.
A few drills were being practiced, but I stayed mostly out of sight, merging in with a crowd I’d outgrown far longer than seven years ago.
I’d never fit in with my peers, and probably never would but that didn’t matter to me. It never had and never would either.
I sucked down air, trying to seek calm but a red haze coated everything I saw and every breath I took.
I jolted in surprise when someone took a seat beside me. Prepared to rip Jed a new one if he’d followed me over here, I jerked back in astonishment to see Lauren there.
She was smiling at me but in her eyes, there was hesitance.
I hated that.
It didn’t belong there.
God damn that son of a bitch. This was supposed to be a happy moment. A moment to rejoice being back together again, dammit.
I clenched my teeth for a second, then whispered, “Hey, baby.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Hey.” Her hand came to cup my knee as we both stared straight ahead, watching the coach, a guy I didn’t recognize—a fact that didn’t surprise me. Coach Edel had been past retirement when I was on the team—put the team through their paces.
I frowned down at them, seeing it but not really processing it.
“What did he tell you?”
I blinked at the question. “Excuse me?”
She turned to me, and I saw her eyes were bruised with discomfort. “My mom texted me. Told me she’d seen you heading for the bleachers after you had a run in with Jed Harrison.”