How fucking dare he? This has nothing to do with him. This isn’t his fight, his issue, yet he thinks he can squeeze himself between us.
“Hey, Cole,” a sickly-sweet voice says behind me before a warm hand slides across my stomach and Marissa appears at my side. “Need someone to work out that tension?”
“Fuck off,” I grunt, pushing her away from me. I hear the crash of her colliding with the lockers and all I do is smile. It’s the least she deserves for the way she treats people.
You’re one to talk, a little voice says in my head.
A trickle of regret races through me. That wasn’t how I wanted to deal with that situation with Hadley, but one look at her and the depth of betrayal I felt just took over.
I knew something was very, very wrong last night because the second I pulled up at the house sometime before three AM, Ace came rushing out of the house as white as a sheet.
Before I’d managed to turn the engine off, he’d ripped the door open and all but dragged me out.
“Are you okay?” he barked.
“Yeah, why?” His eyes were blown with anger, and as I glanced around I found Conner and Remi looking at me with the same concern on their faces.
“You’re a fucking stupid son of a bitch, do you know that?”
And it was that moment I knew. He finally had confirmation of what he already suspected, and there was only one way he could have gotten it.
It had barely been hours since I’d admitted the truth to her, and the first thing she did was go running to Ace—the one person I was trying to keep out of all of this.
Fury like I’d never felt slammed into me. The only thing I could think about was getting back in the car and hurting her the way she had done me.
I trusted her.
I fucking trusted her, and she smashed it in the blink of an eye.
None of us got a wink of sleep. By the time Ace’s grilling had stopped, the sun was beginning to rise.
I tried to go to bed, to forget that a new day had begun and hide from the issues facing me, but I couldn’t. It was game day. My only way out of this life. My only chance at a future.
So I showered, dressed in my bullshit uniform and allowed Conner to drive us to school as usual.
No words were said between us the entire journey until we were parked up in the lot.
“She’s trying to protect you, bro. She cares. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
“Whatever,” I muttered, shouldering open the door and storming toward the building where I knew she’d be.
“Fuuuuck,?
?? I bark into the silence of the locker room. First period started a few minutes ago and Coach Miller is thankfully nowhere to be seen.
I need to go to class, but I know she’ll be there and all I can think about, all I can picture, is getting her back to her dorm room and showing her just how impressed I am by her little stunt. I pace back and forth for the longest time, desperately trying to get a hold of myself. It makes no fucking difference, and when I do finally wrench the door open and storm down the hallway, my head is still as fucked as when I entered.
I pull the classroom door open and step inside. Every single set of eyes lifts to mine—all except one.
“Mr. Jagger, how nice of you to join us,” the teacher snaps, but I ignore her as I march toward my seat.
My entire body screams at me to walk back out as fast as I entered so I can go and find her and take what I need, but it’s too late now. It’ll be reported to Coach that I skipped and that’ll be my game over.
I fall down into my seat and stare ahead at the board. I don’t get any books out, I don’t make any effort to get involved. I’m merely present.
The rest of the day continues in a similar blur until I find myself in the locker rooms getting a pep talk from Coach before he releases us out onto the field.
My hands tremble, knowing that she’ll be out there firing up the crowd in that little cheer uniform I’m so desperate to rip from her body. She might have missed a day at school, but she’d never get away with missing a game.