“So that’s it? We just roll over and let them come at us?” Asher threw Jase an incredulous look. But Jase’s eyes darkened, a wicked glint in his narrowed gaze as he said, “Who said anything about rolling over?”
“Hit the showers and get out of here,” Coach Hasson boomed. I was already ass naked, cupping my junk as I ducked into the showers.
“Bell’s tonight?” Asher said from somewhere behind me and Jase grunted, “Yeah.”
Jase didn’t want to talk, he rarely did after running drills out on the field, but Asher talked enough for the three of us put together. When we’d cleaned the dirt off our skin and let the hot jets unknot the muscles in our bodies, we each grabbed our towels and padded back into the changing room. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Jase barked at the few remaining guys who were all staring at us.
“I... hmm, shit...” It was Joel who stepped forward, his eyes avoiding his QB, opting for the floor instead.
“Spit it out, Mackey,” I said, moving to my locker.
“Hailee, she hmm...”
Hailee?
What the fuck?
Then my eyes dropped to the bench in front of Jase’s locker. The bench where his sports bag was. The one that should have been full of his clothes and wasn’t.
“Oh shit...” I whistled between my teeth, unsure whether to be impressed or concerned for her life.
“She wouldn’t fucking dare.” Jase grabbed his bag and turned it upside down. “She took everything.” He sounded calm. Deadly.
Shit. Hailee would pay for this, and there was something very wrong with me, because the idea made my dick twitch to life.
My history with Hailee Raine was complicated. When she and her mom first moved in with Jason and his dad, she’d been nothing more than his annoying step-sister. But I quickly learned Hailee Raine wasn’t annoying at all. She was smart and quick-witted, and she didn’t take Jason’s shit.
From day one, she’d stood up to him; looked him right in the eye as he laid into her, laughing at her pigtails, glasses, and denim overalls smeared with paint. He’d called her Pippi Longstocking and said he didn’t play with girls who looked like thrift store rejects. Hailee had kicked him in the shin and run off. But she hadn’t told on him and she hadn’t cried. That got my attention.
But six years was a long time. Now we were older, and Hailee was a different kind of annoying. All grown up, she’d filled out in all the right places since junior high. I’d noticed. Hell, we’d all noticed. It was why Jason had shut that shit down in ninth grade, the year she grew tits. It had been an unspoken rule before then, but that year Jason officially laid down the law.
Hailee Raine was off-limits to the team.
But that wasn’t good enough for Jase. No, he issued a whole school lockdown. It was excessive. I knew it. Asher knew it. Everyone knew it. But since everyone also knew her step-brother’s reputation of following through on his threats, no one dared ask her out. And for the last three years, Hailee had been a social pariah. She kept herself to herself, had a small circle of friends, and preferred to lose herself in the art studio than lose herself in school spirit. Although part of me couldn’t help but wonder if she liked it that way, or if she’d just come to accept her fate.
I should have felt an ounce of guilt of over it—I didn’t. Because the truth was, Jason wasn’t the only one who had issues with his teammates, or anyone else for that matter, hooking up with Hailee.
“Found them.” Grady, another senior, breezed into the locker room, holding a pile of clothes. “But you’re not going to like what she did to your jersey.” He unballed the white and cobalt-blue shirt and held it up, a strange mix of fear and amusement flashing in his eyes.
“Fuck,” someone mumbled as we all took in the drawing of a pair of tits covering half his jersey. If it wasn’t so weird it was actually a good drawing. Really good.
“I call a D-cup,” someone else shouted. But Jason didn’t respond. He simply snatched his jersey back off Grady, anger radiating from him, shoved it into his bag, and started getting dressed.
Jason liked to think he had Hailee under control. Liked to think he called the shots, that he ruled the roost. But over the past couple of years, she’d grown ballsy. Going up against us more. Against him. It was like she didn’t give a fuck, and it had made for some entertaining memories.
There was just something about getting a reaction out of her that got my blood pumping. Although he’d never admit it, Jason and his step-sister were a match made in heaven.
Thank fuck my best friend had a shred of morality left. Because watching him jones after his sister would have been a step too far—even for me.
It wasn’t that I wanted her.
I didn’t.
I just didn’t like the idea of anyone else having her either.
Hailee
All week I waited for Jason to retaliate. But to my surprise, he never did. In fact, Tuesday morning when I’d left my bedroom to go downstairs, I had almost stumbled over a bag of my missing bras. It had taken a thorough investigation to deem them safe. There was no note. No hidden traps. Just my bras in all their super-supportive glory. Anyone else might have thought it was a white flag. But I wasn’t anyone else. If anything, I knew the gesture was a decoy, intended to throw me off the scent of whatever he really had planned.
So all week I waited.
And waited.
My senses went on high alert whenever I spotted Jason and his friends in the halls at school. But they barely looked in my direction—just how I usually liked it. Except for Cameron. His eyes always lingered a little too long. As if he was plotting; planning my downfall. It was unnerving, but I didn’t overthink it. Maybe he was feeling particularly douchebaggy this year? Whatever it was, I didn’t care, because no matter what they dished out in my direction, I could handle it.
I’d been handling it for the last five and a half years.
Everyone thought Jason and I hated each other. But it wasn’t about hating him, so much as hating everything he stood for. So he could throw a football? Big whoop. So could thousands of other eighteen-year-olds. Personally, I didn’t understand the nation’s infatuation. Playing sports didn’t make someone a good person. It didn’t make them trustworthy or kind. In my experience, football players were usually conceited assholes who cared more about their dicks and winning games than what was going on in the world around them. How their actions affected the world around them.
“Earth to Hailee,” Flick glared at me and I blinked, stuffing down the memories.
“Yeah?”
She popped a chip in her mouth and frowned. “You’re so weird.”
“And you shouldn’t talk with your mouth full.”
“Don’t look now,” she lowered her voice. “But Jason just walked in.”
So what did I do? I looked. Being told not to do something was like a red flag for me to react. Mom called me stubborn, but I preferred dogged. Jason didn’t even glance over in our direction though.
Weird.
“Huh,” I said, starting to feel a tad disappointed by his lack of retaliation.
“Don’t tell me you actually want him to come after you?” Flick gawked at me, as I pushed a fry around my plate, coating it in a delicious ketchup and mayo combo.