When am I ever in the mood for that?
Never.
“Bro, what happened to you?” Diego asks as I stop in front of my locker and turn the combination with a few quick flicks of my fingers.
“What do you mean?” I open the door and tug my gym bag forward, unzipping it. I know exactly what Diego means.
“Caleb got you good. It was like you were in a different zone.”
“I was. I was trying to throw the goddamn ball. I didn’t even hear him.”
Diego remains silent for a moment, watching as I pull my clothes out of my bag, toeing off my cleats at the same time. I’m tempted to pass on the shower and wait until I’m home, so I tear off my practice gear and start changing into my regular clothes. I’ll smell terrible, but I want out of here. I’m over this.
“You get off on watching me strip or what?” I ask Diego when he still hasn’t said anything.
He slowly shakes his head. “You’re a grumpy fucker. I’m kinda sad that boring chick turned you down at lunch. Maybe she could’ve eased your pain.”
“Fuck that chick,” I say vehemently, tugging my shorts on. Hannah or whatever her name is. She laughed at me. She looked at me like I was a joke. She should consider herself lucky that I even spoke to her.
God, I sound like a complete asshole, even in my own thoughts.
“That’s what I was hoping you’d do,” Diego says with a chuckle. “Seriously, though. Since school started, you’re walking around campus looking ready to murder someone. You need a sweet little pussy in your life to ease your stress, and I’m not talking about a cat.”
Caleb joins us at the tail end of Diego’s comment, and they both start laughing like they just heard the funniest joke of their lives. I glare at both of them, annoyed with myself more than anything.
I’m sure everyone thinks I’m acting like a sensitive baby lately. And I probably am. Doesn’t help that I feel like I’m carrying the entire world on my shoulders.
More like I feel like the success of the varsity football team depends on me and my abilities, which is pointless. I know I’m not the entire team. I need all of these guys in order to do well, but there’s so much pressure on the quarterback. And it doesn’t just come from my dad.
It comes from everyone. The entire freaking town.
“By the way, I did a little investigation into your little kitty cat, Jake,” Caleb says, wearing a shit-eating grin as he rubs his hands together. “I’ve gone to school with her since we were in kindergarten, and honestly? I kind of forgot she existed.”
“She was pretty mean to our boy earlier,” Diego adds, his gaze sliding to mine. “Like, she laughed at you and shit.”
No kidding.
“When we were little, she was always quiet. Kept to herself mostly. Pretty sure she’s the same way in high school, since I forgot all about her,” Caleb continues as I finish getting dressed. I don’t care about Hannah Whatever Her Last Name Is. She turned me down so forget her.
“Pretty sure she hangs out with my cousin.” Diego rolls his eyes and Caleb starts laughing. “God knows how she tolerates him.”
I remain silent, letting them talk, letting the stress of the day ease out of me. I wouldn’t mind sitting in our hot tub when I get home. Though Mom will nag my ass into eating dinner first as a family—her favorite guilt trip. And shit, I gotta drive my little sister home too. Ava is a junior, cheer practice ends the same time football practice does, and she is an absolute pain in my ass.
Well, some of the time. We actually get along decently. Mom says when we get older, we’ll be extra close since we’re also so close in age.
Whatever, Mom. I think she just hopes we’ll be close.
“You want to go grab something to eat?” Diego asks me when I pull my gym bag out of my locker and slam the metal door shut.
“I gotta take Ava home,” I say, thankful for the excuse. I’m not in the mood to shoot the shit and listen to them talk about how I need to get laid.
“You can bring your sister.” Caleb wags his eyebrows at me and I shove at his shoulder, sending him stumbling a few steps back.
“You’re not allowed to even look at my sister.” My sister is a no-friend zone. I don’t want any of my friends near her. Not a one.
We’re giving each other crap as we leave the locker room, and my spirits are lifting. Maybe I need to stop taking things so seriously. Life just keeps sending me roadblocks lately, and I don’t understand why. Like that art class I have to take—that’s scheduled during my conditioning class. I could take the one before school starts, but man, that sucks. It means I have to be at school even earlier than usual, and I hate that.
That art class is gonna mess everything up. The story of my freaking life, swear to God.
I’m headed toward my truck, Diego and Caleb walking on either side of me, when a blast from my not so distant past magically appears in front of us, stopping our progression.
“Jake. Hi.” Cami Lockhart in the flesh, smiling at me like I’m the best thing she’s ever seen. She’s wearing really short shorts and a sports bra. That’s it. Her tanned, toned body is pretty much on full display and I can practically envision my friends’ tongues rolling out of their mouths like they’re cartoon characters. “Can we talk?”
Why in the hell does my ex-girlfriend want to talk to me? Though I shouldn’t be surprised. This is the game we play. We break up to get back together. It happened our sophomore and junior years, so here she is, probably trying to make it happen again for us this year.
And every time, like a sucker, I’ve fallen for it.
“Sure.” I send Caleb and Diego a look, and they start walking, calling out their goodbyes to Cami and totally forgetting about me. I turn to face her. “What’s up?”
“You have a good practice?” She tilts her head to the side, her ponytail sliding down her neck and well past her tits. She has thick brown hair, light blue eyes, curves in all the right places, and she’s the varsity cheer captain. She is the cliché yin to my yang. Quarterback and cheer team captain, forever together with heart eyes.
Ava, who just joined the cheer team this year, hates her guts, and doesn’t hold back around me when she complains about her either. I think Ava doesn’t want me to forget how badly this girl has messed with my head.
But when Cami’s standing in front of me barely wearing any clothes and looking at me like she wants me to touch her in all of her forbidden places, I sort of forget.
“It went okay,” I tell Cami, blinking at her when she reaches out and skims her fingers down the front of my chest, her expression…hungry. She’s acting a lot more forward than usual. “How was your practice?”
She rolls her eyes. “Some of the girls on the team are such idiots. I don’t know how they made it.”
That’s one thing I remember about Cami: she thinks everyone else is subpar. “I’m guessing with practice they’ll get better.”
“You sound like your sister.” I assume Cami doesn’t like Ava either. Feeling’s mutual. “So hey. I was wondering…are you going to Tony’s tomorrow?”
Tony is the quietest guy on our team. He’s my quietest friend, period. But he knows how to throw a party. And he throws one at his house by the lake every Friday night after a home game. His parents are divorced, and his mom got the house, along with a large cash settlement. She’s gone pretty much every weekend, making it easy for Tony to throw his infamous bashes. “Yeah, I’m going.”