At the Buzzer: A High School Bully Romance (The Ballers of Rockport High Book 3)

by E. M. Moore

  “That should say something to you then. It means they’re not going to give in easily.”

  “I just want to talk to him,” Lake roars. He gets up from the picnic table and gets in my face.

  I don’t back down though. I press against my tiptoes that want to rock back, refusing to give him any more ground. “You should’ve thought about that before you did what you did.”

  He shakes his head. “What do you know about it, anyway? You’ve gotten everything. You have everything. Of course you wouldn’t know how the fuck this feels?”

  “If you ever want to talk to Ryan again,” I say, ignoring his pity party. “Don’t spread that rumor about his mom.”

  Lake barks out a laugh. “Is that what Ryan told you? He told you it was just a rumor.”

  “No,” I say, moving forward, causing Lake to take a step back. “He told me about his mom. I don’t care. The only part I care about is that you want to use it against him, someone who used to be his best friend.”

  “Exactly,” he spits. “Used to be. That’s why. He dropped me. Just like that.”

  “You’re unbelievable,” I say. “Stop playing the victim. You know exactly what you did. You forced their hand. Don’t you get it? You went too fucking far. Instead of retaliating with more bullshit, why don’t you try making it up to them?”

  His eyes glass over. He leans into my face, his lips snarling like he’s a caged dog. “Don’t talk to me about my friends. I will never apologize for doing what I did. I’m fucking glad I did it. If we’re not on the same side, then we’re on the opposite side. End of story.”

  I shake my head, knowing full well he means what he says. This was a waste of time. Lake’s never going to get it. “Why do you hate me?” I ask.

  His throat works, and he rears back like I hit him. “Just the fact that you don’t know makes it all the fucking worse. Get out of my face, bitch, before I do decide to break your other wrist. You’re expendable. You think just because you have them that I won’t come after you again. You’re wrong. You’re the reason for all of this, and there’s nothing I want more than to see you lose everything like I have.”

  I level a warning gaze at him, but I’m not an idiot. I wanted to talk to him, and I did. I’m not about to push it because I know exactly what he’s capable of. “Please leave them alone,” I say.

  “And I said get out of my fucking face!”

  I turn, forcing my feet to walk casually back through the side doors. I hide out in the library until the end of first period before making my way back to the door I should be coming out of because I know Hayes will be there waiting for me. When I tap his shoulder from the opposite direction, he turns and narrows his eyes at me, but I just shrug. “Tried to talk some sense into Lake.”

  Hayes’s eyes bulge. “You should have brought me. What were you thinking?”

  “He didn’t do anything to me.”

  His gaze slices through me, and I get the gist of what he won’t say. It’s a stupid excuse, and I know it is, too, but I just didn’t want to drag them into it at all. I wanted to see what he would say for myself. Plus, I wanted to ask him why he hates me so much. I still don’t know why, but I have another clue. He thinks I should know, which only boggles me even further. I have no fucking idea why Lake would hate me this much.

  Hayes sighs. “Please don’t do that again, Tessa.”

  “Well, it didn’t work. He’s stubborn, and he’s an idiot.”

  Hayes’s jaw hardens. “That’s partly the pills. He’s not thinking clearly. But Lake was always stubborn, yes. He’s going to do whatever he wants to do, and there’s nothing any of us can do about it.”

  I crane my neck to look up at him. “Your parents,” I whisper. His look immediately turns cool. “That’s why you didn’t give Lake as much leeway as the others, isn’t it? That’s why you were done with him before.”

  He nods. “Being a drug user is the most selfish fucking thing someone can be.”

  He grabs my hand, squeezes it, and we walk together toward second period that way, his grip never loosening.

  17

  Of course Ryan finds out that I talked to Lake. Hayes ignores the evil eye I give him several days later while Ryan tells me not to do that again.

  I don’t care. I’d do it again and again. Not for myself, but for him.

  The crowd claps as the RHS pitcher gets the third player out. We’re watching Alec’s game from the stands like usual. Lake has been coming, but he doesn’t sit with us. He sits with Rhonda who now plasters herself all over his side like she wants to be the first to know if he makes even the slightest muscle movement. They’ve both been quiet lately. Rhonda, I think, because she got detention for screwing with me before, so maybe she’ll think twice about messing with me on school grounds again.

  Part of me doesn’t think that will be the case though. She honestly doesn’t seem that smart, and I think she’ll do whatever Lake tells her to. From my talk with him during first period that one day, I know he’s not done with me. He’s just biding his time.

  The baseball team wins…again. It’s not surprising. They’ve been playing well, Alec especially. It’s almost like he doesn’t have to act like baseball is his dirty little secret anymore, so he’s upped his game. He’s on fire. There were a couple of guys in khakis holding notebooks at the game today. Ryan lifted his chin in their direction. We all took notice, and then for the first time in a long time, we were all quiet, all probably wondering what Alec’s going to do about basketball. Play, like he always has. Or sit his senior year out, so he can focus on baseball. I know it’s a question that’s sitting on all of our lips, but no one’s asked it yet. At least, not to my knowledge.

  Ryan’s knee jumps up and down as the guys head to the locker room. We’re all on edge, and that’s probably because Sign-Ups is tomorrow, so if Alec is going to make a decision, he needs to make it now.

  Alec asked me to go to dinner at his house tonight, so the guys wait until he comes out, and then we say goodbye as Alec helps me into his beat-up truck. The interior is as stiff as I remember it, but it’s also familiar in a nice way. The first time I sat in this truck, I thought Alec hated me. He didn’t. None of them truly did.

  Once we’re on the road to his house, Alec says, “So, everyone seems off. It’s like they’re walking on eggshells around me. Care to tell me what that’s about?”

  I pop an eyebrow at him. “You don’t know?”

  His hands tighten around the wheel. “I think I do know, I’m just not used to them being afraid to ask me something. I didn’t even get shit for asking you to dinner. You know how much shit Sloan got when he took you on that date?”

  I smile to myself. I can imagine them doing that to one another. Who knows, they probably didn’t tease him about going out with me because they’re hoping I’ll be able to get out of him whether he plans on playing Rock basketball or not. “Of course you guys would do that to each other,” I tell him, trying to play it cool. The only reason I can come up with why they don’t want to ask Alec themselves is because they’re worried what his answer will be. Or maybe it’s not even that. Maybe it’s what his answer will mean for all of them. “I want you to do whatever is going to make you happy, Alec. You know that, right?”

  He pulls into the driveway of his house, parking the truck in the grass next to his parents’ cars. As soon as he shuts the vehicle off, he looks over at me. “Do you think the guys feel the same way?”

  “Of course,” I tell him without hesitation. “They’re worried about the team, but ultimately, you know they want you to do what’s going to serve you better. But you can’t pretend that this isn’t a big decision. You’ve been thinking about it, right? You know what you’re going to do, right?”

  Alec squirms in his seat and looks away.

  My mouth drops. “Shit. You don’t. Alec, what are you doing? Sign-Ups is tomorrow. I know you don’t have to decide by then, but after Sign-Ups is tryouts. By tryouts, you’re going to have to tell
Coach what you’re thinking, so he can do what’s best for the team.”

  His lips thin when he looks over at me. “You think I don’t know that?”

  I close my eyes. “I know you know that. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  He reaches over and grabs my hand, but we’re interrupted when the screen door opens and crashes closed again. We both know what that means. “Tessa!” Roberta yells.

  “We’ll talk about this later?” I ask.

  He nods, and we both push our car doors open and step out. Roberta wraps her arms around my legs and asks about my cast again. She asks about my wrist every time I see her now. I have to go for another x-ray next week. I’m not expecting them to take the cast off yet, but I’m interested to hear what the doctor has to say about its healing.

  “My mom’s making pot roast,” she says. “It’s so good. I hope you’ll like it.”

  “I’m sure I will,” I tell her. I can smell the savory taste floating outside the screen door. My mom and I aren’t great cooks. If anything, my mom got used to making plain chicken breast with sides of steamed veggies because of my dad, so I’m expecting to love this home-cooked meal.

  Alec moves ahead. He grabs the screen door and holds it open. “Well, come on in,” he says.

  I bite my lip as I approach the concrete steps. I haven’t been inside Alec’s house yet. I’m not exactly nervous. I really like his parents, and his sister is obviously adorable, but all these small steps are actually big steps. What if his parents see me at one of his games cozying up to Hayes? Are they going to get upset and think I’m cheating on him?

  “Hey, how was the game?” his mom calls out even before she looks around. She’s in front of a crockpot in the kitchen, stirring it. When she’s done, she sets the spoon down on the counter and finally turns.

  Alec smiles. “We won.”

  She grins right back at him. “Excellent.”

  I stand there as Alec gives her his stats, and I wonder if he does this with every game, even with basketball too.

  After he gives her the rundown, she turns to me. “I’m glad you could make it to dinner, Tessa. I was so sorry to hear about your wrist. I hope it’s healing okay.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek, wondering how much Alec told her. Did he share the fact that Lake did it on purpose? I highly doubt it. I think that’s one thing they’re keeping to themselves. After I answer her, she gives me a satisfied smile and tells me she hopes I recover as soon as possible. Then, she tells us that dinner will be another half hour or so and asks Alec to give me a tour of the house.

  He takes my hand, and we make our way into a living room. Roberta pads around behind us, but Mrs. Christopoulos calls out, “Stay with me, honey.”

  “Aww, Mom.”

  Then, I hear his mother whisper, “Let Alec spend some time with Tessa alone. You can talk to her at dinner.”

  “But Mom…”

  “No buts.”

  I chuckle as we move right past the living room to a set of stairs and begin to climb. The house is older, but comfortable. Sloan’s house is older in a more prestigious way. Alec’s house is just lived in. They may not have the newest countertops and the wood flooring is hidden by area rugs, but I smile at all the small touches. The hundreds of pictures, the knickknacks. It looks like the Christopoulos’s have made a lot of memories in this house.

  When we get up the stairs, I hear a shower running from the room to our far right. I’m sure it must be his father freshening up after having come home from work. Alec leads me in the other direction anyway to the bedroom at the end of the hall. The door is open, so we just walk right in. Things are a little haphazard. There are a few clothes on the floor, more magazines like I saw from the cabin he shared with Sloan and Hayes are on his dresser, but the best part of Alec’s room is the view. I’m drawn straight to the window. From this vantage point, there’s nothing but rolling green fields until the field butts up against a forest.

  He stands behind me, putting his hands on my waist. “I can’t believe you’re finally in my room.”

  I turn. “Oh yeah? You’ve been waiting for this?”

  He raises his eyebrows. “Um, yeah.” His green eyes sparkle a little. “What man doesn’t want his girl in his room?”

  “I guess you got a point there.” I move around him to catch all the other little details in his room that I didn’t notice before. There’s a good mix of both basketball and baseball captured in these four walls. When there are pictures of all the Ballers together, it’s basketball, and if it’s just Alec, it’s baseball. “Have you been playing baseball just as long as you’ve been playing basketball?” I ask.

  I sit down on the edge of his bed and look up at him. He shakes his head. “No, I’ve been playing basketball a lot longer. I didn’t join baseball until I was in middle school even though I’ve always enjoyed watching it on TV.”

  “I bet the guys had something to say about that.”

  He snickers. “They weren’t really worried about it back then. I mean, we were still little. We didn’t understand that all those things we talked about…you know, being the best, going to college together… We didn’t know we were actually capable of doing those things until we were Freshman. Then, things just got a lot more serious. Ryan was the first to knuckle down. That had a lot to do with Coach Bradley. We kind of just soared from there. Over the past three years, we made a name for ourselves.”

  He’s not kidding. They were always good, but since they hit high school, they’ve been phenomenal. Even as Freshman, they beat teams who were older than them, and by the end of their Freshman year, the Ballers were all starting instead of the seniors on the team. I heard about all of this through my dad. I remember him coming home completely surprised by the “five kids” at RHS. From then on, my dad taught me the importance of teamwork and teammates. He could see that it wasn’t one of them that was the breakout star, it was all of them together.

  No freaking wonder why the rest of the Ballers are freaking out. What if Alec leaves and their dynamic changes? What if he wants to go to a different college than them? What if they’re not as good without him?

  He sits down next to me on the bed. “What is it?”

  “I was just thinking how I can kind of understand why the others are freaking out wanting to know whether you’re going to play basketball or not.”

  He stares at the floor and scuffs the worn carpet with the tip of his shoe. “I get it. I always have, that’s why I didn’t want to tell them.”

  “Correction,” I said. “That’s why you were willing to forego your dream for them. You weren’t going to tell them about baseball at all, were you?”

  He shrugs. “Does it matter anymore? It’s out.”

  I hit his shoulder with mine. “Of course it matters. I want to hear how a big, tough basketball player treats his friends.”

  He smiles and shakes his head. “I’d do anything for those guys. You know that.”

  He says ‘guys’, and I wonder if Lake is under that umbrella still.

  “You can do both. You can play both basketball and baseball. You’ve been doing it all along.”

  “I know.”

  “But if you’re going to pick one, pick baseball, Alec. There’s no sense in living a lie. They wouldn’t want that.”

  He peeks up at me. “Have they told you that?”

  I shake my head. “I haven’t spoken to them about it. No, I don’t know why, so don’t ask. I think they worry about bringing it up because if they do, they know you’ll be making a decision soon, and they’re so afraid of what you might pick.”

  He rubs the back of his neck. “It’s not like I can’t play basketball.”

  I agree with him there. He can, I just don’t know if he should. For his sake. There are so many reasons not to. It’s not that players can’t play two sports at a top-notch level, but the more intense the sport gets, the more it’s not worth the risk. It’s the Ballers’ senior year. We’re about to get as intense as it can
get. They’re going to want to go out Champions.

  With Lake being an asshole and Alec undecided, this puts a lot of pressure on the rest of the guys. Me, too. I want to finally win one for myself. I want the playing time and the accolades.

  My wrist throbs as I think this, and I unconsciously cradle it in front of me. “Does it hurt?” Alec immediately asks.

  “I think it’s more in my mind,” I tell him, frowning down at the purple. It’s faded a little.

  His cheeks hollow out as he thinks. “Part of me doesn’t want to play because maybe you’ll get to start then,” he admits.

  I turn toward him. “I’m going to earn my own spot on the team, Alec. Don’t make your decision based on me.”

  “I knew you were going to say that.”

  Footsteps sound outside the door. His dad leans in, his hair freshly wet but combed. “Hey, you two.” He takes in our position on the bed, but only casually. “I have it on good authority that we’ll be eating soon.”

  “I can’t wait,” I tell him. “It smells delicious.”

  He beams at that. “My wife’s an excellent cook.” He stands there, and then I see Alec lifting his eyebrows at him, so his dad says, “Right. Okay, I’ll call up when it’s done.”

  When he leaves, whistling down the hall, Alec shakes his head. He turns toward me, his hand reaching up to cup my face. “I don’t want to talk about sports right now. Can I do just one thing before we get interrupted again?”

  “What’s that?” I ask, watching as the playfulness in his green eyes leaves and is replaced with something far darker.

  “This.”

  He leans over, capturing my lips in his. His usual excitement after a game is there, but it’s like he’s being held back with restraints. The restraints are probably his family and being in a room with the door wide open, but the emotion is the same. I’m drawn in right away, molding my body to his, drinking him up, until I hear his father calling us to the table for dinner a few minutes later.