by Jordan Grant
Raven grabs Vixson’s hand and brings his hand up to her lips to kiss his knuckles. She gazes at him wistfully, her free hand reaching up to knock a beat against her heart. He mirrors the movement, and my entire body grows heavy as my heart aches for what they have.
I peel my eyes away from them. We follow a steady line of students and faculty walking toward the football field. In daytime, the stadium is the place I associate with gym class and punishing sprints around the field. At night, the stadium lives and breathes through the crowd. Tall lights circle the bleachers, nearly blinding in their intensity. The place even smells different, the aroma of cooking meat and fried foods lingering in the air.
By the time we arrive, the crowd roars in the bleachers. The game has already begun. I don’t know much about football, but I know a lot about junk food. I load up with a basket of poutine, an assortment of candy, and a coke.
Raven and Vixson wait for me, but they don’t buy anything. They only have appetites for each other, devouring one another’s mouths and making gross smacking noises.
There’s something potent about the game with the crowd cheering, the music blaring, and the white lights shining down onto the impossibly green field. We find three seats open in front of the thirty-yard line. I sit there, entranced by the beauty and the brutality as it unfolds.
— Ian —
My fingers skim over the thread of the ball as Coach waves us onto the field. I brush the hair plastered to my forehead aside and strap my helmet back on, inhaling the scent of sweat and freshly cut grass embedded in the plastic. As I jog to my position, the cheerleaders start the crowd in a cheer.
“Let’s go, Vikings! Let’s go!”
Clap! Clap!
I hand the ball to the best damn centerback you’ve ever seen, Davenport, and take position behind him. I dial down the noise until all I hear is the steady push of my breath between my lips. I wink at Everett at my side. He winks right back. Cheeky bastard. The front line of the Ironfleet Prep. Commanders exchange concerned looks before the veil falls.
They have good reason to be concerned. I have a reputation for my game face. I give nothing away, just like my father taught me a man never should. I lock eyes with their center defensive tackle and blow him a kiss. His lips retreat into his gums before he blows me a kiss back. I smile.
Game on, girls. I’m about to rock your world.
Coach will kill me for this audible. He prefers the safe route, but we need a big play to win this game. Overtime is the cautious choice, tied with twenty seconds left on the clock. I’ll take my chances.
“Blue 85 on one!” I call, my voice loud and clear. “Blue 85 on one! Ready! Hut!”
The ball passes from Davenport to me like water pouring from a faucet. Everett goes down, but he takes a maroon-and-gold Commander with him.
My gaze skirts the field. Archie is in a game of which-way-to-go with an Ironfleet linebacker. Patton flies backward into the air with a tackle from the Vikings’ largest player.
Adrenaline explodes in my veins, my breath coming in shallow puffs as my entire body trembles. The stadium lights are brighter, the colors on the field more pronounced.
The Ironfleet center barrels forward, his icy gaze locked on me. Davenport throws out an arm like a traffic cop, stopping the center’s fingers about two inches from my chest. Chase breaks free of the line and sprints toward the end zone.
As I heave my arm behind me, ball in hand, I greedily inhale the scent of the game.
Sweat and leather and lawn, buttery popcorn and cotton candy and hamburgers sweating on the grill.
I close my eyes as the ball leaves my hand, and when I open them, I watch as it sails over the heads of my brothers. Off to my right, an Ironfleet linebacker takes down Archie and slams him to the field.
Chase bounds forward, his arms pumping at his sides and his cleats barely touching the field. He runs like a man trying to escape death. Only him, me, Davenport, and two Commanders on his heels are left standing.
That’s how we play. We give it all to the gridiron.
Time slows, my heart lurching into my throat, as Chase leaps into the air, his feet still poised to resume running as he flies over the painted line into the end zone. His fingers stretch toward the ball. It skims his fingers as he stumbles and falls to the field in a blur of limbs and his naval-blue-and-silver Voclain uniform. He lands on his back, and I lurch forward, my heart ricocheting inside my chest. He raises his hand as he lays there, and the crowd roars. The breath trapped in my chest erupts from my lips. Chase holds the ball.
“And the Vikings win!” the announcer shouts into the intercom.
Archie stumbles to his feet and sends me an aye-aye captain salute. Heaving with each breath, Everett slaps my back. Chase scrambles to stand and does a little dance in a fast circle. When he stops, he holds his hands out and shouts something, but I can’t hear his words, his grin wild and a little manic.
I smile, even though to be honest, it wasn’t our best game. As always, Coach makes us shake hands in the name of sportsmanship.
The crowd mingles, some clapping and calling down onto the field. Aurora stares at me before she returns her attention to some douche dressed in a polo with his collar popped and a pair of skinny jeans.
She thinks she is making me jealous, bending over the chain-link fence so that her cheerleader skirt threatens to show her ass. Normally, I would play along, at least to the extent it benefited me, but I don’t feel up to it. Instead, I head for the lockers, Archie at my side.
It is fucking hot, and although I’ve already taken off my helmet, I stop walking long enough to yank off my gear until I am naked from the waist up. Archie, of course, sees it as a competition, and tears off his jersey and shoulder pads like they are on fire.
“Good game, brother,” he says, slapping me on the ass—hard.
“Thanks. You too, man.” I just want to get a shower and go to my room and avoid whatever afterparty Aurora will try to drag me to.
Archie elbows me, catching me in between the ribs. I grimace. “Thank Christmas cookies, your dad wasn’t here. No play-by-plays with ol’ man Beckett about how you fucked up.”
I don’t answer, but he’s got a good point. My dad treats football as a business opportunity, and that means making sure his son plays very well.
The adrenaline still sings in my blood. My hands tremble like I am itching to punch something. This is always the hardest part of the game, the withdrawal. I am sweating and shaking like a drunk after a bad bender. We turn, passing the concession stand closing up shop, and I see her.
Stormy leans against the stone wall to the locker rooms, her arms crossed below her breasts, which push the ivory mounds even higher. She is normally a thief, constantly stealing my breath away, but she just gained a new line on her rap sheet, attempted murder because she’s heart-attack inducing.
She sucks on a lollipop, and although she doesn’t see us and certainly isn’t doing it for me, it’s like I am watching my own personal fantasy. Her lips curl around the candy when she pulls it out of her mouth as if she’s reluctant to lose the sugary taste. I swear I hear the pop when the lollipop escapes, even though that’s crazy because I am too far away.
Archie groans beside me. I mirror the sentiment. I want to hike up that dress of hers and plunge into her. I want to fuck her so that everyone can see she is mine.
Her hair hangs in loose waves down past her shoulders. The dress she wears is painted to her chest and flares out at the bottom. It isn’t a short, slutty thing like most of the girls around here would choose. She looks relaxed, not like her thong rides up her ass or she’s worried her boobs might make a guest appearance.
She has got the flat of her foot planted against the building, her knee bent, and a calm, insouciant expression on her face.
“Fuck,” Archie breathes as we stalk toward her, “you can ride me around the carousel anytime, gorgeous.”
She can’t hear us. We are still a little too far away for that, but
I know she feels my gaze. She stops looking at the crowd filtering out of the stadium and snaps her attention to us.
I know what she sees. The hard edges of my pecs above a lean abdomen, the lines even more defined by the tan I have from summer. Sweat glistens on my face and down my chest to flatten the black trail of hair that begins below my belly button, disappearing into my field-stained pants. Archie walks beside me, looking like a blonde angel. Her mouth parts as she stares at us, and I can imagine all sorts of naughty things to do with her red, candy-stained lips.
My cock jumps at the thought.
I am distracted, lost in the endless skies of her irises when Archie jogs ahead of me, waving at her. She smiles, and when I realize it’s not directed at me, but at him, my monster roars. I want to kick him in the balls and beat him bloody.
I clench my fists at my sides as he calls, “How did you like the game, beautiful?”
She shrugs, sucking her lollipop before taking it out to say, “I didn’t understand a thing, but congratulations. I think you won.”
Archie laughs, and it’s not the fake laugh he gives other girls. I can tell. He throws his arms around her and drags her against his sweaty self, but she doesn’t complain. She just lets out an oomph, her cheeks burning bright red.
Sparks explode on the peripheral of my vision, and I barrel forward. I jerk Archie back by the hem of his pants and glare at Stormy. She is flushed, her cheeks painted with warmth. Her gaze is wide, round, and dazed.
I am going to kill him. I am going to kill him! I am going to...
The universe melts to blackness. All I hear is her quick breath and the whisper of my name across her stained lips. All I smell is her, apple pie and candy. All I see is her, hair the color of white lightening and a splattering of freckles across her nose.
I can’t take it. My teeth clack together with a collision that delivers an invisible blade straight through my jaw. My fingers bite into my palms as every muscle on me goes taut. My control splinters and then shatters completely.
I seize Stormy’s hand and yank her into the locker room, slamming the door in Archie’s face and locking the deadbolt.
“What are you doing?” she half-shrieks, wrenching free of me. “Do I need to buy you a dictionary so you know what the word no means?”
She throws her hands in the air and scoffs, but when I take a step forward, she doesn’t take one back. She is in my face, shoving me with both hands, and I teeter on my heels from the hit. She’s thrown me off kilter. How fucking appropriate.
“I swear,” she growls, her glare frigid, “you are the most frustrating, most annoying, most…”
I take one step forward, slam my mouth against hers, and devour her words. She tastes like a cherry lollipop, and I run my tongue inside her warm mouth, feeding on the sweetness.
Stormy freezes against me, but she doesn’t push me away, and that’s all the acceptance I need. I lift her up, my hands cupping her ass. She wraps her legs around me automatically, her thighs impossibly soft against the bare skin of my abdomen. Her hands dive into my hair as I back her against the row of lockers.
Her back hits the metal with a clang, a little sigh escaping her lips. She’s so soft against me, pliable, her breasts crushed against my chest. She’s cool against my hot, sweat-slick skin.
I touch every inch of her I can reach, her knees and up her legs to where her dress bunches at her abdomen, her freckled arms and over the swell of her breasts and across her collarbone, up her neck and down her jaw, every-fucking-where.
She mewls, and I feel the purr inside her throat beneath my lingering fingers. My dick is hard, painfully so, under my jock strap, but I can’t adjust and break the contact. I can’t stop touching her.
Archie pounds on the door, shouting to be let in, but I ignore him.
I rip away from her only when my knees threaten to buckle from the lack of oxygen.
“Be mine,” I breathe, my words kissing her lips. “Stop all this shit. It’s killing me. I know it’s killing you too.”
A sound, a cross between a roar and a yell, escapes her throat, and she shoves me away, plummeting to the floor on her ass.
“I don’t know why,” she snarls as she picks herself up from the hard tile, “I ever thought you could learn to just be nice! Why can’t you be decent to her?!”
I stare at her, and the rage, the confusion boils over. I am helpless as it falls like water on a hot burner, combusting into sizzles and steam.
“Don’t you get it?” I shout, my voice cracking at the end. “You are ripping me apart! When you came into my life, you tore me open, Harlow.” I point to the dead center of my chest, stabbing myself there repeatedly. “I’m still fucking bleeding over here.”
She looks at me, tears running in tiny rivulets down her flushed face, her hair wild and untamed. She opens her mouth to say something, her lips swollen from our kiss, but no words escape her mouth.
She turns on her heel and rushes past me, unlocking the door and shoving it open in one fluid motion. I watch as she barrels past my waiting teammates and disappears from view.
13
Ian
It’s another Monday. The weekend dragged on like a bad hangover, only I didn’t drink. Stormy was my poison, and I’m in writhing agony since she made me go cold-turkey on Friday.
I’m pissed off. I’m annoyed. I’m disappointed I let her down, and that pisses me off even more.
I want to punch something. Scratch that. I want to pound my fists until my knuckles split open and bleed, until I can see the white of the bone and the pain swallows up this misery.
I glance up from my half-eaten plate, my eyes scrolling languidly as I take in the chattering students, the waiters clearing plates and refilling drinks, and a clock that counts down to my next temporary distraction.
Across the table, Archie’s face is tinted blue by his iPhone. He hasn’t said a word to me, and lunch is almost over. A passing waiter attempts to take Archie’s untouched plate, and Archie snaps a hand around the waiter’s wrist to stop him.
I roll my eyes. Since when does Archie put anything before food? He’s the human equivalent of a garbage disposal. He eats like 10,000 calories a day. Of course, he runs it off with the rest of us every night, but still, I’ve seen him devour a bag of Big Macs like he’s got one minute to eat until the comet hits and blows everything to shit. He is a walking advertisement for how to clog your arteries and develop Type 2 diabetes.
But here he is, just staring at his stupid fucking phone.
“Archie,” I snap, when he gives no sign of noticing my stare, “what the fuck are you looking at?”
Archie flashes me a quick smile. By my count, at least five of his female admirers swoon in our direction. Jesus, the least Ivy could do is scare them off.
“No, brother,” Archie says, grinning down at his phone. “No way am I sharing this. I call keepsies for me-sies.”
The last of my patience spontaneously combusts. I lurch across the table and snatch his phone. Archie tries to steal it back, but I swat his hand away.
“If it’s porn again,” I deadpan, “we’re sending you to rehab.”
I don’t actually care if it is porn. He could literally watch furry hentai, and I wouldn’t give a shit, but if I can’t bust up someone’s face, the least I can do is bust his balls.
Archie laughs. “I don’t need that anymore, brother.”
Ivy beams at him as she passes the table and lays a manicured claw on his shoulder. She thinks he’s talking about her. I know better.
I look down at the phone and see Stormy’s smiling face looking back at me. She is sitting in a classroom, her cheeks ruddy and laughter sparking in her eyes. She’s fucking breathtaking, and the picture does just that, steals the oxygen from my lungs before I remember why I am seeing it.
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
As Ivy continues on her way, no doubt going to touch up her makeup before her next class, I glare at Archie. Everett’s gaze darts between us, and
even Chase looks on edge, which is very un-like Chase.
“Why the fuck do you have a picture of Stormy?” I hiss.
Archie shrugs as if he didn’t just commit the bro-code version of genocide. “She’s my partner in lab. Sometimes she’ll let me take a pic. I tell her it’s for the yearbook, except that one time when I definitely told her I was going to jack off to it.” He snorts. “You should have seen her face. She turned soooo red,” he points at his nose, “and did this funny twitching thing.”
“THERE’S MORE THAN ONE?” I nearly explode. I’m ignoring the jacking off part. I can only handle one mother-fucking problem at a time.
I don’t know if Archie answers. My monster roars, deafening everything else. A quick flick of my thumb over his screen confirms it. There’s at least a dozen pictures of her, and some are of the two of them wearing safety goggles and making silly faces.
“She’s mine,” I snap, my fingers threatening to crush the phone. “There are rules.”
“Dude, the Rules don’t say anything about whether I can date her.” He raises his hand like he’s innocent. “You never had a problem with a good competition before.”
My hand slams against the table, and my palm stings. “I called dibs!”
Fuck. I sound like a pussy.
“Bro,” Archie says, staring at me. He blinks slowly, like he just doesn’t get why we aren’t on the same page, “you did that because you couldn’t stand the idea of anyone else even touching her. Noble, but dumb. Really dumb.” He looks over his shoulder, scanning the cafeteria. “Now where’s that delicious blonde brownie?”
I am going to murder him. I am going to wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until he stops twitching.
Everett barely catches me as I lunge across the table.
— Harlow —
I kneel next to Molly, whose sitting on the floor outside of the Administration building, victim to another one of Finn Berkshire’s torments.