They shouldn’t be looking at those legs. Those are my legs. It’s killing me that I haven’t tasted what’s between them yet.
I focus on controlling my breathing and staying put on the benches. Running over there and dragging her away like a caveman isn’t going to do me any good in the long run so I concentrate on staying rooted to the bench. I’m squeezing the metal bench so hard that it burns my knuckles as I watch her bend over while she stretches.
There must be about twenty young girls on the field but I don’t take my eyes off of Brooklyn. Even for a second.
I watch the entire practice and get increasingly agitated whenever I see the assistant coach go near her. He looks a bit younger than me and is a little too familiar with the girls for my liking.
His touches linger a little too long and the way he keeps glancing at their asses has me cracking my knuckles in anticipation.
When his hand slides down Brooklyn’s arm, I can’t take it anymore. I leap off the metal bench and charge over with my hands squeezed into fists.
Brooklyn sees me stomping onto the field and rushes over to meet me.
“What are you doing here?”
I try to step around her, but she blocks my way. I’m staring over her head at the assistant coach who suddenly spots me. I’m giving him a look that would send a grizzly bear fleeing and he turns a deathly pale. He knows what’s coming next.
“Please stop,” she says as she places her palm on my chest. The anger just rushes out of me with one touch. How can she do that to me so easily? Soothe me with a few soft words and a gentle touch. “Look at me.”
I look down at her gorgeous face and swallow hard. Her golden blonde hair is in a ponytail and the flawless skin on her neck has a sheen of sweat coating it that I just want to lick off and taste.
“Why did you run off again?” I ask her.
Her cheeks start to turn an adorable shade of pink. I love it when she blushes like that.
“I was nervous,” she says in a shy voice. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”
My chin raises in hope. “Like what?”
“Like that. Like anything like that.”
“Are you a virgin?”
Her eyes widen for a second when I say the word and suddenly she’s staring at the grass between us. “Yeah.” She shifts her weight from foot to foot. “Does that mean you’re not going to be interested in me anymore?”
I gently take her chin in my hand and lift it up until her blue eyes are back on mine. “I’ve never wanted you more. No one has ever tempted me like you have. I’ve been going nuts the past few days thinking about you every waking second.”
Her cherry red lips curl up into a smile. “Really?”
“Yeah. Really. I can’t get the image of your pretty pink pussy out of my mind. I’ve never seen lips so pink before.”
She licks her lips as she watches me with excitement in her eyes. “I’ve been thinking about you too.”
My thoughts are filthy. I’m thinking of bending her over right here and claiming her ripe cunt so the whole fucking school can see that she’s mine.
When I do take her, it’s going to be unprotected with my raw cock. I’m going to slide into that ripe teenage pussy and unload buckets of cum inside her until I’m sure that cunt is nice and bred.
Only then will I be able to breathe again.
“Excuse me!” It’s the assistant coach. He’s walking over and I was so distracted with the angel in front of me that I didn’t notice him approaching. Well, he’s got my attention now and he’s going to regret it.
My eyes harden as I glare at him.
“You’re not allowed to be here.”
“You’re welcome to try and make me leave.”
He recoils in shock and quickly looks me up and down with wide eyes. He gulps and then turns to Brooklyn with a look of indignation on his face.
“Do you know this man?” he asks.
“You don’t talk to her,” I say in words that come out more like a snarl. “Ever.”
He takes a step back and looks like he’s about to piss his pants.
“Get out of here or I’ll call the police,” he says before turning to my girl. “Brooklyn. Let’s go.”
Brooklyn looks up at me and gives me a soft smile. “It’s okay. He’s not worth it. Just go home and I’ll come see you after. I promise.”
I take one last fiery glance at the assistant coach and then exhale long and hard. If I stay here any longer I’ll be spending the night in jail instead of in Brooklyn where I belong.
“Alright,” I hiss through clenched teeth.
She slides her fingertips down my stomach and blows me a kiss as she jogs back to the bench. Her ass looks so hot in those shorts. I hope she’s wearing them when she comes over.
The assistant coach is about to put his hand on her lower back as she jogs past him, but a feral sound rolls out from deep in my chest and his hand drops real quick.
It takes a predator to know one and I know that this guy is no good.
I don’t want him anywhere near those sexy legs again.
So I wait.
I’m sitting on the benches at a boy’s lacrosse game that’s going on nearby Brooklyn’s soccer practice. The crowd of parents and students are going nuts around me, but I’m not watching any of it. My eyes are fixated on Brooklyn and the assistant coach in the distance.
I breathe a little easier when I watch her get on her bike and ride away. Normally, I’d want to follow her home and make sure that nobody touches her or takes her, but I have other business to attend to.
I slip out of the crowd and start following the assistant coach as he walks over to the school with a huge bag of soccer balls slung over his shoulder.
He disappears into a side door, which leads into the gym. The image of him with his pervy hands on Brooklyn is running through my fuming head on a loop as I catch the door before it closes. I watch him walk across the squeaky floor and then open the large storage room. He starts whistling as he messes around in there.
I’m wondering what else he’s touched of my girl as I quietly creep across the gymnasium and sneak into the storage room. The thought of him with his hands on Brooklyn throughout the years, touching her, caressing her, making her uncomfortable causes a flush of heat to barrel through my seething body.
There’s one bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, swinging side to side like a dead man in a noose. It casts harsh light and shadows on the scuffed up sports equipment all around us.
I quietly close the door and then slide the lock closed. He jumps around like a startled animal when he hears the click.
“Get out of here!” he shouts at me. He’s trying to act bold, but I can see through his pathetic veneer. His face is turning as white as his shirt and I can see his hands starting to tremble. He looks around in a panic and then grabs a baseball bat off the rack.
I just stare at him, breathing in and out as he holds it up in warning.
“I saw you touching my property,” I say in a low controlled voice.
“What?” His voice is shaky. High-pitched. He’s in over his head and he knows it. I’m not an innocent little teenage girl who doesn’t know how to fight back. I’m not a helpless little deer in the wild. I’m a wolf like him, only I have bigger teeth.
“Brooklyn. She’s mine. She belongs to me.”
He’s breathing fast as he squeezes the bat with sweaty hands. “They’re all little sluts. They all like it when I touch them. Especially Brooklyn.”
A vicious pounding fills my ears as unending surges of adrenaline flow through my veins. My eyes widen and then narrow on him as my hands clench and then unclench at my sides.
I’ll kill him for that. I don’t care about the consequences. I need to see his blood. I need to see this threat to my girl crushed.
I step forward with my pulse running rampant. I don’t care if he has a bat. I don’t care if he has a gun, or a whole fucking army in front of him—he’s going to pa
y for that.
I swore I’d do anything to protect my Brooklyn and I had creeps and perverts like him in mind when I did.
He swings the bat with a grunt when I approach. I grit my teeth and flex my arm, absorbing the hard blow on my bicep. It’s going to hurt later, but I’m in such a rage that I barely feel it.
His eyes widen in panic when I grab the bat and yank it out of his hands. I’m not using this.
I toss it behind me and it bounces on the floor with a clatter. I’m going to use my hands for this guy. We’re going to get nice and personal.
I throw a hard jab and my knuckles smash into his mouth. He stumbles backward with a whimper and falls onto the bag of soccer balls. They bounce and roll out everywhere as I leap on him.
“Who likes it the best?” I ask, snarling in his face as I grab his collar. “What did you say about my Brooklyn?”
He puts his shaky hands up in front of his bloody face. “Nothing! I’m sorry!”
I yank him closer until he can feel the fury on my breath. “Which hand did you touch her with?”
“I didn’t!” His eyes are squeezed shut. He’s shaking his head. Sobbing. Weeping. Pathetic.
“Which. Hand?”
I punch him hard in the teeth when he doesn’t answer.
“Don’t make me ask you again. Which hand?”
He turns his pathetic head away as he lifts up his trembling right hand.
I drop him, letting him fall to the ground as I stand up. I tower over him.
He opens his watery eyes and lets out a sob as he looks up at me.
Now he can know what it feels like to be helpless. To be under someone else’s mercy.
Too bad for him, I don’t have any mercy.
“Put your hand on the ground.” My voice is calm and steady. My heart is beating at a leisurely pace for the first time since I saw Brooklyn. Protecting her is what I was made to do. This is what I was made to do.
He slowly puts his trembling hand on the dirty tiled floor and looks up at me with a pleading face. “Please,” he whimpers. “Please don’t.”
“You crossed the line when you went near her,” I tell him. “This will make sure you never cross it again.”
I stomp on his hand so hard that it crunches. He screams and wails as he brings his mangled hand to his chest and clutches it.
“You going to touch any girls again?” I ask in a low voice.
“No!” he yells out in a sob.
“You going to touch my Brooklyn?”
He’s shaking his head viciously from side to side. “No. Never.”
“Good. Because I’ll be watching, and next time, I’ll cut your fucking hand off.”
He chokes back a sob and widens his eyes as I come in nice and close to him.
“And if I see these pervy little eyes looking at what’s mine again, I’ll take them too. Understand?”
He swallows down a gulp and nods.
“Say it.”
“Yes. I understand.”
My eyes narrow on him as I stand back up. “Remember,” I say as I step back toward the door. “I’ll be watching.”
He clutches his broken hand and never takes his terrified eyes off me as I slip out the door.
Six
Brooklyn
Mom is drunk again when I get home from soccer practice. She’s passed out on the couch with two bottles of wine on the table. One is empty on its side and the other has a couple of sips left at the bottom. I’m impressed. It’s not like mom to leave a bottle of alcohol unfinished.
I open a couple of windows to try and air out the rank smell and then turn the TV off before heading into the kitchen. It’s a mess as usual. How can a kitchen with hardly any food in it always be so messy? It doesn’t make sense. But then again, not a whole lot makes sense when it comes to my mother.
The fridge has hardly anything in it. Some mustard, a bottle of Vodka that’s almost finished, a plate that has something funky growing on it—not much in terms of nourishment.
I’ll grab something at the sandwich shop on the corner. The man who works there is so sweet and he usually gives me some grilled veggies on the side for free. He knows my mother and he’s never said anything, but I think he feels bad about my situation.
My room is off the kitchen in our small little place. It’s basically the small cot I’ve had my entire life and a night table. What little clothes I have are kept under the bed in bins.
I take a quick shower and get ready for my night with Carter. I put my cherry red lipstick on that I know he likes and a white summer dress with a pattern of yellow flowers on it that I got last year for my cousin’s wedding. I bought it secondhand and it’s a little bit worn through, but hopefully, Carter will like it.
My stomach growls by the time I’m ready and I open my night table to get my stash of babysitting money that I’ve collected. I keep having to dip into it to buy food and last month I had to pay the landlord when my mother came up short so I only have a little over a hundred dollars. I just need enough for a sandwich.
“No…” My stomach drops when I open my pencil case and see that it’s empty. She took everything. I should have known, there were about a dozen new bottles on the counter. She had to find that money somewhere.
I storm out of my room and glance at the calendar on the fridge as I make my way to the couch.
“Mom!” I yell as I shake her hard. She just groans. “Mom! Wake up!”
It takes a few minutes but I finally get her conscious. She winces as she sits up and it’s not ten seconds before she grabs the almost empty bottle of wine and downs the rest of it.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” I ask as I stare at her with my arms crossed over my chest.
She works part-time in a diner as a waitress. It’s a miracle she’s still managed to hold onto the job this long.
“No,” she says before taking another swig of the empty bottle, trying to get every last drop. “It’s Wednesday.”
“It’s Friday,” I correct. “You’re supposed to be working.”
“Shit.” She sighs as she reaches for her pack of cigarettes and pulls one out. I watch as she lights it and takes a long drag. “I’ll just tell them you got in a car accident or something.”
“Great,” I mutter under my breath. “Any change from my babysitting money that you spent?”
She pulls another long drag on her smoke as she stares at the TV that’s turned off. “I’ll pay you back next time.”
“Next time what? You ditch work?”
Her bloodshot eyes narrow on me. “If I knew you were going to grow up to be a snotty little bitch I would have taken care of you like your father begged me to.”
“Nice mom,” I say as I shake my head. “Enjoy your bottles that I paid for. It should be enough to last you the night.”
“Yeah, yeah, miss perfect,” she mutters as she turns away and sucks on her cigarette.
I grab my purse and leave.
“Where are you going?” she calls out as I open the door.
“Babysitting. At least one of us has to work.”
She says something nasty, but I don’t stop to listen as I shut the door and hurry over to my bike. I get on and start pedaling fast down the street. The warm breeze hits my face as the summer evening sun warms my shoulders. I feel better with every inch that I get away from that house.
I’m sick of living like this. Sick of living with her.
I push my mother out of my mind and focus on Carter. A smile creeps across my face when I remember my soccer practice. I couldn’t believe he came to see me. The other girls teased me after and some even said that he was too old for me, but they don’t what he’s like to be around. If they only go for boys their own age, then they don’t know what they’re missing.
It’s exciting and thrilling to be around him. It feels dangerous and naughty. It’s like being around a tiger. It’s fun to pet him, but in the back of your mind, you know that he could just pounce at any second and devour you whole.
I’m intrigued by him. Lately, he’s been on my mind non-stop. My feelings are growing beyond lust, but I realize that I don’t really know anything about him. He could have a girlfriend or even be married. I want him more than anything, but I won’t be a side dish.
My mother was a side dish and it broke her. For a decade, my worthless father strung her along while he took care of his real family in Chicago.
Three beautiful kids and a pretty little wife. They were the good family. The good family got him on holidays and on weekend mornings when he made pancakes into funny little shapes with real maple syrup poured all over them. He took the good family on road trips and vacations to see Europe when all I got to see was their happy pictures. The five of them smiling in front of the Eiffel Tower, smiling in front of the Parthenon, smiling as they held up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Always smiling. Smiling, smiling, smiling.
He was always proud to show off his good family. Us? Not so much.
We were the bad family. The trash he kept hidden.
We got him when he told his good family that he had to get away for business. Two days one month. Three days another. Some months nothing. Most months nothing. Always mid-week. Always awkward.
His oldest kid is older than me so I always figured that he was already married when he met my mother. A one night stand that went horribly wrong.
I was the thing that went horribly wrong.
My mom always drank, but it got really bad when the wife—the good wife—found out about us and he stopped coming around.
Him and his perfect smiling family can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.
I’ll never be like my mother. I’ll never be the side dish.
If I can’t have Carter all to myself, then I’ll end it. Whatever ‘it’ is.
I ride through my shitty part of town and finally get into the nice part where there are big green trees that tower over the street like they’re watching over and protecting the residents below.
I pass one expensive car and big house after another, wishing that one day I could live like this. I know just who I would like to share it with.
Mine Page 3