AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Because I was in trouble. Because I messed up at Academy training.
I showed my weakness and they were on to me.
I was slow and distracted, screwing up left, right, and center all morning until Coach hauled my ass off the pitch and into the office. He demanded to know what was wrong with me.
My problem was simple.
I couldn’t move right. My body was falling apart. And my head was stuck on a girl.
Lying through my teeth, I managed to talk my way out of the danger zone and avoid more scans and tests, but still ended up being dismissed from training early and told to come back next week with a clear head.
Un-fucking-likely.
Depressed and demoralized, I drove around for hours, trying to get a handle on my head.
My body I could do nothing about, but my head?
I needed to get my head in the game.
Problem was, I left it with Shannon Lynch.
All my great plans of forgetting about her flew clean out the window the minute she marched her tiny arse up to me at school last Wednesday and demanded to talk. I was so fucking bowled over, I could do nothing but stand there, gaping like an eejit at the pint-sized girl pulling on every single one of my strings.
If that wasn’t bad enough, she went and blew my goddamn mind to pieces by apologizing to me.
I wasn’t expecting it and I didn’t deserve it.
I wasn’t thick.
I knew I handled it badly with her. I knew I overreacted.
If she’d given me half a minute to work through my thoughts, I would have put her straight. But she didn’t. Instead, she walked away from me—again—and hadn’t looked in my direction at school since.
A part of me thought it might be for the best. If she kept avoiding me, like I knew I needed to avoid her, then maybe I could make it through this weird phase and forget about her. But then I was hit with the stinging pang of bitter regret in my chest when she brushed past me in the hallway without a second glance, her coconut-scented shampoo hitting my senses like a wrecking ball, and I knew that wasn’t going to work for me.
There was nothing forgettable about the girl, and I found myself gravitating toward her, wanting to find her looking at me, and then growing frustrated when she didn’t. Knowing that I would listen to whatever she had to say, whenever she wanted to say it, regardless of time or inconvenience, was a frightening concept.
All week, I found myself moping around the place, not listening to a single word any of my teachers spurted. I couldn’t concentrate on a damn thing, and it was all her fault. Furious at myself for being so stupid and letting a virtual stranger screw me up like this, I forced her to the back of my mind, blasted my car stereo to the maximum, and tried to drown her out.
When I arrived home after training, Gibsie was sitting on the back porch waiting for me and I immediately regretted texting him that four-page rant about mind-fucking girls last night.
“We are going on the lash,” he announced the minute I stepped out of the car.
“No.” Shaking off his hand when I reached the back door, I pushed it open and stepped aside for him to pass. “We’re not.”
“Yes,” he argued, sauntering into my house. “We fucking are.”
Holding the back door open, I let out a whistle and waited for my girl to come running. Waddling out of the garage, Sookie hurried toward me.
“Good girl,” I cooed, encouraging her to hurry her arse up before the other two dogs noticed.
Reaching down, I helped her up the step before quickly closing the door again.
“I’m really not up for it tonight,” I explained, walking through the kitchen to the hallway with Sookie at my legs. “You go ahead, though. I’ll hang here.”
“You’re not spending another Saturday night alone in the manor,” Gibsie argued, following after me. “You’re coming out with me.”
Gibsie referred to my house as the manor—had done so since our fucked friendship had been formed in sixth class of primary school and I brought the eejit home to play PlayStation. He knew it annoyed the shite out of me, so he kept it going.
