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I peeled out of my sweaty uniform and threw it in my gym bag, before grabbing a towel and heading for the showers. The water felt like heaven, sluicing over my aching, overworked muscles. I stuck my head under the jet and ran my hand down my face.
There was every chance Coach would start Monroe next Friday. He was the guy to beat. The guy I had to dethrone. If my surname wasn’t Thatcher, I would have done that in our first week of practice. I was the better player. My stats said so and so did my performance on the field. But it wasn’t that simple.
Turning off the shower, I grabbed my towel and dried my body, then secured it around my waist. When I got back to the bench, Bryan and Gav were sitting there looking as grim as fuck.
“What?” I barked, reaching into my locker to get my clothes.
“Shit, man. We tried to stop them.”
“What?” Anger pulsed through me as I pulled out my t-shirt and saw the black marker ink scrawled across the front.
“Like father, like son.” My teeth ground together so hard it felt like I might crack enamel.
“Monroe?”
Bryan nodded. “But he’s not—”
I was across the locker room in seconds, my arm pressed against Monroe’s throat as he glared at me. “You think that shit’s funny?”
“Seemed pretty funny to me.” He snorted, but the blood quickly drained from his face when I pressed my arm harder against his windpipe.
“Wrong d-decision,” he spluttered, as his guys crowded around us.
“It’s your funeral,” one of them said.
My eyes narrowed to thin slits as red-hot fury licked my insides.
I wasn’t my dad.
I wasn’t anything like him.
And yet…
Fuck.
Immediately releasing Monroe, I stepped back, running a hand down my face. “Don’t touch my shit again.”
“You’re a liability, Thatcher,” he called after me. “You know it. I know it. We all fucking know it.”
I slipped on my hoodie, forgoing the ruined t-shirt, and zipped it up.
“Thatch, man, we didn’t—”
“You coming or not?” I asked, grabbing my bags and hauling ass out of the locker room. Before I did something fucking stupid like putting my fist through Monroe’s face.
Bryan and Gav caught up with me as I reached the parking lot. We usually rode together so I expected them to follow. But I couldn’t be in that locker room with that smug asshole for another second.
“Monroe is an asshole,” Bryan said.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t change the fact he’s not going to let this thing go.”
I’d gotten into a fight last season, a big one. It had made the local news. I wish I could say it wasn’t my fault, but the fact was, it was. I’d landed a two-game suspension, and I’d missed my chance with the scouts from Alabama. It was a clusterfuck. But I’d pulled back the season in a record-beating turnaround. I was hoping it was enough to get the nod from Alabama, but it never came, so everything was riding on senior year.
Every-fucking-thing.
“You could talk to Coach—” My head whipped up and Bryan rubbed the back of his neck. “Guess that isn’t an option.”
“Just keep doing what you’re doing, man,” Gav said. “He’s trying to get a rise out of you. Don’t give it to him.”
