AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Between the black smudges under my eyes, and the name printed across the back of my jersey, I’m not too worried I’ll be recognized by this familiar stranger. At least not immediately.
And that’s only if it’s even who I think it is.
For all I know, this kid is no one at all, and he only thinks he knows me, because of how I was staring at him first. Perhaps he was just projecting my own obvious uncertainties and finding something in nothing.
Regardless, I’m quick to reach down for my helmet where it rolled across the grass and shove it over my head. Providing some much-needed comfort from his too-watchful gaze.
Without looking back, I turn away and start jogging toward the rest of my teammates.
The tunnel to the locker room looms ahead just as music starts blaring from the speakers overlooking the field. People cheer, knowing it’s nearly time.
I let it all wash over me. The sights, the sounds…
The orange sunlight bearing down on me.
The fresh scent of grass and dirt burning a pathway up my nose.
The pre-game jitters buzzing through my veins.
I let it consume me and eradicate everything else as my cleats eat up the distance, putting me further and further away from my past.
It can’t be him, I tell myself strongly.
It can’t be. It’s just not possible. The universe can’t be that sadistic.
Plus, after what he did, after what the cops walked into…
The mess he left…
The way he was laughing…
They would be fools to ever let someone like Aston St. James loose.
3
VALE
“So, what you’re saying is I’m fucked.”
Dad doesn’t look at me, just stares straight ahead through the windshield, gaze far-off. “Vale…”
Blowing out a breath, I tip my head back against the seat and stare up at the closed moonroof. Processing what this means for us. For me.
We won the game by a landslide, just as Fletch predicted, 42-3. Earning a fourth year with the town’s beloved bell. I should be out fucking celebrating right now, not having a meltdown in my dad’s Lincoln Navigator.
It was easy—too easy—to put all thoughts of Aston and the past to the back of my mind, in favor of turning my focus to the field.
If there are two things I’m really fucking good at it, it’s compartmentalizing, and getting what I want.
And what I wanted was to lead my team to victory, and forget all about Aston St. James and all the shit his reappearance would dig up.
Despite winning, though, my brief reprieve from thinking about the latter lasted only about as long as it did to achieve the former. Because no sooner was it that we took to the lockers in a flurry of cheers and chants and raucous celebration, that I got my first close-up look of the guy I was so adamant to convince myself was a stranger. The guy I was so damn desperate to believe couldn’t, in any way possible, be him.
Aston St. James.
My once-upon-a-time foster brother.
The boy whose life I ruined.
