AllFreeNovel
Share Us
JACE
Allie was right. It was so fucking risky to work with Poison. They did shit nobody would ever consider doing, shit that I wanted no part in, shit that could ruin any rich kid’s life, no matter how much money their family was swimming in.
I had worked my ass off, both on and off the field, for years to be so good that college football teams vied over me. Football was my entire life, one of the only things I could do where I completely forgot all my problems, could run, tackle, intercept. I made myself important. It wasn’t Dad’s money.
The NFL had been my goal for over a decade now. But there were far worse things in life than boarding school, juvie, and not achieving those goals. If it was Allie or football, I’d choose Allie every single time.
“You think about letting me hit your stepsister yet, Harbor?” Carter asked, getting up from a sack during our Tuesday afternoon practice.
I turned away from him and stormed to the line. One day … one day, I was going to slam my fist so hard into his face that he wouldn’t be able to play in the next few games. And it was going to be fucking glorious.
The ball was snapped again, and I traced the ball downfield moments too late. Offense caught the ball and ran it in for a touchdown. I sighed through my helmet and walked back to the line, trying to clear my head.
“Harbor, get your head out of your ass. This is practice,” Coach yelled.
But all I could think about was how I was going to have to go behind Allie’s back and pretend to be interested in Nicole again, just to keep Allie safe. My gaze flickered to Nicole on the sidelines, practicing her cheers with Redwood’s sluttiest girls. The bleachers were empty today. Allie must’ve gone to Imani’s house.
If Allie found out about what I was doing or even why I was doing it, she’d be in danger.
“Those cute schoolgirl skirts keep getting shorter and shorter,” Carter said before he called for the ball to be snapped. The guys on the line laughed. “Makes it hard to concentrate in Math.”
“You’ve been failing Math since freshman year, Carter,” Jamal spat at him from beside me, earning some ohhsfrom the line. “Allie ain’t the reason you can’t get a passing grade in Math, even when you flirt with Mrs. Dawson.”
“Sticking up for your girl?” Carter asked Jamal. “You stick it in her ass yet?”
The center snapped the ball, and Carter scanned the field for an open receiver. I sprinted around the guys who were protecting him, pushing them out of the way, and knocked him over so hard that he doubled over to catch his breath.
“Oh, come on,” Carter said, standing up after a few moments. He held his arms out, gesturing to the rest of the team, who was gathering by the line again. “I’m not the only one wondering how tight it is.”
Coach blew the whistle. “Practice is over, boys. Get your asses to the showers.”
I tore off my helmet and walked toward the locker room, not even waiting for Jamal. Every time Carter mentioned Jamal and Allie together, it made me hate him for it. He was supposed to be my best fucking friend, not the guy who moved in on my stepsister.
Coach grasped my shoulder before I could get far.
“What’s going on with you, son?” Coach asked, crossing his arms over his chest. He was giving me that fatherly look that I had always wished Dad would give me, growing up, but from Dad, I only got looks of disappointment and dirty grimaces whenever I mentioned football.
“Nothing,” I said, wiping the sweat off my face with the bottom of my shirt. “Just problems with my dad.”
“Anything you want to talk about?” Coach asked.
My gaze flickered from him to the kicked-up dirt below my feet. If I told him, he wouldn’t believe me. Nobody fucking believed me. Not the principal. Not the police chief. I was a nuisance to them, and it put me on their radar.
“No.”
Coach gave me a long look, then nodded. “If you need to talk, Harbor, you know where I am.” He gestured to the locker room. “Get out of here. Clear your head. Focus on your goals.”
When I finished with my shower, everyone was already gone. I gathered my things and walked to my car parked in the student lot. As if it was perfect timing, Nicole had just finished cheer practice and was strolling to hers too.
“Nicole,” I shouted as she walked to her car.
She turned around. “Is that Jace Harbor calling for me?” she asked, smirking at me.
I grabbed her scrunchie that she had left at my house weeks ago. I had known that it would come in useful at some point if I needed to get out of trouble. Or in this case, get into it. I tossed it to her. “You left this.”
She caught it and glanced back up at me. “My game-day scrunchie.” Her lips curled into a smile, eyes twinkling because she had so much damn sparkly eye shadow on. “Where’d you find this?”
In my fucking garbage with the rest of your shit.
“I kept it,” I said, looking at the ground and back up. “It smells like you.”
Like your nasty fucking perfume.
Nicole’s smile turned into a full-blown smirk. “Miss me, Jacey?”
I twirled my keys around my finger, trying not to be suspicious about this. I needed to get into her house to let Poison in, and I couldn’t do that if she thought I wanted something from her other than a good night.
“Don’t get your hopes up.” I opened the door to my Maserati, looked back at her, and threw her my signature smirk. “Not yet, Nikki baby.”
