Chapter 2
Coach Sullivan pursed his lips as I detailed my side of what happened. That stupid fight. “Calvin, wait outside a moment,” he said with a dismissive wave toward Principal Woodson’s door.
Nodding with a quickly muttered “Yes, sir,” I scrambled out of my chair, hating the tight quarters in the office with both the football and soccer coaches, the principal, and the boy’s counselor, Trent Wright, tossing different levels of disapproval my way.
As soon as the door latched, I spun around. “What’re you doing here?” I asked Sasha, who stood at the desk across from the school’s admin.
Ms. Hammond glared at us over her glasses. “I was just asking the same thing.”
Sasha faced me and rolled her eyes. I didn’t exactly remember when we started dating or if I’d even agreed to it.
We’d hung out a few times at parties, and then all of a sudden, she was calling and texting me all the fucking time, and somewhere along the way, she’d called me her boyfriend, which I never corrected.
“I thought I might have to call Momma, but I’m okay now.” She said the lie easily enough. No doubt she’d come to snoop.
I flashed Ms. Hammond an apologetic smile—why an apology, I wasn’t sure—and ushered Sasha into the hallway. “Don’t cut class,” I whispered.
Sasha turned, pressing her front against mine, even before I had the door to the office closed. “My boyfriend got caught fightin’,” she whined, scratching her long nails over my chest. “You’re such a bad boy, Cal.”
What I was sure was supposed to be her sexy voice made me cringe. “Please, just go to class. We can talk later, okay?” Handling her had become a challenge lately and took more bandwidth than I could spare at the moment.
“Promise me.” She jumped to her tiptoes, and I automatically lowered to accept her kiss.
“Yeah, promise.”
Thankfully, she pivoted without another word, her skirt flaring along with her long hair, and sauntered off.
Not until she rounded the corner did I exhale, letting the first peaceful second since the fight wash over me.
No rustle of my classmates hurrying this way and that.
No announcements in that scratchy PA system they used.
Just me and a deceivingly quiet moment as I braced for whatever punishment they served and worried over the conversation later with my parents.
Only, I wasn’t alone. The very reason my ass was in this mess leaned against the wall opposite me with a snarl on his face.
I half turned, expecting Ms. Hammond to run out behind me, spouting off about the mistake. We couldn’t be trusted to be in close proximity and not get into it. Which was entirely accurate. Like junkyard dogs, we had to be separated before we had it out.
But no one came to stop this train wreck.
Fuck Jack Rutledge, man. Standing there, hands in his pocket, as if he wasn’t as fucked as me. God, I hated him. Never showed an ounce of concern about anything. In fact, the only thing that got him out of that indifferent mask was getting in my face.
All of this was his fault. Daddy was going to be fucking furious when he found out. Maybe they’d call Momma instead. She’d probably give two shits about me being in trouble. At least that way, I could handle the punishment without the guilt Daddy was sure to lay on me.
“Tsk,” I hissed and scooted down the hallway a bit, taking my own post as far from him as I could and still be near the door.
“You got something to say, say it to my face,” he whisper shouted.
“Your face is what got us in this mess,” I quietly shouted back.
His dark pink lip curled in a sneer. “You’re a fucking idiot.”
The twins had moved to this small town from California when their daddy got a new job.
Not that I’d cared to learn that bit of information, but they’d been all anyone could talk about for a while.
Neither of them had that carefree surfer look, though.
Even with identical athletic builds, they gave arrogant vibes, not laid-back ones.
Jack had darker hair to Ty’s lighter brown, Jack was pale to Ty’s tan, and they were on different ends of the personality spectrum too.
Jack was the scary, quiet one, but coiled like a snake, and could strike just as fast. I’d never met anyone like him in my life.
Maybe that was why I couldn’t figure out how to deal with him.
We’d had assholes at school before, but Jack was next-level. So unobtrusive, almost shy—until he wasn’t.
“What’d you tell them?” he asked.
I glanced at the door, which remained closed. Surely they’d come get one of us any second.
“I told them the truth, dickhole.”
“Oh, so you told them you ruined all the soccer kits?”
I popped my thumb toward my chest. “I didn’t touch your kits, man.”
“Right. Like you didn’t break the cages holding our equipment or rig our lockers to fall apart.”
Denial sprang to mind, but I couldn’t lie. I had participated in the beginning, but this thing was so beyond us now. Our feud got the whole school riled up as the pranks escalated.
The hate-hate relationship between Jack and me was no secret.
We literally could not stand each other’s presence.
We were oil and water. On a cellular level, a chemical one, we just didn’t mix.
Even if we hadn’t been spotted pushing each other around this morning, we probably would be right here in the hot seat.
“And I’ll just bet you didn’t wash our jerseys in glitter or put dead fish under our lockers,” I snapped in response to his accusations.
“Would you have preferred alive fish? You’re weird as fuck.”
“Shut up.”
He rolled his eyes and straightened from the wall. I did the same, but neither of us moved any closer, still casting glances at the office door and keeping our voices low.
“As unintelligent in your arguments as your denials.”
“I said I didn’t touch your kits, and I didn’t. There’s more on the team than me, and there’re more in this school siding with the football team.” I crossed my arms over my chest and cocked my head. “You do realize this hornet’s nest is a mite bigger than us.”
Fuck, why did I sound like the biggest hick around him?
Jack’s vibes got under my skin more than anyone I’d ever met.
His calmly spoken taunts stung long after I’d walked away.
The heat and rage he built inside me lingered until I couldn’t even think straight.
He’d invaded my mind so thoroughly, confused me so completely, I had to wonder if I hated him at all.
But if it wasn’t hate, then what the hell was it?
“You football jocks are all the same. You’ve got your stupid bro code, and it doesn’t matter who you step on to keep it. All you care about is making your lazy-ass teammates the popular kids in school, the hotshots, when you’re nothing but bullies.”
Jack took a step closer, hands fisted at his sides. We were still out of reach of each other, and good thing too. By the fire in his eyes, he was ready to continue our little shoving match from earlier.
“The soccer team has a real shot this year, but you’re doing everything you can to ruin our season. How about you get your head out of your ass and see what’s on the other side of the goalpost for a change?”
“You know nothing about me.” And when I stepped closer, we ignited.
Like water on a grease fire.
Jack lunged, but I’d already reached to fist his shirt with both hands.
“You don’t know shit about who I am or what I put up with.” I seethed, not bothering to keep my voice down.
I slammed Jack against the cinder block wall, and he grabbed my shoulders, kicking with one foot and knocking me off-balance.
As I tripped away, trying to get my feet under me, he used the moment to push me off him.
My back hit the opposite wall, but before he was on me again, the office door opened.
Ms. Hammond eyed the pair of us. We heaved for each breath but thankfully weren’t caught roughing each other up. “Mr. Rutledge, Principal Woodson would like a word,” she said.
Jack glared at me before squaring his shoulders and marching into the office, never looking back.
“Grragh!” Fuck him.
Not nearly enough time had passed to get myself under control before I was called back into the office. Jack hadn’t left, and when I opened the principal’s door, there he sat.
“Have a seat, Calvin,” Woodson said, motioning to the chair next to Jack.
My heart raced, and my palms grew damp. The temperature in the room spiked. Sounds muted under the noise of air fighting to move in and out of my lungs.
Sit down? Next to that asshole? Fuck me. And fuck him too.
I glared at the side of Jack’s face as I slowly maneuvered into the chair. Like liquid, I poured myself in, straddling the chair’s arm in my attempt to make sure the only parts of me that got close to him were the absolutely necessary ones before planting my ass in the seat.
“Calvin, would you like to tell me who instigated this last prank that ruined the soccer team’s uniforms?” Woodson asked.
I could take an educated guess on who did it, but there was no way I was ratting out my team, so I shook my head in answer. “No, sir” should’ve been my response, but with Jack evaporating all the oxygenated blood trying to make its way to my brain, words weren’t happening.
He did that. Sometimes I came out swinging and fired all his hate right back at him.
Then sometimes I couldn’t string words together.
I told myself it was because I wasn’t really a mean person.
I couldn’t take that road every time like he did, but it wasn’t always the same angry road when it came to Jack.
Anger was simple. Anger I could distance myself from, like with all the shit going on at home. Anger I could walk away from and let the moment cool down. And as soon as it did, it was over, mostly forgotten.
Not with Jack, though. Nothing felt over between us. We were on this long, continuous fight, and Jesus, I was getting tired.
“I see.” Woodson let out a long sigh and sat back in his chair as he exchanged a glance with the coaches.
“I’ve a good idea,” Coach Sullivan said. He nodded at the soccer coach as if they’d talked about it, but when he leveled his heavy-browed gaze on me, I squirmed. Seriously, this last prank hadn’t been me.
Holding a contrite expression when I didn’t care about the prank, when all I wanted to do was scoot my chair farther away from Jack, was a fucking challenge.
Did it suck their uniforms were ruined? Yeah, it did, but at this point, they didn’t care who was behind it, who actually did it.
They needed someone to blame, someone to make an example of.
I glanced at Jack. While I bounced my knee, he remained as still as a picture.
I gripped the sides of my chair until my knuckles were white.
Jack kept his hands fisted on top of his thighs, but they weren’t tight like mine.
Just more to piss me off. We were in serious trouble this time, and he sat there unaffected.
“Part of the reason you boys’ve been called in here today, as I’m sure you can imagine, is the altercation that happened this morning.
” Woodson looked pointedly at us, then went on.
“I’ve spoken with a few students and the faculty that witnessed it, and all said the pair of you was at the heart of it. ”
“I didn’t start—”
Woodson held a hand high for me to stop just as Coach Sullivan barked my name.
“We’re past the point of excuses, Calvin. The fact is, you two were seen fighting in the hallways, which is a clear violation of the student handbook.” Woodson pursed his lips and clasped his hands over his rounded belly. “And if that was all, we might not be here now.”
Shit, we were gonna get in trouble for all of it.
“School has been in session for less than two months, and we’ve already had more pranks between students than I’ve seen in my tenure here.”
I dropped my chin, sucked my lips inside my mouth, and bit hard because some of them had been funny as hell. School had a strict no-fighting policy, so we worked with what we could to keep the animosity between football and soccer growing when classes started.
Woodson droned on about the costly bickering between students and how hard the booster club would need to work to raise the money to replace them, but I perked up when he finally got back around to us.
“Now, we can’t have our star runnin’ back miss a game.
” Woodson smiled at me as the soccer coach rolled his eyes.
“I’m puttin’ my faith in you boys. You’ll both be gettin’ detention for the rest of the week, and you, Calvin, are restricted from practice, anything that might encourage your aggressive behavior. ”
I gaped. Why was I singled out here? I glanced at Jack, not that he’d be bent out of shape on my behalf, but fuck.
“If this doesn’t stop, I’m afraid we’re gonna kick it up a beat.” Woodson glared. “Both a’yous are on an AP schedule for a reason, right?”
Dammit, he had a good point. Schools like MIT were hard to get into, and that was just where I wanted to be. Would they care about things like detention? Did they check that deep?
I glanced in Jack’s direction, never quite meeting any part of him.
“Yes, sir,” Jack and I mumbled in unison.
“That’s right. Y’all can’t really afford to get in trouble. I’d suggest you find a way to get the pranks to stop. Use the influence you have over your peers and do some good with it. The next time, it might not be detention.”
“Principal Woodson, I take my sister home on days I don’t practice,” I said. She had cheer practice about half as often as I had football practice, but the punishment was liable to mess with our routine after school.
“I’m well aware, Calvin,” he said, and I cringed. Stop calling me Calvin. “We’ve contacted your parents, and they’ll make arrangements for Cara this week.”
Shit.
I sliced a deadly glare at Jack. His fault, all of it. Daddy finding out about this was inevitable, but now he’d be even more pissed. Not only for being interrupted while at work, but also because he’d actually have to do shit for a change and arrange rides for Cara instead of me.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
Fuck, I was so over this year already.