Heart Stopper (Rebels of Rushmore #1)

Chapter 1

TROY

Fuck . I knew today was going to be hell.

I can always count on everything going wrong whenever I have to meet my mother.

Sometimes I suspect she’s a witch because she sure as shit can hex my life.

We had our monthly lunch at an upscale private club, during which she spent the hour downing martinis and picking on my sister, Jane, and me.

Well, she mostly enjoys criticizing Jane.

It’s her feeble attempt to act motherly.

I can handle Mommy Dearest’s harsh words, but poor Jane takes everything to heart. The more Mom talks, the more my sister shrinks into herself. It pisses me off. I was late for my interview with that shrew from the paper because I’d had to undo all the damage Mom had done to Jane.

I can’t believe I let that Lois Lane wannabe get under my skin. To be fair, I had already been on edge. I should have just rescheduled the damn meeting. What I shouldn’t have done is storm out of the coffee shop like a coward. No wonder my blood is still boiling.

Who does she think she is to judge me like that? I doubt she knows anything about football or even attended the last game. She’d have been with Ludwig, and I’d have remembered a face like hers. Too fucking pretty and doesn’t even know it. Damn it . She had to go and be a bitch.

Coach Clarkson already gave me a tongue-lashing for sucking last Saturday.

I had fucked up. My head wasn’t in the game, but explaining why wasn’t an option.

Sure, if the coach knew the truth, he wouldn’t have given me such a hard time.

Only I’d rather people believe I slacked off for no good reason than them know it was the anniversary of Robbie’s death.

No one knows, not even my closest friends.

What would they think if they knew I’d let my brother die?

I can’t go back to the mausoleum I call home in this state.

I don’t want to be alone right now, and I have too much pent-up aggression that needs to go somewhere, so I shoot a quick text to Andreas, telling him I’m headed to the gym.

He’s always game for a workout. The guy has an infinite supply of energy.

He’s like the Energizer Bunny, a comparison that suits him well in more ways than one.

The fucker is a damn Casanova and has probably banged his way to New Zealand and back.

When I park in front of the upscale warehouse-style gym, my anger has decreased by half.

I spot Andreas’s Bronco two spots to my left.

No surprise he’s already here. He, unlike me, lives right on campus in a shared apartment with Danny Hudson, a freshman who will probably take my place as the new QB next year.

I grab my duffel bag from the trunk and head inside the building. It’s the middle of the afternoon, and the place is pretty packed. It annoys me to work out in a full house, but beggars can’t be choosers.

I quickly change and then head to the gym’s main room. Andreas is spotting Danny at the bench press when I find them.

“Dude, who stole your cookie?” he asks.

I roll my eyes. Everything out of the guy’s mouth is related to food or girls. “It’s one of those days. I had lunch with my mother and Jane earlier. You know how those events usually go.”

“Like eating sawdust?” Danny chimes in.

“Pretty much.”

“How is Jane doing? I haven’t seen her in months,” Andreas asks casually, not even glancing in my direction.

He knows he’s not allowed to get near my sister or entertain any ideas about her. She’s still in high school, for starters. Also, she doesn’t need to get her heart broken by the most notorious manwhore on campus.

“Jane is fine,” I reply through clenched teeth.

“Whoa. You don’t need to bite my head off. I was just asking.”

“You look pissed,” Danny pipes up. “Are you still sour about your talk with the coach?”

“Nah. I’m over that,” I lie. I hate that I screwed up, but wallowing in it won’t help either. “He had the right to chew my ass. My current mood is in part to blame on a fucking nosy reporter from the school paper.”

“Wait. I thought Ludwig was a buddy of yours.” Andreas arches his eyebrows.

“He couldn’t make it, and his replacement was a fucking bitch. She dared to ask when I stopped giving a fuck about football.”

“Wow. That’s savage.” Danny chuckles. “Your charming skills didn’t work on her?”

“I wasn’t myself.”

“Please tell me you put the bitch back in her place,” Andreas retorts angrily.

I take Danny’s spot on the bench. “That’s what I should have done. Instead, I left.”

Andreas whistles. “Troy Alexander avoiding a confrontation. That’s new. Are you sure you didn’t sleep with her and forget to call the next day?”

“Unlike yours, my bedroom doesn’t have a revolving door. I remember my hookups.”

He shrugs. “If you say so.”

“Can we drop the subject? I didn’t come here to gossip like a fucking sorority girl.”

A wicked grin appears on Andreas’s face. “Speaking of sorority girls….”

He proceeds to tell us about his latest sexual escapade, not sparing us any details, but I tune him out. No matter how much I want to forget what happened in the coffee shop, I can’t get the Lois Lane wannabe out of my head.

Damn it.