Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Leo
Sweat drips down my back as I glare at the mat. I pushed myself too hard today. It’s going to bite me in the ass sooner rather than later. My fucking right knee has already gotten a piece of paper to write down its grievances, and it’s still deciding whether it wants to be a permanent problem.
Still, against my better judgment, I force my body to go through the motion of the stretch lest I want to fuck up my back too.
My options are either to be benched for the rest of the season, get traded, or get myself a prison sentence. The decision was harder than I cared to admit. It was a close call.
On the one hand, playing for the Serpents means I’m living near my sister and anyone else I want within arm’s reach. On the other, I’ll finally get rid of the violent energy pulsing in my veins.
My glare whips to the guy beside me when he laughs too loudly. Doyle’s fucking complicit as well, and yet he—like every other asshole on my so-called team—has gone about his week like nothing has happened.
It’s a brutal reminder that they aren’t my friends. They’re not on my side. They’ll always be on fucking Jack’s.
I block out the voices of my teammates that carry through the gym. Without trying, I can pick out every person’s string of conversation and list each one of the guilty charges I’ve sentenced them with.
My jaw ticks as I recall every word they’ve ever said.
I breathe hard through the fire raging along my muscles as I dip further into the stretch than I’ve ever gone before.
My limbs tremble, but I keep holding the position.
The pain does fuck all to ground me, but it’s enough of a distraction to forget about their voices and the crimes they’ve committed in my eyes.
“Your form’s shit.”
“Fuck off.” I don’t dare loosen up more than is enough to cast a scathing glare at Mitchell.
He squirts water into his mouth, ignoring the rampage I’m bound to be set upon. “Get Colby to look at your knee.”
Sometimes the line between trainer and best friend is blurred, and today, he crossed it. After all, he’s the fucker who helped my knee shit the bed. Mitchell is many things, and he seems to be the only one who can tell when I’m about to lose it.
I need an outlet, some kind of remedy. Hockey isn’t cutting it, and murder isn’t a choice yet. There’s only one other option I have that will absorb all of my time and energy. I’ve held myself back from it for weeks, paced myself, took little bite-sized pieces just enough for a taste.
The plunge is my only choice. I fear I won’t recognize myself once I take it.
I grunt, easing up. My attempt at hiding my wince is clearly unsuccessful. “I’m fine—”
“Don’t bullshit me that it isn’t hurting. I don’t want your sister to drop laxatives into my coffee again for letting you get injured on my watch. Plus, you said you’d help us with the move. Pull yourself together, or I’ll ask Jack and Simon to lend a hand.”
He wouldn’t dare. “I’m calling your bluff.”
I’d rather have Sabrina spike both of our drinks than let Dumb and Dumber anywhere near my sister.
“I heard my name,” Dumb’s voice echoes through the hall.
I glare at Mitchell and quickly grab my shit before I can get dragged into a conversation with Jack Norton. “This is your fault.”
Because Mitchell isn’t stupid, he sets his bottle down and moves closer to me.
“Hey, Leo.” Other than Mitchell, Jack is the only person on the team who refers to me by my first name. We’re not friends. I made that mistake once.
No matter how much shit I throw his way, he never leaves me alone. The more I try to get rid of him, the closer he gets. He sticks like bad fucking breath.
I keep my head down and risk it all by shoulder-checking him. His arm snaps out to grip mine, and the thin string tethering me to this side of a prison cell frays. I shove him back.
Mitchell is right there before I can feed the beast howling for blood. “Break it up,” he hisses in my ear as my teammates swivel around to watch the scene unfold. I’m too pissed to care that if a pileup happens, the only one who will have my back is Mitchell.
Simon stations himself in the center as a makeshift barrier.
“You keep your fucking hands off me,” I snarl, pointing a finger at Jack’s face.
His face is drawn in confusion—hurt, and every single person under this roof falls for it. It’s the same pathetic look he’s given me ever since I realized he’s a parasite. Why he still wants to be friends after all these years is something I’ll never figure out.
Beside that sick fuck, I look normal.
Ever since middle school, he’s been right there.
He transferred midway through the year, and I made the mistake of offering him my good pencil when his broke during a quiz.
My second mistake came from letting him borrow my gym shorts a couple weeks later when another kid from our class poured their drink all over his gear.
The third? Letting him sit at our lunch table when he asked, after weeks of being alone.
From there, we became attached at the hip. We were an unstoppable trio: me, Mitchell, and Jack. We knew how to read each other on the ice, stirred the same shit, and had the same interests.
Even when his dad transferred to coach another team a state away, he stuck around and boarded at the same high school.
Then I stopped being a stupid sixteen-year-old and had a more developed frontal lobe to recognize what he was doing.
All the times he only invited me to do things and left Mitchell out, the lies he’d tell about Mitchell and girls showing any hint of interest in me, scaring them off, trying to twist my head about how Sabrina has it out for me, and convincing Mitchell to hate me for a few months.
It took me a while to see it and realize he was suffocating me. Jack was everywhere I looked. Except I didn’t realize until it was too late, and I lost my parents because of him.
Mitchell and I started getting into a certain band, and so would Jack.
I signed up for advanced chem, next thing I know, he went from barely passing the subject to attending the same class.
I dated one of the cheerleaders, then he was dating a girl from the same friend group.
I started frequenting a lunch spot on the other side of town, and suddenly I couldn’t stop bumping into him there.
He wouldn’t fuck off no matter how many times I told him to.
I thought I could shake him off when I went to college and cut ties with my parents after what he did, but the rat walked into my first class.
The two blissful years I managed to be free of him playing in LA were far too short-lived because, fast-forward to the start of this year, his dad offered me a spot too good to refuse. I’d have been an idiot to say no.
The only downside is Jack.
I’m ashamed that I was stupid enough to believe he might have grown out of his obsession with me because he kept his distance for a couple years. Turns out I was wrong, and I’m a fucking idiot for falling for his antics all over again.
Jack has the audacity to scoff as if he’s a clueless, innocent little gem. “How long are you going to keep being shitty about this, man? I was just looking out for you.”
“Bullshit,” I snap, about to lunge for him when Coach’s voice booms through the arena.
“What’s going on here?”
Daddy to the rescue.
I seethe at Jack, daring him to tell his dad the truth.
Coach won’t be too happy to find out what his son has been doing online.
I could break his nose, and he wouldn’t snitch—except there’s one monumental difference between us: he has a get out of jail free card and the full force of the Serpents to clean up his digital mess. I don’t.
Jack offers his father a blasé grin. It’s well practiced, made to fool. It took me years to see through it. “Nothing, I just bumped into him.”
He switches on the charm so easily it makes me sick. My parents fell for it, just like everyone else. How can no one else see through his bullshit?
Jack was the well-behaved good boy who could do no wrong in my parents’ eyes. He was like the son they never had, staying for dinner, commandeering our guest room like it was his own, and attending family events.
He never got into trouble. Me? I wasn’t the best-behaved student. I sure as fuck couldn’t twist things the way he could. I was too stupid to see that he wasn’t just trying to turn me against people; he was trying to turn my own parents against me.
And it worked.
“It was my fault.” I’m not going to let Jack bail me out. I’ve made that mistake before. Any inch I give him is an inch he can manipulate and use against me. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.” I refuse to owe him anything.
Mitchell nods. “Duval’s knee is giving him grief.”
Fucking snitch. “The tendon’s tight,” I say before Coach gets any ideas.
He narrows his eyes at me, flicking between me, Mitch, and Jack, as if to say: I smell your bullshit from a mile away. Respectfully, if he could, he would’ve figured out that his son was skimming cash from him when he was younger.
The few people still in the gym give me much the same look as Coach—no surprise there—but they’re not about to point out my lie when I can call them out for their messages. The wound is still too fresh for them to get away with it just yet.
“Whatever happened between you three, fix it. I don’t want to see any of it on my team.” There’s the fatherly voice that doesn’t bode well with me in an employment setting.
What happened is that Jack crossed a line that cannot be uncrossed. Out of every sin he’s committed, this is the gravest, and he doesn’t realize the magnitude of what he’s done.
Making my parents choose him over me is one thing. This? Those messages?
I hardly tolerated him before—just enough to keep the peace—but not anymore.
“Yes, Coach,” we take turns saying, like one poorly rehearsed symphony.
Jack’s dad heads off, and my second getaway ends as poorly as the first.
“Leo—”
I crowd into Jack’s face, keeping my voice low so our audience doesn’t hear. “Never speak to me again, you obsessive little fuck.”
He scoffs, rolling his eyes as if I’m the dramatic one.
“You think this is about me? You’re one of our best players.
The whole reason you were brought here is to get us the Stanley.
” I’m aware. The dollar signs are proof of what he’s saying.
“My dad pulled every goddamn fucking string he could to get your ass here. The last thing I want is for you to fuck it up because you’re distracted. ”
Distracted?
He thinks I’m distracted?
I huff. “Understood.”
The rope wound around me that’s stopping me from giving the hounds what they want requires another sacrifice. It was always going to be inevitable. Jack’s the one who’s pushing me over the edge.
I was going to start with dinner, maybe even a trip to the lake. Something to ease into my future when I’ve felt I’ve learned enough to be able to strategize.
I’ll show him what distracted looks like, and she’s going to be my willing accomplice. He better not have fucked it up for me, or else he’ll find out what happens when the string snaps.