Chapter 6 Brody
brODY
Two more weeks blur by, and for the first time since transferring here, I feel every single moment of them in my bones.
I like staying busy. I always have, but there’s a difference between busy and ‘I will collapse if one more professor assigns a practice exam’.
The combination of midterms, early morning lifts, afternoon practices, and late-night study sessions has turned my brain to oatmeal.
The mushy instant kind, not the hearty steel-cut kind.
Fall break couldn’t have come at a better time.
I’m looking forward to three whole days without classes, practices, coaches, or stupid pranks.
And no teammates like Lincoln Beckett glowering at me like my existence is a personal insult to his family lineage.
Which, consequently, is exactly how I noticed his dad staring at me during the alumni event a couple weeks back.
All I want is to go home. To hug Mom and make sure she’s taking care of herself and sleeping more than four hours a night.
To see Davis and check with my own eyes that he’s eating, healing, getting out of bed.
Anything besides the silence and Mom’s assurances that he’s doing great. As if I don’t know better.
My brother has been out of rehab for barely two weeks, and he went through a lot between the hospital and rehab.
The doctors told us it was going to be hard.
Mom pretending that everything’s just fine only makes me worry about them more.
And honestly, I miss them. As upset as I was to move home, I hate being this close to home and still feeling like I’m a thousand miles away.
Plus, I need clean underwear.
Seriously. If this hazing shit keeps up, I’m going to have to take out a loan specifically for boxer briefs and socks.
At first, the pranksters would steal whole outfits—shorts, shirts, even my towel.
That stopped the day I proved I wasn’t ashamed to walk across campus with nothing but an empty gym bag held strategically in front of me so I didn’t get arrested.
Students stared. A few laughed. Even more cat-called and whistled.
Of the pranks that have been pulled on me this year so far, that one honestly didn’t bother me all that much.
I’ve never had anything to hide when it comes to my body.
But now it’s only underwear that goes missing.
Always the underwear, and usually just one sock.
And unlike everything else, those never seem to make it to the lost-and-found basket Aaron leaves outside our dorm room for whatever pranked items magically reappear over time, or hanging up in a strategic display meant to embarrass me, which never works so it’s been happening less and less.
But the underwear hasn’t slowed down, so now I’ve been walking around commando with mismatched socks.
I don’t want to think too hard about what they’re doing with them.
The only joke I can’t seem to laugh off are the beer cans.
But even though I never react, they keep popping up everywhere.
My book bag, my gym bag, my locker. Sometimes I’ll turn around and one will appear at whatever desk or table I’m at.
The laughter and the sound of empty cans clinking together haunts me everywhere I go.
My last name has been an easy target my whole life. “Miller Time.” “Crack open a cold one.” “No wonder your dad was a drunk.”
Kids in grade school thought it was hilarious.
Middle schoolers thought they were clever.
High schoolers weaponized it, even going so far as to get my mother fired from one of her jobs because her boss noticed her back seat filled with beer cans.
But grown adults should know better. Pierce sure as hell should, considering he knows what happened to my father.
But he’s either too cruel or too stupid to realize he’s going too far.
The other day he walked right up to me, handed me a cold, unopened can still sweating from someone’s fridge, and said, “Figured you might want a fresh one. It’s been a stressful few months for you.”
I forced a smile that tasted like blood in my mouth. “Thanks, man.”
I didn’t drink it. I don’t drink at all, actually. I’ve never even taken one drink. Not after what happened to Dad. Not after what it did to Davis. Not after watching what addiction has done to my life.
All I could do was carry the can back to the dorm, where Aaron and Jay both looked up from their midterm prep with matching concerned expressions. I offered them the beer like it was funny, but they saw through the mask that day.
Aaron told me about getting harassed in middle school for being small.
Jay said I’m on the right track, that every bully grows bored eventually if you don’t give them a reaction.
They encouraged me to ignore it, to keep doing my thing.
So far it’s been working for me, aside from Pierce’s persistent bullshit.
I told them that the hazing doesn’t bother me. Not really. I’ve dealt with worse. I can handle a few weeks of their immaturity. Once the season starts and I prove I belong here, it’ll stop. Probably. I hope.
But what does bother me, what gnaws at me more than I’ll ever admit, isn’t the beer and alcoholic jabs. It’s the way Lincoln Beckett treats me. His aloof, purposeful mistreatment of me both annoys the hell out of me and kind of gets my motor revved.
The rest of them are annoying, sure, but predictable.
The freshman-level pranks, the chest-thumping posturing, the macho jokes, they all play by the same tired rulebook.
But Beckett is in a league of his own. Cold one minute, hostile the next, and then acting like I kicked his dog simply by breathing in his direction.
It’s like he crafted his personality from a manual titled How to Make Brody Miller’s Dick Hard and Life Difficult, Vol. 1.
And yeah, maybe I’m not helping. Full disclosure, I know I’m not. I could leave him alone completely, pretend he doesn’t exist, but I don’t. Maybe I would if he wasn’t being a shitty captain, encouraging the stupid pranks by pretending he doesn’t notice it happening.
Instead, I keep slipping into the things that get under his skin. Like cycling through the stupidest pet names I can come up with just to see the vein in his neck throb or using his full name with exaggerated politeness because it makes him tick.
He hates it. I know he hates it. Which only makes it harder not to do.
I don’t know how else to be. I’m not wired for silent misery.
My whole life, the only way I’ve survived bullshit was by laughing through it, shrugging it off, finding some stupid way to make everything lighter so it wouldn’t crush me.
The alternative is turning into someone like him.
Someone who walks around like the weight of the entire universe is resting between his shoulder blades.
And honestly, why is he so miserable?
He’s got friends everywhere. Guys who practically orbit him like he’s the campus sun.
Coaches who trust and compliment him constantly, even if he and I both know I could take him in any match if I actually tried to.
Professors who seem to like him. Hell, he even has a girlfriend.
I didn’t believe that at first, but I’ve seen her with him more than once, hanging off his arm, all smiles and sweetness, looking at him like he invented oxygen.
They seem happy enough, so what the hell is he so pissed off about?
Then again, one glimpse of his dad at the alumni event put some things into perspective.
The man looked like someone carved resentment out of granite and dressed it in a business suit. If addiction can run in families, I guess being an asshole can too. Maybe Lincoln Beckett never stood a chance.
Whether or not Beckett’s dad likes me, or whether or not his dick does, doesn’t excuse him for taking it out on me. It’s not my fault I got his dick hard. And it’s not even like I’ve taunted him that much about it or told anyone else. Nor would I ever.
I’ve tried to lay off the teasing. Really, I have.
But every time he gets that sharp, superior tone, like he thinks he’s teaching me a lesson or like he knows more or is better than me, something in me snaps right back.
Then he gets that wounded, furious look, like how dare you talk to me, and suddenly I’m in the middle of the world’s stupidest pissing match.
You’d think I’d stop letting him win at practice. But I keep letting him. I give him just enough push back to make him think he’s working for it, and then I let go just to see the change in him when he gets the upper hand.
There’s something in his eyes when he’s fighting to stay on top. Something scared, like he’s fraying at the edges, and I get this stupid urge to let him have it. Like maybe he needs the win more than I do.
But I’m only human. And patient as I am, there’s a limit.
One of these days, he’s going to push me too far, and when he does, I’m going to stop holding back. I’m going to show him exactly how easily I could take that “top dog” crown off his pretty little head.
And maybe, just maybe, that’ll finally wipe that tortured look out of his eyes and replace it with the lust I know is hiding beneath it.
By Thursday afternoon, my brain is mush, and my bag is packed for the trip home.
I’m tired, but excited. I’m thinking about the list of things I know still need to be done at home, whether or not Davis will talk to me, how good it’s going to feel to sleep in my old bed for a night or two.
Not to mention the underwear. I’m literally down to my last two pairs, and they’re both dirty.
My dick is starting to chafe in my jeans.
The sky is cloudy and the air is sharp with the bite of a cold front moving in.
I pull my hands into my hoodie as I walk across the student parking lot to get to my car.
My beat-up old Nissan is in the exact place she was the last time I drove her weeks ago, but as I get closer, I realize there’s a problem.
The front driver-side tire is flat.
“Great,” I mutter, running a hand through my hair. “Fantastic. Perfect timing.”
It’s annoying, but not catastrophic. Tires blow. They get punctured. They go bald. Mine were probably overdue for replacement anyway.
With a cleansing huff, I throw my bag in the back seat, roll up my sleeves, and get to work. It’s annoying, but I handle it with my usual level-headed drive to move past the stress and get it done.
I get the old tire off, put the spare on, and tighten the bolts. It doesn’t take me more than ten minutes, and I’m ready to go. But when I lift the ruined tire to put it in the trunk, the whole car shifts too far to one side.
Odd.
I walk around the back of the car, then freeze. The back passenger-side tire is also flat. But it’s more than that. There’s a slash in the tire, at least two inches long.
That’s not an accident.
My breath leaves in a long, heavy exhale, fogging up the cold air. My fingers dig into my scalp as I tug at my hair in frustration.
“Fuck.”
I only have one spare. Which means I’m stranded unless I call someone.
Which means blowing a huge chunk of the rapidly dwindling savings I’ve been living on, especially considering I’ll either need an after-hours mobile service or a tow.
But if I don’t call, I won’t make it home, and I can’t do that to my family.
I need to see them with my own eyes, to check in to make sure things are okay. Not just for them, for me.
I grab my phone and dial roadside assistance, pacing in slow, tight circles. When the automated hold music clicks on, I lean back against the trunk and try to breathe through the frustration rising like a tide in my throat.
I want to blame the tires themselves. They’re definitely old and worn and have needed replacing for longer than I’m willing to admit. But no amount of wishful thinking covers up a clean slit across the rubber.
My jaw clenches until it aches. Someone did this on purpose. But why?
Why the hell would someone do something like this? A prank is one thing, but this is a fucking crime. And it’s hateful. Who would do that?
Something moves between the trees on the far side of the parking lot. A tall silhouette. Broad shoulders. Narrow waist tapering down into long legs. The kind of build that might as well be carved into my memory at this point.
Lincoln Beckett.
He disappears into the dorm building like he doesn’t notice me. Like he isn’t the most obvious suspect in the world. He doesn’t look back. Doesn’t flinch. He just walks away as if he didn’t just leave me stranded on campus with two flat tires and a head full of fire.
My fists curl so tight my nails bite into my palms.
I’ve taken everything this team has thrown at me. I’ve laughed off every prank. I’ve ignored every sideways comment. I’ve given him his space, respected his boundaries, let him keep winning even when he’s treated me like some kind of plague.
But this…This is too far.
I’m done pretending none of it bothers me. I’m done letting him act like he can push me around until I snap. I’m done giving him the benefit of the doubt.
If he thinks I’m going to be the kind of man who rolls over and takes it forever, he’s got another thing coming.
And if he thinks cutting me down will make me walk away?
Beckett doesn’t know a damn thing about who he’s dealing with.