Chapter 1 #2
“A little? My brother is the very definition of overprotective. He is insane.” She rolls her eyes. “If he had his way, he’d lock me up somewhere and wouldn’t let me out until I was thirty or something. A thirty-year-old virgin. Imagine that.”
She fake shudders, making me laugh. “Your brother sounds like my brothers.”
Which is the truth.
My brothers are overprotective and it can be annoying sometimes.
But I don’t begrudge them that. I don’t begrudge them their overprotectiveness and all their rules and curfews, their genuine worry about me.
Mostly because we don’t have parents.
Our father took off just after I was born and our mother died of cancer when I was four.
So they’ve brought me up, you see.
Together, they’ve taken care of me, loved me and protected me more as my parent figures than my brothers.
Especially Conrad.
“But I guess they do it out of love,” I continue, “since we’re all we’ve got. I don’t have parents, so we take care of each other.”
That makes Tempest smile. A sad sort of smile but a smile nonetheless as she says, “Me too.” Then, “Well, I do have parents but they’re as good as nonexistent so my brother takes care of me and I try to take care of him.”
I smile then too.
I’ve never met anyone who has understood this, understood what it feels like to have no parents and only siblings.
But I guess this new girl gets it.
What a fun coincidence.
“So your brother,” I chirp, wanting to know more about her. “Does he go to school in New York too?”
Oh and does he know Reed as well?
How do you know Reed?
Why are you here for him? Do you like him? Are you…
God.
I need to stop.
It’s none of my business.
She isn’t the first girl to be in love with him and she won’t be the last. If anything, I should probably warn her about him.
I should tell her that he’s never ever going to reciprocate her feelings.
Because all he does is break hearts and makes girls cry.
“Nope. He goes to school here. He’s a senior,” Tempest replies.
“Oh! Who is he?” I ask. “Maybe my brother knows him. He’s a senior too.”
Before Tempest can answer though, there’s a roar around us and we both get distracted. The crowd is cheering and the reason for it is apparent as soon as my eyes land on the field.
It’s him.
He’s the reason, the Wild Mustang.
He has the ball in his possession and he’s not giving it up. The players from the opposite team are chasing him. They’re almost crowding him in from all directions, all their defenders against one Reed Roman Jackson.
And for a second it looks like they might be successful.
They might take the ball away from him.
The whole stadium is expecting it. All the people who are watching, they expect Reed to lose the ball. It’s in the way that they’ve all gone silent and the way the announcers are talking with a rapid-fire speed and a louder tone.
But they’re all wrong. Every single one of them.
Like the way they’re wrong about the fact that Reed is a mere athlete.
He’s more than that.
He’s not only an athlete, he’s also a dancer.
Look at his footwork. It’s exquisite. It’s impeccable. It’s graceful. It’s the envy of every dancer, especially a ballet dancer. And I’d know because I’m a ballerina. Have been since I was five.
Reed Roman Jackson has the kind of footwork that would make any ballerina fall in love with him.
It would make any ballerina go down on her knees and weep at his feet.
Not me though.
I can’t.
What kind of a sister would I be if I did?
Therefore, I can’t widen my eyes at the rapid swipes and the swings of his legs as he zigzags through the closing-in crowd, still somehow keeping possession of the ball.
I can’t wring my hands in my lap when he nearly crashes into a guy from the opposite team.
I can’t lose my breath when he almost loses the ball but at the last minute, with a fake pass to throw them off his scent, he saves it.
And neither can I hop up from my seat and clap and scream when he finally, finally, sends the ball flying with such force that it feels like it’s slicing the air itself in two before hitting the net and scoring the goal. The first goal of the game.
I can’t do any of that.
I can’t.
But I can’t deny the rush in my chest or the puff of relieved air that escapes through my parted lips.
I can’t deny that my veins feel full and bursting.
They feel full of music, of the notes of a violin, and my feet are restless. So restless to just… dance.
“That’s my brother.”
Tempest’s voice pierces through and I jerk my eyes away from Reed, who’s getting thumped on the back by the Mustang camp of the team while the Thorn camp is simply going about their business of getting back into their positions, including number twenty-three, Ledger.
“Um, sorry. Who’s your brother again?” I ask because I completely missed who she was pointing at.
She throws me a sly smile. “The one you’ve been watching.”
“What?”
She bumps her shoulder with mine. “The one who scored the goal just now and you got so excited that I thought your eyes would pop out of your head.”
“I didn’t.”
Did I?
She laughs. “You so totally did. Even I don’t get as excited as you did.”
My heart is a drumbeat in my chest. “I –”
“It’s fine. I won’t tell.” She mimics a zipping motion on her lips before pointing to the back of her jersey. “But anyway, Jackson. I’m Tempest Jackson. Reed’s my brother.”
She’s Reed’s sister.
Sister.
“That’s why you look familiar,” I breathe out before I get a hold of myself. “I’m sorry. I just thought you looked familiar.”
She wiggles her eyebrows. “You also thought I was his girlfriend, didn’t you?”
“What? No.” I shake my head, squirming in my seat. “I… It’s none of my business.”
“It’s okay. He has a lot of girlfriends. Oops. Not girlfriends. Girls. My brother doesn’t do girlfriends.”
“Oh yeah, I know.”
Tempest stares at me for a few seconds. It’s not long but it’s enough to make me slightly uncomfortable and self-conscious. “But that doesn’t mean that he won’t ever have a girlfriend. You know, when the right girl comes along. He’s just being an idiot right now.”
“O-kay.” I nod. “That’s good to know.”
“Is it?”
“What?”
Tempest completely turns to me then. “I like you. I think you’re cool. And I think…” She lowers her voice. “You have a major crush on my brother. And –”
“Oh my God. Stop.”
I look around to make sure no one’s listening in on our conversation.
Although the stadium is so loud and people are so engrossed in the game, I highly doubt anyone could eavesdrop even if they wanted to.
But still.
I can’t take any chances. If someone so much as got a whiff of the fact that I was talking about him, that Ledger and Conrad’s sister was talking about having a crush on the enemy, I don’t even know what would happen.
Ledger would definitely kill Reed. Definitely.
And then he’d lock me up somewhere for who knows how long for betraying him, and I wouldn’t even blame him.
Because it is a betrayal, isn’t it?
“What?” Tempest asks confused.
“Don’t even talk about it.”
“Why not?”
“Because you can’t. And because I can’t.”
“You can’t what?”
I look around again. I even go so far as to lean in toward her and lower my voice. “I can’t like your brother.”
She leans in as well. “What? Why can’t you?”
“Because I can’t.”
“Yeah, you said that. But what does that mean?”
“It means that I can’t. I’m not…” I look for a suitable word. “Allowed.”
“You’re not allowed?”
“Nope.”
“Well, who is it that’s not allowing you?”
I stare at her a beat before saying, “Look, you don’t live here so you don’t know.”
“What don’t I know?”
“There’s bad blood between my brother and yours.” She frowns and I explain, “My brother hates your brother and the feeling is mutual, okay? So don’t even talk about these things.”
Her confusion has only grown. “What? Why?”
I go to explain the whole thing to her but turns out I don’t have to.
When I can show her.
Because what happens at every game is already happening on the field. The two star players of Bardstown High are facing off against each other.
You’d think that ever since Ledger became the captain, he would try to steer clear of all kinds of fights and arguments. At least on the field. But no.
Because Reed doesn’t let him.
Ever since Ledger became the captain, Reed’s aggressiveness on the field has only grown.
I’m not sure what brought on the current argument but they’re standing toe to toe.
I can’t see their expressions from here so all I have to go on is their body language and it is not looking good.
There are tense shoulders, rigid backs. Wide, battle-ready stances and folded arms.
I can read my brother like a book and I know he’s angry. I know that the vein on his temple must be pulsing as he says something, or rather, snaps it at Reed.
Who, on the other hand, appears completely relaxed.
Reed looks like he doesn’t care that Ledger is almost up in his face. He doesn’t care that Ledger looks like he might hit Reed at any point.
But I think it’s all for show.
It’s all to provoke Ledger, to show him that he can’t get to Reed, to mess with his head.
Reed’s successful too because in the next second, Ledger shoots his hand out and pushes Reed back.
Oh God.
And finally, we have a reaction.
It pulses through Reed like a current, obliterating his relaxed persona, making him rigid and unforgiving.
And when Reed takes a threatening step closer to Ledger, Ledger does the same, bringing them back to standing toe to toe, their bodies sweaty, their heads bent toward each other as if they’re exchanging confidences rather than threats.
The two beasts, the Mustang and the Thorn.
Just when I think that they’re going to start punching each other, someone steps in.
My oldest brother and their coach, Conrad.
He absolutely hates this rivalry. Hates. He hates Ledger’s anger. He hates Reed’s recklessness.
He hates the fact that every high school team in the entire freaking state knows about this. About how the two star players of Bardstown High can’t quit measuring their dicks on the field — his words, not mine — and they always take advantage of it.
My oldest brother gets between his two players, plants one palm on each of their chests and pushes them away.
When he’s managed to break the two heavily panting, angry-looking guys apart, Conrad wraps his large hands around the backs of their necks and pulls them in again, giving them a piece of his mind.
When he’s done Conrad straightens up and pins them with his hard gaze for a few seconds before letting them go. And just like that the game resumes.
“So that’s my brother,” I tell her, repeating her words. “The one who was clearly trying to beat your brother up. Ledger. And the one who got between them? The coach? That’s my brother too, Conrad.”
“Oh wow,” Tempest breathes out.
“Yeah.” I nod. “See? You can’t even joke about it. Not in Bardstown.”
She keeps staring at the field for a few seconds before turning to me. “So… I don’t think you’re gonna like what I’m going to say next.”
“What?”
“That I think I have a huge crush on your brother.” Her gray eyes — so unmistakably like Reed’s — pop wide. “I’ve never seen someone stand up to my brother like that. Ledger.”
She breathes out his name in a dreamy voice.
“I don’t –”
“Oh, and you’re coming with me,” she speaks over me.
“Coming with you where?”
“To the party.”
“What party?”
“The aftergame party that Reed always throws.”