7. Briggs
brIGGS
Eleven years ago…
“She’s prettier than the girl on the gas station energy drink poster. I’m gonna marry that girl one day, and she ain’t gonna know a lick about who I’m fuckin’ when I ain’t home.”
“Who the hell are you talkin’ about now?
” I hear Walker say, the sound of his sneakers hitting the lockers, because he has zero damn sense about how he can change his clothes without having to toss all his shit around.
“You were just talkin’ about Zoe Ridgeway the other day and how you were wantin’ to take her out. ”
“She’s with Tad now,” Cruz drones. “And that can only mean she’s borin’ as hell.”
“Layla goes to church.”
My spine stands straight up at the mere mention of my girl’s name before my boy, Walker, speaks what’s already in my brain.
“You’re lookin’ to die, aren’t ya, Cruz?”
“What for?” he asks, as if he already doesn’t know. As if I haven’t made myself perfectly clear before.
“That’s Briggs’s girl.”
I hear him scoff as I turn on my heels to send him a withering glare.
I hate that this prick is on my team. That I have to see him every single day in my midst because Cruz has always been simply an asshole. He’s always tryin’ to piss people off on a daily basis. It’s in his DNA. There isn’t anything he isn’t willing to do to get a reaction out of someone.
And he just got mine.
Cruz spares me a glance, and that’s only because he’s scared I’m going to jump him without warning.
I’m not above that.
I never have been when it comes to him.
“You ain’t still hung up on her, right? You haven’t made a move.”
I haven’t made a move because her Uncle Ben hates me, and I’m not going to get her in trouble when she already attempts to see me sometimes out of his scope of vision.
It’s a work in progress, and I’m patient.
“You’re not datin’, Layla Melrose,” I grind out, holding his stare because I’m not fucking around when I say this.
I will kill him.
“You’re not gonna waste your time on that,” he kicks back, clearly not heeding my words. “She’s not your type.”
“She’s not yours either.”
He smiles, and it’s this shitty lift of his lips that hints his intentions are exactly what I thought them to be in the first place.
He just wants to fuck and have a taste before he dumps her like he’s done with every other girl he’s been with.
“I think she’s perfect,” he divulges, causing me to inch closer. “Innocent, pretty, and I bet she tastes like innocence. By the time I teach her everything I know, she’ll be suckin’ my cock every day except the Lord’s day.”
I’m technically not even close to him yet when I swing, missing him completely when I make up for the rest of the distance and try again.
This time, I connect, slamming into his jaw, then following up with a blow to his gut, sending him keeling over, which does him no good because my knee comes up next.
Gushing blood is the only thing I remember, all over his fingers when he tries to stand up straight, but that red color is all I’m seeing besides the next place I can land a jab.
I think I get either two or three more hits in before arms wrap around my chest from behind, encasing my arms and forcing them into my sides, while a bunch of chaos ensues around us.
I even remember swinging a leg up to try to hit him again but miss because I’m dragged away from being able to do any more damage.
“Coach is gonna be pissed, Briggs,” I hear Walker say. “We need you at the next game, man.”
I don’t give a shit what Coach gets mad about. Cruz isn’t going to share the same locker room and, in the same breath, say that he’s going to fuck my girl.
I’ll kill him.
And I’ll do it with a smile.