Chapter 2
The Realization
Jack
One of the first teachers to arrive in the morning released Grant from the flagpole, where we’d left him tied and naked last night. If Grant had on clothes, they might have left him. But butt-ass naked was a big ask.
I edited the video last night, so no nudity shows and it’s on a timer to release anonymously to everyone’s phone this morning. Grant won’t be at school, but when he comes back, everyone will be ready.
Leaning against the school sign, I’m eager to see Harper in my jersey and find out what the fuck that text was about this morning. Nico strides up the sidewalk toward me.
I hold out my hand and we do the handshake we perfected in sixth grade.
“Do you know what that text was about?” I ask as he leans against the sign beside me. We’re both wearing our jerseys that we’ll wear tonight, since the cheerleaders and Harper have our out-of-town jerseys.
“No fucking clue.”
But Luke does.
Which means he was with Harper last night. It shouldn’t surprise me. I’m not jealous, but we said we’d give our girl a break after the other night. She was brittle all day yesterday, like one word might cause her to shatter. Besides, I have my own plans for today.
Nico nods toward the flagpole. “When did he get released?”
“Early. Teacher. Can’t say I blame them. Dude was buck naked and smelled like piss.” I shrug. “Would have been irresponsible for the teacher to leave him like that.”
“Fucker deserved it.” Nico glances over his shoulder.
Some girls wander by and smile at us with their best I’m available look.
I shake my head. “I swear the girls around here just don’t get it.”
Nico straightens. “What?”
“We need to do something, so they know this isn’t a game to us.” Fuck. “That we’re off the market this year.”
“We could go the whole girlfriend/boyfriends route.” Nico strokes his finger beside his lips. “It’s not like they don’t know we’re together.”
“It’s not how we typically operate.” I blow out a breath as Darius walks up the path toward us. He looks gorgeous dressed in slacks and a blue and silver polo for tonight’s game. His dark eyes find mine.
I don’t look away because I have nothing to be ashamed of. He’s the one who didn’t tell me he was the assistant coach at Sherman High before we fucked.
“Ready for tonight’s game, guys.” His eyes sweep to Nico. This will be Nico’s first game with us as a Mustang.
“Yes, sir.” Nico straightens like the good little soldier he is.
I nod but let my gaze focus out in the parking lot. Maybe our girl won’t get far without me needing a piece of her this morning. The others have all fucked Harper when she wore their jersey. Today is my turn.
“Jack.” Darius waits until my attention returns to him. “I’d like to see you in my office before the game tonight.”
I bet he would.
“For what?” I try not to sound belligerent, but what the fuck does he want to talk about, especially at school?
“I want to go over a couple of notes we made after practice last night. Just show up.” He heads into the school without a backwards glance.
Nico lifts his eyebrow, but I just shake my head. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s over. He’s the one who kept texting once we knew about our connection. I don’t need to have that kind of stain on my record, so I’m staying away. Besides, I’m fascinated with a different brunette at the moment.
“Where are they?” Caden strides over to us and looks around like I’m hiding Harper somewhere.
That anger of his still hasn’t cooled off.
Finding out Tanner has access to Harper and she kept it from us, after he told her about what Tanner did, made him irrational.
He needs a target that he can do some damage to before he releases that fury on Harper instead.
At least tonight’s game should burn off some of that rage.
“Not here yet.” Nico shrugs. She’s been cool to him since the dinner when his mom told us about her art partner and we found out Nico knew.
For a hot second, I worried he’d steal her away for himself.
Instead he told us about Tanner when she wanted it to remain a secret, especially from Caden. So he chose us over her.
But the whole us or her mentality is getting old. We shouldn’t be fighting against her. If this really is for the whole year, then it should just be us. All of us.
“I’m sure Luke will explain.” But what could have happened last night that Harper was worried about telling her mom?
“We need to set better boundaries and rules.” Eli steps up behind me, and his hand clasps my shoulder.
“You’re not wrong.” I turn, and there she is.
She has her brown hair pulled in a high pony with blue and silver ribbons. She wears jeans with my jersey. I kind of got it when the others went caveman on her in their jerseys, but I get it fully now.
She’s mine. My jersey claims her as mine. As she gets closer, she has on red lipstick and a hint of eyeliner and mascara highlighting her brown eyes. She’s gorgeous.
I step forward before anyone else can claim her and wrap my arm around her shoulders, drawing her into my side.
“Problems sleeping, sweetheart?” I lead her to the sign and lean back against it, positioning her to lean against me. My feet are on either side of hers and my arms wrap around her waist.
Luke has her backpack. He gestures with his head.
“We need somewhere less exposed to talk.” He heads in the direction of the field.
The guys all follow him.
“Guess that means us too.” I straighten and wrap my arm around her shoulder, leaning over and kissing her head. “You okay today, sweetheart?”
“Yeah,” she breathes out and nestles into my side as we follow behind. “Just more shit to worry about.”
“Tell me about it.” We have one more year. One more year to leave our mark on this high school and one more year to get into the university we want. We all want to play college ball, but not all of us want to be professional players.
The ones who do want to go pro need to go Division I, which means not all of us might play in college if we want to go to the same school.
I’d like to say I’m not worried about it, but the fact is, I want to stay with my friends, my brothers. These guys are family to me. Sure I’ve got my parents and my little sister, and I’ll always have them, but these guys are my ride or die.
Harper remains silent next to me as we climb the bleachers and sit in a makeshift circle. Caden sits on Harper’s other side, but she’s apparently still mad at him. He took her punishment for keeping a secret too far probably.
She shifts closer to me. Not that I’m going to complain.
“Last night someone broke into Harper’s house and went to her bedroom.
He was around my height and weight, not scrawny, but dressed head to toe in black.
MacKenzie hit him with a lamp, and he fled.
” Luke meets all of our eyes. “I chased him down the stairs, but he waited for me in the kitchen. I tackled him against the island, but—”
His gaze lands on Harper, and she tenses next to me.
“He got away before I could unmask him,” Luke finishes.
“Why didn’t you call last night?” Eli leans back with his elbows on the bleacher behind him. His dark eyes trail Luke’s every move.
“We all were out late. We needed sleep and we couldn’t do anything about it last night. The girls and I secured the house and went back to bed.” Luke lifts an eyebrow as if begging one of us to challenge him.
“Luke came over late.” Harper leans forward and clasps her hands between her knees. “If he hadn’t been there, the guy might have done whatever he came to do. As it was, Kenz broke my lamp to get him to leave.”
“We agreed to not—” Eli begins.
“But I did.” Luke runs a hand through his hair. “I went into her room and picked her up. She didn’t even know I was there until we woke up to MacKenzie screaming. Do we really want to argue over whether or not I should have slept with her? Because that’s all that happened. Sleep.”
Eli’s eyes narrow, but he relaxes back into his coiled position.
“Who was it?” Caden’s voice is low and dangerous. Harper shivers against my arm.
“I’m guessing an asshole who has a beef with us.” Luke shrugs. “Whoever he is, he’s smart. He opened the back door and waited to see if I’d fly by. Either to knock me out or lock me out so he could get to Harper.”
“I can check the street cams, maybe someone’s ring caught him. But someone at school has to know something,” I suggest.
Eli nods. “I’ll ask around, find out if anyone knows anything. Do we know what Tanner was doing last night?”
“What about Grant Perkins?” Harper looks around at us. “He’s been angry and has that bet. I don’t think Tanner would be stupid enough to threaten me and then follow through that night. He seems more of a long game kind of guy.”
“Grant was a little tied up last night.” I cough to cover my laugh.
When Harper looks at me like I’m being strange, I pull up the video and show it to her. Her cheeks flush, and her hand covers her mouth.
“You guys did that?” Her wide brown eyes meet mine.
“We couldn’t let him get away with using you as a bet.” I brush a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re ours, not theirs.”
When she drops her gaze from mine, it’s like a cloud floated in front of the sun.
“So not Grant and not Tanner, though we should still look into him.” Nico tips his face up to the sky.
“What about the cheerleaders? They still have some power. What if they set this up? They haven’t done anything to Harper during drop offs.
Would they have known about us not being there last night? ”
“A couple junior varsity cheerleaders live down my street.” Harper shrugs. “It wouldn’t be a stretch that they’re keeping an eye on my place, but then why didn’t they see Luke come in?”
“I came over after midnight, princess.” Luke’s voice is low, and when their eyes connect even I feel the jolt between them. “They might have stopped watching by then.”
Harper glances at her phone and stands. “We need to get to class.”
Luke holds out his hand, and she takes it to help her get down the bleachers. He doesn’t release it as she reaches the bottom, and she doesn’t tug away. We all follow them, but Caden hangs back with me.
“You okay?” I keep my voice down so only he can hear me.
He grunts but then stops and holds me back with his hand across my chest. The others move on without us. Nico glances back, but I give a slight shake of my head. He gives me a nod and continues with the group.
“What’s up?” I turn my attention from my name on Harper’s back to Caden.
“Something’s not right.” Caden’s gaze never leaves Harper. “Someone knows too much.”
“What do you mean?”
“The fuckers know when we leave her alone.” Caden scrubs his hand over his head. “The day we ignored her was obvious. They slashed her tire. The night her mom worked, they beat on her doors. Luke showed up that night afterward, but we were all at the game when it happened. Again obvious.”
“We’ve kept her with us until last night when we went for Grant.” My mind spins with the possibilities. “The whole team knew we were going after him because we had people lined up to watch him.”
Someone knows her mom’s schedule and ours.
“That means she’s vulnerable when she’s away from us.”
“Like tonight at the game?” Fuck, we can’t protect her if we’re on the field. “If the first attack happened when we were at an away game, it can’t be a football player or a cheerleader, but those two would know our schedule. Enough people have parents that work in the hospital.”
“Think bigger, Jack.” Caden’s smile is grim. “It’s not just one person. We’ve got a spy amongst us.”
His eyes linger on the football field. Someone on the team is betraying us to someone who wants to hurt us. We just have to figure out who on the team and then make them talk to find out whoever is pulling the strings.
My gaze meets Caden’s. I’m worried the mastermind might be Tanner. If that’s the case, we need to be careful because Caden won’t let him fuck with someone else he cares about again and walk away this time.