20. Jude
Chapter 20
Jude
Phil Collin’s “In the Air Tonight” blasts out through Flynn’s boombox. I fucking hate the song, but it never fails to give me goosebumps.I guess that’s why Coach tells Flynn to play it at halftime during our Friday games. It gets the team amped up, and drowns out the sounds of players trying to fuck up each other for perceived slights they experienced out on the field.
All the noise, all the activity—it washes over me, as familiar as the chorus lines of the song. I’m still coming down from the endorphin high that hits me minutes into every football game I’ve ever played.I stalk through the locker room like a fallen angel, divine power radiating off me.
Players get the fuck out of my way.
Coach doesn’t even look in my direction as he yells orders at the rest of the team.
I’m untouchable. Indestructible.
I open the last stall door and slam it shut behind me. Doing anything quietly is impossible right now. I have too much energy rushing through me. Which is exactly why I’m in this cubicle. I’m so good at channeling my energy that, by halftime, I feel like I’m bursting out of my skin.
My duffle bag is already here. The team knows this ritual as well as I do, even though they only have rumors to go on. No one really knows what I do in here and none of them really give a fuck. Not even Coach cares—as long I perform on the field and my bi-monthly drug tests come back clean.
It’s been almost a year since my last bad game, and I’m not about to end my winning streak.
I’m fucking crushing it tonight. And I know why.
I can’t get Harper out of my mind. The smell of her, the anger blazing in her eyes when I had her pinned to that brick wall, how docile she was in the truck on the drive home. When I was lining up on the field tonight, my eyes kept going to the public restrooms so I could replay what I’d done to my stepsister. Every time that happened I’d get hit with a surge of adrenalin...and a semi.
Thank God I could control my dick long enough to get stuck in the zone, else I’d be out there on the field with a full hard-on.
I can’t even imagine how painful it would be if that happened while I was wearing a cup. Even a semi makes me nervous as fuck.
But I kept doing it.
Like a fucking addict.
it’s all been a pack of lies
I zip open my duffle bag and shove my hand to the bottom. I keep my bag clean—jeans neatly folded, a spare shirt and boxers and socks—so when my fingers touch a bundle of scrunched-up fabric I know I’ve found it.As soon as I drag Harper’s underwear out of my bag, a pump of blood hardens my dick. Tamping down a groan, I take my cup out of my pants. My dick comes out a second later, already rock hard.
I’ve been waiting for this moment
I grimace ruefully at the soundtrack accompanying my thirty-second jerk off session. Halftime isn’t the place to edge myself like I normally do when I’m watching porn—I need to get off and catch the tail end of Coach’s speech. Not that I’ll have an issue tonight—all it takes is pressing Harper’s panties to my nose before I’m ready to blow. My climax is so sudden, so violent, I barely get the bundle of black, satiny fabric against my dick in time to catch the cum shooting out of it.
I stride out of the stall with my bag bouncing off my shoulder, open my locker, toss it inside, and head over to the huddle Coach just called. The team looks hungry and impatient, but I stand behind them with loose muscles and an easy smile.
My spent dick sits comfortably behind its cup, but the rest of my body feels as ready now as it did when I stalked in here.
I already know we’re going to demolish the other team, and when Coach Riggs glances over at me, he must see it too.
He stands and gives me the kind of smile Dad used to beam at me during halftime, back when he and Rosie used to watch me play.
“We got this, boys,” Coach says. “Let’s finish them.”
The team piles out of the locker room, whooping and slapping each other on the back like a bunch of animals. Sean glances back and slows when he sees me so we’re walking side by side.
I ignore him, but that doesn’t stop him from grabbing my arm and keeping me back. I immediately pull out of his grip, but the feral grin on his face makes me curious enough to stop and hear him out.
“What is it?”
“A bunch of us are having some drinks and stuff at my house on Sunday. You know where I live.” He pats my shoulder. “Make a stop.”
He walks away without waiting for my reply, probably because he knows what it’ll be. I stopped hanging out with the team around the time drinking became their second favorite sport. While I don’t mind the odd glass of cognac here and there, I prefer being on a team whose players aren’t constantly hung over during practice. And while most of them stick to the rules, Sean couldn’t give a fuck if he was kicked off the team. Since his father is one of the older families in Cinderhart—as close to founders as you can get without including the First Five—it’s more probable that he’d get a slap on a wrist than a suspension.
The cheerleaders are just done waving their pom-poms around when we strut back onto the field. The girls stream past in their black and silver uniforms, those with long enough hair all sporting elaborate braids.
Eliza is at the rear of their procession, soaking up as much applause as she can before the passage leading to the locker rooms blocks her from the crowd. When she sees me, her fake grin turns genuine. I even get a wink.
Christ, what is up with her? Is this because I asked after Harper today? Can she really be that desperate for attention?
But no...that’s not it. That was more than flirting. It’s like she thinks we’re co-conspirators to some dastardly plan to take over the world.
Or it could just have been a wink.
My imagination is playing havoc with me ever since Harper moved in. I have to stop seeing conspiracies in every fucking twitch and wink and sigh.
I have a game to play...on the field and off. And both will require every ounce of my focus if I want to emerge victorious.I don’t know what I’ve set in motion today, threatening Harper like I did.
But if there’s one thing I know about her already, it’s that she doesn’t play fair.