Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
SEBA
I should text her.
I know I should.
But I can’t.
Slow-motion clips of what I witnessed last night and how my body reacted flash through my mind.
The itchy film of guilt sticks to me like a second skin.
I betrayed her. I betrayed God. I betrayed myself.
My fists strangle the strap of my duffel bag.
I’d hoped joining off-season conditioning would clear my head.
It didn’t.
Pulling up my hood, I shoulder open the door and exit Kingsbury’s gym. A crisp breeze ruffles my damp hair. Like Andrea’s fingers did as her lips and tongue moved with mine.
This back and forth is exhausting. Maybe I’ll sign up for one of the seven-on-seven tournaments. Focusing on football— on my future— is my only option. Because I can’t go on like this. I won’t. This isn’t me. It’s corruption. It’s insanity.
Shoulders hunched against the cold, I trudge around the building, lost in a mental war against myself.
Two figures in the shadows stop me in my tracks.
A muscular guy in a Kingsbury letterman jacket cages Cade against the wall, snarling something in his ear.
Though, as I stand there, I realize it’s much worse than a bully tormenting my stepbrother.
The guy roughly grips Cade’s waist and presses his hips forward.
My stepbrother smirks and tilts his head back— the same way he did in the hallway with my hand around his throat.
This is Mystery Guy. This is who he’s been secretly seeing for months. And it’s not just any guy either.
It’s one of my teammates: Marcus fucking Shultz.
With his mouth on Cade’s.
A familiar and uncomfortable feeling sweeps through me— one I don’t want to name that has me trembling with unrestrained rage all the same. I’m charging forward, spurred on by the grotesque sound of that douchebag groaning as he grinds himself against my stepbrother.
My fingers curl around the collar of Marcus’s jacket.
“The hell?” he gasps as I spin him around and wind back my fist—
“Sebastian.”
If I look at Cade right now with the evidence of this garbage human’s hands and mouth all over him, I’ll end up in jail. But I refrain from pummeling Marcus into an unrecognizable pulp. For the moment.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I growl in my teammate’s face.
“Sebastian, enough,” Cade hisses.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” Marcus sputters, eyes wide and panicked. It pisses me off even more.
“No, it’s exactly what it looks like,” I spit. “But whatever you think you’ve got going on here ends now.”
The asshole squirms in my hold. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Y-you’re not gonna tell anyone, right? ‘Cause I’m not into dudes. I’m—”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Marcus blinks. “So you won’t—”
I release him with a shove. He trips over his unlaced sneakers.
“Come near either of us again and the entire school finds out you came onto my stepbrother and he rejected your sleazy ass.”
“That’s not—” he balks, then immediately clamps his jaw shut at my threatening glare. With a nod, he retreats a step, sneaking a glance at Cade. I purposefully side-step to block his view. Another nod. He turns and speeds back into the gym.
“What did I tell you?” Cade snaps at my back. “I don’t need a knight in shining armor.”
Hot anger lingers in my bloodstream. I round on him. “He was using you.”
A blonde brow arches. “Have you considered that maybe I was using him?”
No, I hadn’t, but rather than acknowledge it, I drag him by the bicep in the direction of the Senior lot.
He thrashes in an attempt to break free.
I tighten my grip.
He scoffs. “So it’s cool for you to hook up with Andrea, but god forbid I fuck around with someone?”
He doesn’t get it.
“It’s different.”
“It’s really not.”
We reach my truck in record time. I rip the door open, sling shot him into the passenger seat, and slam it shut. Sliding behind the wheel, I floor it, the tires squealing as we peel out of the spot. The air between us steams.
“You’re a fucking hypocrite,” Cade seethes.
I flick the blinker, gaze trained on the road as I turn onto our street.
In classic Cade fashion, he doesn’t shut up. “I’m over the whole protective big brother act. It’s bullshit and we both know it. You couldn’t care less about me.”
How can he not see it?
I grit my teeth. “That’s not true.”
A sardonic laugh. “You’re such a fucking liar.”
The seatbelt locks from how hard I slam on the brakes. I ram the gear-shift into park. He reaches for the handle. My hand shoots out and clamps around his wrist.
Steely eyes fume at me. “Let. Me. Go.”
My mouth dries as it hits me harder than ever before. He possesses the beauty of an angel with the cunning of the devil. A dangerous allure beneath a shifting illusion that he wields with expert precision, ensnaring the tempted and exploiting their darkest desires.
I swallow. “Don’t go back to him.”
He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have.
“Why does it matter to you who I fuck?”
Lunging over the console until we’re nose to nose, I growl, “Because no one gets to have you if I can’t.”
His lips part.
The silence is deafening.
I don’t stay to see what’s left after the nuclear bomb I detonated. I run, just like I always do. Except that as I lock myself in my room, I realize there’s no escape. There never has been. Not from her. Not from him. Not from the truth.
Yeah, I’ve lost my fucking mind, alright.