Chapter 7 #2
“Three days later.” Jason was becoming even more distraught.
“I don’t get it, there were no phones, no cameras.
” He genuinely sounded like he still couldn’t account for it, even now.
“I’m not fucking stupid. We all agreed. We made a deal, none of us had a phone or anything.
I don’t know how they got a picture of me with her. I know . . . I know I was stupid.”
“You were in a bedroom?” Noah asked, and Jason must have nodded to say yes, because Noah continued. “Someone’s laptop was open then. Probably filmed the whole thing.”
I risked a glance up through the gap and saw that Jason looked ready to pass out.
Dante must have thought the same thing. “Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he assured Jason, getting out of his seat.
How? I mean . . . he was so single when his girlfriend found out.
“So what happened?” Dustin asked. “You got your rocks off with an audience, you cheated on your girlfriend, and you have a picture, much like I do, of being caught in a compromising position.”
By the looks of it, the news that Dustin was in a similar position brightened Jason’s day.
Dustin waved him off. “Nah, man. Not the same. I was with my girlfriend, on the street, just her and me.”
“You have a girlfriend?” Jason asked in surprise.
“Off topic,” Noah reminded them, also standing. “So what we have is someone taking pictures of the team screwing?”
Jason’s eyes were wide as saucers. “I wasn’t screwing!”
He actually looked affronted.
Noah exchanged a look with Dustin, who was definitely trying not to laugh. “You were in a room with an orgy—”
“Laurie-Anne is the love of my life,” Jason said fiercely. “She will be my wife. I promised her my virginity, and she promised me hers.”
Sounded . . . restrictive.
“What were you doing then?” Dustin asked him. “You kissed someone?”
Noah gave him a look that was pretty much ‘he’s an idiot.’ “He’s not getting blackmailed over a fucking kiss.”
Dustin sniffed. “Depends on how good the kiss was.”
“I didn’t kiss her.” Jason looked appalled.
I was definitely lost; thankfully, so were the others.
“No kissing, no sex, so . . . a blow job?” Dante guessed.
Jason squared his shoulders. “Hand job. I’d only ever done it . . . you know, myself,” Jason mumbled.
This guy was going to marry someone who’d never even jerked him off? Was he crazy? What if they had zero chemistry?
I couldn’t stop the squeak of laughter, and I quickly got myself back in control, hoping none of them had heard me.
Shit. Too close.
I held my breath and lay flat out, my face inches from the concrete.
“How good is the picture?” Dante asked after a very tense moment when I was sure my lungs might burst. Luckily, he sounded no different than he had been before, which was a good thing for me. But I opted to keep my head down. I had been too close to letting them know I was listening.
Jason sounded miserable. “There is no doubt what’s happening, who it’s happening to, and it’s not my long-term girlfriend delivering.”
“How are they blackmailing you?” Dustin asked him. “What did you mean earlier when you said they told you this was how it was?”
“I told Coach. I showed Coach the picture. He told me he’d handle it.” He sounded so defeated; I felt sorry for him.
I heard a scoff but wasn’t sure who it was, and then Dante spoke. “You took a picture like that to Bobby Ray?”
“Yeah. Who else could I turn to for help?” Jason asked.
“That’s where I went when I got the picture of me. Straight to the stadium,” Dustin commiserated.
To Coach Sutherland? Why the fuck would any of them trust that man?
“You went to Coach?” Dante asked.
“Initially, but in reality, I was looking for Briar. Then I went to my QB.” I heard a thud, and from the dull oomph that followed, I guessed Dustin just punched Jason. “Why the fuck didn’t you go to your QB man? Or me?”
“Coach always says if there’s an issue, you tell him.” Jason sounded clearer. Surer. “This was an issue.”
“And in exchange, he what? Asks you to look the other way at stuff that’s happening on and off the field?” Dante pressed.
Jason sighed long and loud. “I thought he’d help me.”
The four of them were quiet, and I knew now wasn’t the time to tell them that Coach Sutherland had never helped anyone out except himself.
“Let’s get these pictures he wants. We need to get Briar,” Dante said, sounding as if he were walking away. “We can figure out how to help you later. I don’t want him to come looking for us.”
“How will you help me?” Jason asked, following along, and I heard Dustin mention something about ‘taking the power back.’
The conversation faded, and I think they were walking to the tunnel. No doubt to look for me. Which brought me back to my next dilemma, ‘How do you get out of this Briar?’
I rose slowly, body tense in case they hadn’t all left. I peeked above the seats, focused on the tunnel and saw nothing. I felt my shoulders relax.
“Enjoying the conversation?” Noah asked from behind me.
I jumped, tried to turn, banged my head off the seat in the row in front, kicked the seat behind me as I twisted, and basically made a complete fool of myself.
I looked up, his dark eyes glittered as he stood two rows up, looking down at me, arms folded across his chest.
How the hell hadn’t I heard him? He was too big a guy to be that silent.
“I . . .”
“Get up,” Noah ordered, and I reluctantly rose from the floor. I turned my head slightly and saw Dante watching me, while Dustin was further up the field, talking to Jason, and I just knew he was convincing him not to run to their head coach.
“Let’s move,” Noah said tightly, stepping over the seats to come onto the same row I was on.
“You could say please,” I grumbled as he settled beside me.
“Move.”
What a dick.
“Now, Briar. You think you deserve manners from me, when you’ve shown none?”
I refused to look at him because if he was going to be pedantic . . . Well, I had no comeback.
Noah simply stepped over the row of seats and made his way to the field. “I said move.”
I had no choice but to follow and saw that Dante was holding up the new team jersey.
Dante looked at me and then at Noah, before turning his back to me.
“Touchy.”
“Don’t be a smartass,” Noah said.
I turned toward him to give him a piece of my mind, but the dark glare he gave me made my words turn to dust. Okay, so they might be intimidating.
“Do the photos,” Noah told me coolly.
Given the predicament I found myself in, I simply nodded. “Fine.”
I had hardly spared a glance at the new shirt, though I did have some slight sympathy that they would have to wear it. It was yellow. I mean . . . yellow. They hadn’t overdone their hate of the color. It really was bright, bordering on offensive.
Dante held his shirt up. “What the hell were they thinking?” he asked no one as he dropped it and pulled off his training shirt.
I looked at the shirt and tried to mend the awkwardness. “It’s kind of West Coast-ish,” I offered, trying not to flinch when four pairs of eyes landed on me.
Dante grunted. “Yeah, well, they can send it to the West Coast.” He looked at the others. “Let’s get it done.”
I took a few shots as they lowered the shirts over their heads, or pulled them down their backs. Nothing that could be cropped and used in a way that was not the point of the shoot.
When I was done, I turned away and adjusted my camera lens.
I didn’t need to turn to know the shadow that fell over me was Noah’s. “You’ll stay behind to talk.”
“No, I don’t think I will.”
He leaned into me, his breath at my ear. “I don’t give a damn what you think, you sit your ass on that seat, and don’t move until I tell you to. Got it?”
I didn’t move, and neither did he. I moved my head a fraction and saw Dustin and Jason deep in conversation, and Dante standing a foot apart, his eyes on me.
Yeah, I was fucked.
“I said go sit down,” Noah rumbled behind me.
I knew I was stuck, so reluctantly I did as I was told. Ordered around by a twenty-one-year-old.
Ugh, my pride would never recover.