Page 42 of Look What You Made Me Do

Yeah, he was changing the subject.

Rosie looked as if she wasn’t going to roll with it for a beat before she acquiesced. “That’s right. She was a conundrum. She looked perfectly normal and yet she was excluded from all of the cliques. I mean, I was used to it, but she took the prize.”

Jake nodded. All the girls in Trently had hung around in groups or pairs. But Ella had always been alone.

“So you became friends?”

“Hell, yeah. If there’s a bigger misfit around than me, I’m in. And besides, she didn’t judge me, you know?”

“Yeah.” He knew.

“Jake? Jake Prince? Is that you?”

Dragging his attention from Rosie, Jake saw a vaguely familiar guy greeting him like a long-lost brother.

“Roger Hillman.” He stuck out a hand. “From Trently High. We were in the same year.”

Jake smiled as he allowed his hand to be pumped, searching back through his memory banks.

“My sister Deidre had a major crush on you.”

Ah. Bingo!

Roger Hillman, or Rog as he’d been called, had been a prize asshole, always keen to rub Jake’s lack of social standing in his face. Deidre, on the other hand, hadn’t been so fussy. In fact, she’d been downright accommodating that day she’d stripped off her top and let him touch her breasts.

It had been the first time he’d ever been allowed that far by a girl and he could still remember the total awe of the moment. He’d been a boob man ever since.

“Oh right, yes, great to see you again,” Jake lied.

“I’ve followed your career. Man, you were dynamite.” He looked pointedly at Jake’s hands. “You don’t wear your ring?”

“Well, it’s…” Ostentatious. “Kinda heavy.”

“Suppose it’s in a safe somewhere, right?”

Jake nodded non-committally. His two were in his sock drawer.

“Man, you’d never get that bit of bling off my finger.” He guffawed and Jake gritted his teeth. “Pity that piece of skirt ruined it there for you at the end.” Roger gave him a playful punch on the shoulder. “You had another couple of seasons in you, I reckon.”

Jake’s fake smile slipped as the ugliness of that time revisited and he pulled his hand out of the other man’s grasp. Rog was too stupid to notice the cool change.

“Why don’t you go up to the bar and tell Pete your next one’s on me?”

“Yeah? Cool man. I heard you’d bought a bar. Like father, like son, hey?” Rog gave a belly laugh, clutching his chest with one hand and patting Jake on the shoulder with the other before ambling off toward the bar.

Twenty years later, two Super Bowl rings and a kickass NFL career behind him, he was still Mick Prince’s son. Jake turned bleak eyes back to his booth companions.

“That guy’s a loser,” Simon said.

“Complete fuckwit,” Rosie agreed, shooting daggers at the retreating form of Roger Hillman.

Oblivious to what had just occurred, Ella arrived back and slipped in beside him. Drumming her hands on the table she announced, “I think I have room for that drink now.”

“I like the way you think.” Jake forced a grin as he yanked himself back from the quagmire of Roger Hillman’s ugly words.

Pete appeared miraculously with a tray of drinks and Jake could have kissed him. Annoyingly, Ella did, landing a peck on his cheek. “You’re the best, Pete.”

“I know.”

---