Page 78 of Brutal Game

I closed my eyes, taking deep breaths to slow down my thoughts. They quieted.

Everything felt quiet, but some part of me knew it was the calm before the storm.

23

Aviva

The storm hit the Friday after October break at The Stacks. There’d been another home game that night. It had played on the TVs, and I’d done my best to ignore it. It helped that we were slammed. Although even I couldn’t ignore the cheering that signaled another win.

At least Dick had been pleasantly un-dickish. I guess there was one thing to be grateful to Jack for.

Tovah and I barely spoke as we tried to keep up with drink orders. The music was pounding, the lights were low, and I was sweating through my bra. Since it was a Friday night, The Stacks had become Club Stacks: people grinding between tables andontables. The bar itself was the only no go zone, although I’d had to kick at least three girls from the dance team off the table, and it was only 11 p.m. We didn’t shut down on the weekends until 2.

“It’s going to be a long fucking night,” I muttered.

“I’ll say,” Tovah said, bumping shoulders with me. “At least The Weiner has been absent.”

“Or he’s shrank so small, no one can see him,” I said.

Tovah giggled. “Itiscold out.”

I laughed, too. For a moment, one almost-perfect moment, I felt free.

And then the door to the bar opened, and that freedom died a swift death.

There stood Judah, Levi, Isaac, and some other members of the team I unfortunately recognized from the other night. Bile filled my mouth, and I forced myself to swallow it down.

Only for it come back up when Jack followed them through the door, wearing a backwards baseball cap, his arm slung around some girl’s neck. She was thin, with straight brown hair and blue eyes. She was beautiful. And even though I rarely disliked my body, in that moment, I felt self conscious about my size, my shape, my hair that had frizzed from work and sweat, my scar.

I blinked.

Then I blinked again.

Maybe if I kept blinking, the tears that threatened to spill would recede entirely.

Seeing Jack with her hurt, and I hated how much it hurt.

“Aviva,” Tovah said gently.

“I’m fine,” I said automatically. “It’s fine. He’s inconsequential.”

“You are fine, and it is fine, because this is agoodthing. He’s moving on from fucking with you to fucking with someone else. Halle-fucking-lujah,” she said.

“Halle-fucking-lujah,” I mimicked, but I didn’t feel it.

“I can ask Alex to kick them out.”

I shook my head. “There’s no way we get away with that.Rejecting thehockey champswill definitely bring Dick out here, no matter how he feels about Jack.”

Alex glanced over at me as he scanned their IDs.

You okay?he mouthed.

I nodded.

Even though my gut cramped at the sight of Jack guiding the pretty brunette through the bar, his hand on her lower back, and her turning to smile up at him, stroking her hand down his cheek.

“Aviva. Hey.”

---