Page 19 of Pretty Broken Things

So, when Shane comes over with Mandi and Kaitlyn following after him, I see a chance to dig Tessa out of my system. Normally, I’d charm my way into her bed and get over it that way, but I don’t want to be another person who abandons her. Not that I’m sure she’d be interested in having a fling with me, except occasionally I think I see her look at me with a bit more than friendly interest.

“Huddle up, fellas,” Coach Greer shouts. A few of the guys groan in relief as we run over to the bench.

“Take a knee,” he instructs. “Our first game is tomorrow night. Some coaches would have went lighter on practice the day before, but the opposing team won’t go light on you. I intend on bringing home another trophy this season.”

He drones on and on about how much we’re going to suffer but that he’ll turn us into men, basically proving why we call him Coach Hard-Ass.

After droning on for nearly fifteen minutes he finally releases us to shower and change. “Thank fuck that’s over,” Shane says and slaps me on the pads.

“It’s going to be more intense tomorrow,” I remind him.

He rolls his eyes. “That’s tomorrow. We could get hit by a bus before then. Tonight, we’re going to celebrate being alive with two hot cheerleaders.”

“I think they’re members of the pep squad,” I correct him.

“Is there a difference? They carry pom poms and jump around in little skirts,” he points out.

“Fuck if I know,” I grumble.

“Are you sure about this? I know I was giving you shit earlier about Tessa, but if you like her for real I’ll back off,” he promises.

I glance to the sidelines and Mandi wiggles her fingers at me in her version of a flirty wave. I nod my head in return. She needs to learn now that she’ll be getting the bare minimum of effort from me. Not in the sack, I bring my A game there, but that’s the only time she’ll capture my attention.

My nod is enough encouragement for her though. When girls first started throwing themselves at me my freshman year I thought it was exciting, but easy pussy has lost its appeal. I don’t want to look too closely at the reason why, because I’ll probably find a five-seven brunette at the root of it.

A familiar laugh reaches down from the bleachers, causing Shane’s head to snap up and his nostrils to flare. I follow his line of sight, and my own anger bubbles up. Lydia and Tessa stand next to two of the soccer players, Preston Wallace and Jace Carrington. Worse, there’s too much familiarity between Tessa and Jace.

“I was wondering if they’d get back together now that school is back,” Mandi says, surprising me. I thought she was still with the rest of her squad.

My hands come up to grip my pads, having already shed my jersey, because I needed to hold on to something that isn’t Carrington’s neck. “They were together?” My voice sounds like gravel, but she doesn’t notice, or at least doesn’t care.

“Oh yeah, for like most of junior year,” Kaitlyn adds.

“He hooked up with some girl during soccer camp, and the pics made it around our group. She broke up with him in the comments. It was pretty savage to be honest,” Mandi admits.

The corner of my mouth twitches. That sounds like something my countess would do. I shake my head to rid myself of that thought. She’s not my countess. She’s not my anything, except my friend.

Shane comes up behind me. “What the fuck does Lydia think she’s doing?”

“The same thing we are it seems,” I goad him. I don’t know where I find the ability to tease him, since my vision is rapidly turning red watching fuck face Jace flirt with Tessa.

“I don’t like it,” he complains.

“We either do something about it, and set their asses straight about who they belong to, or we have to let them go. Even we aren’t that big of assholes to string them along. If we’re going to be hooking up with other girls, we can’t insist they stay loyal to us,” I tell him.

He exhales. “She wants a commitment.”

“She came out and said that?” I’m surprised, because that’s so unlike Lydia. She might not seem as tough as Tracy and Tessa, but her cheery exterior is just another mask. We all wear them. Hers seems crafted to make sure no one asks or even wonders how she’s doing. Even those of us she considers her friends don’t know as much about her as we should.

Shane shakes his head. “Nah, you know she wouldn’t. But it’s there in her eyes every time she looks at me. I like her, but I don’t think we can ever be more than a dirty fuck in the backseat of my car. You know she never lets any of us go to her house, and it isn’t like I can bring her to mine. We’re friends who occasionally fuck. I can’t give anyone more than that. The fact that we’ve done it more than once is more than what most girls get.”

“Then you have to let her go. She deserves more.” So does Tessa, but I don’t say it out loud.

“So, we’re going to hang out with Mandi and Kaitlyn then?” Shane asks. He doesn’t seem sure, and is having a hard time keeping his eyes off of Lydia. Maybe he’s doing the same thing I am, running away from something that feels a little too real.

I’m honestly not sure what I’m going to do until I notice Jace reach out and stroke Tessa’s cheek. It’s like a switch flips inside of me. I don’t think, I just act. I fly up the bleachers as if I hadn’t already pushed my muscles to the point of fatigue.

“Hands off, Carrington,” I growl.

---