Page 16 of Bad Ruck

He glared at me for a moment before shrugging and stomping off to the left.

"Are you going to get your head out of your ass at some point?" I said to his back.

"My head isn't in my ass," he said without slowing.

"Could have fooled me," I muttered.

"Wouldn't be hard," he muttered back.

"What is your fucking problem?" I growled.

He stopped so suddenly I almost ran into him. He turned around slowly and glared at me. "My problem is that you've had an attitude since you joined the team. Every chance you get to take a dig, you take it."

"You too," I pointed out. "You never wanted Jay and I on the team in the first place."

"I didn't give a shit." He dropped his hands to his sides. "I wanted good players who wanted to be Smashers. Because I give a shit about the team. Always have. It was the first fucking thing I thought about when I woke up and the last fucking thing I thought about when I went to bed. Then you and Jay rocked up with chips on your shoulders the size of Tasmania, like you were too good for us. Like all you fucking wanted was to go back to Sydney and be a Devil again."

"You know why we transferred," I said.

"Yeah, I do. You admitted that even with a mission to do, you didn't want to be here." His gaze bore into me.

"Now that's changed." I glared back at him. "I want to be here. I want to be a part of the team and this family. I want to be with Chelsea."

"Maybe it's too little too late for that," he said.

"I don't believe in ‘too late’," I said. "Maybe we didn't have the best attitude when we arrived in Dusk Bay?—"

"No ‘maybe’ about it," he snapped. "You had shitty attitudes. You made it a them versus us thing. You stalked around like a caged animal. As if you couldn't walk away if you wanted to."

"I couldn't," I argued. "I had commitments and a contract. Same as you do. You couldn't have walked away either."

"I didn't want to walk away," he snarled. "If I was on a different team this season, I'd give them everything. Because that's what I fucking do. I put everything I have into…everything. Footy, Chelsea, all of this mobster shit. If I'm in, I'm all the way in."

"Not everyone can be like you," I pointed out. "Not all of us are single-minded." Some of us had other priorities, whether we liked it or not.

"It's not hard to make a commitment." His own tone evened out slightly. "You just make it and stick to it. That's all. It's not rocket science."

"I have made a commitment," I said. "I'm committed to the same things you are. I'm all in too. How do you think Chelsea feels being stuck between us? Having to mediate our bullshit? Or Frost? He doesn't like it either. I've seen it on his face." And a lot of other things, including lust. "It upsets Jay too."

Storm exhaled long and slow. He placed his palm on the wall beside him and braced himself. "You think I'm just going to, what? Be your best friend from now on?"

"Why not?" I said jokingly. "I'm pretty fucking awesome."

I deserved the snort he gave in response to my sarcasm. "Can we try to be civil to each other? That doesn't seem like too much to ask, for the good of everyone."

His brow crinkled and he looked down at the worn carpet on the floor. "I'll think about it."

"That's all I ask," I said. Okay, I wanted him to try, not justthinkabout it, but it was a start.

He looked up at me. "You have to stop being a smartass. If you're one of us, you need to act like it. We were lucky the first couple of games, but if we don't start playing like a real team, we're going to get smashed. On and off the field."

He didn't need to explain what he meant. If we didn't have each other's backs, we'd end up like India. I wished I could have spared Chelsea from having to see her friend like that. Doctor or no doctor, she was still disturbed by it. Still heartbroken. I knew she blamed herself, even though none of it was her fault. There was nothing she or any of us could have done. We got there too late. Next time, we'd be quicker.

"Yeah," I said.

I hated to admit it, but he was right. He'd been a dickhead, but so had I. I had exactly the chip on my shoulder he'd accused me of having. And then some, if I was honest. I was ripped out of a place I loved and thrown here. I resented the Smashers, and the Brantley family. It was easier to hide in a corner with Jay and pretend we were better than everyone else. I’d even harboured a fantasy that we dealt with Dominic King and anyone working with him, before going back to the Sydney Devils.

Now I knew that was a stupid fantasy. My life was here, in Dusk Bay with my team, my woman and Jay. Frost as well. I couldn't imagine going back to Sydney. I wouldn't go back. If they tried to send me, I'd have more than a chip on my shoulder.

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