Page 93 of Jace
“You can’t! Do you know who my father is?” Bentley–who’s now standing up, flanked by the assistant coaches–glares daggers at me with those small squinty eyes of his. “He’s the one who caused friction in our team. We were playing perfectly fine last year!”
If I were Bentley, I would totally shit my pants at the way the coach is glaring at him.
“Heis not the reason for all the friction and toxic environment that our team has become this year.Youare. And I have a lovely little dossier with all your transgressions.”
“But coach–”
“Do not interrupt me!”Coach bellows. “I’ve written you up before. You know that if there was one more misdemeanor you can kiss your education goodbye. Yourdadknows that as well. Let’s head inside and call him, see what he has to say about this.”
Coach gives me a nod goodbye, telling me that if they need me they’ll call me, before they disappear inside, hauling Bentley with them. Bentley, who has murder in his eyes.
Did my coach just remove the only problem I have left on this campus?
Dazed, I go to the only place that makes sense right now, and jog to the jock house, the hood of Ty’s hoodie drawn over my head. It’s far, basically on the other side of campus from the soccer fields, and it sucks that I don’t have a car or some other means of transportation right now. I can go home, which is closer, like I planned, but that’s not what I need…WhoI need right now.
I’m really hoping he can help me make sense of this day because it sure is a mindfuck.
Oh shit, what if I get sued again for punching that fuckface? I mean, he started it… But don’t people sue for lesser reasons? Maybe I should call my dad, but what do I say? Hey, Dad. I know we haven’t talked for six months and you just called me to explain that you fixed my lawsuit I didn’t know I had, but guess what? It happened again!
Sounds like a fun conversation.
The difference is that last time I was the one who ended up in the hospital. And I’m pretty sure that if the coaches did not appear, Bentley would be the one in an ambulance right now.
But whatever… I sigh as I arrive at Ty’s place, going around back to enter through the kitchen. I have witnesses, I wasn’t the one who started this, so it should be fine. Right?
As I enter the kitchen, I’m in luck. Tyler is alone, standing at the stove. He’s cracking what looks like a lot of eggs in a bowl. He sure loves his eggs.
“Got a plate to spare?” My man really knows how to cook, I would prefer anything he makes to all the crap that’s served in the cafeteria. Not that I’m in the mood to get dinner there anyway.
Tyler looks up broad-smiled at hearing my voice, and there are those magical few seconds again. Everytime I see him after being apart for a bit–yeah, I know I saw him at the exam this morning–I swear my heart skips a beat, I make a stupid exhalein relief likefucking finally,and we both can only grin at each other like a couple of mental cases. Which is awesome.
His smile, however, disappears immediately when he takes my disheveled self in.
“Jesus Christ, babe. Your eye. What the hell happened?” Ty turns off the stove where he had a skillet heating up, before he maneuvers me onto a bar stool. “Who do I have to punch?”
Smiling hurts a bit, but I do it anyway. “I love it when you come to my defense. And when you call me babe.”
His eyebrows rise as he grabs a washcloth from a drawer and holds it under the tap for a bit. “You do? Did you get hit in the headthathard? I thought you’d prefer it when I call you fucker?”
“Nah. After having a lot of insults thrown at me I prefer something endearing, I think.”
He stills completely, a frown marring his gorgeous face. “What happened?”
I swallow my nerves away and hate that my hands tremble, which is stupid because everything’s perfectlyfine. He notices though and grabs them, inspecting the scraped knuckles before gently cleaning them.
“Was this that idiot again? From your team?” he guesses correctly.
I nod, staring at a point somewhere above his shoulder, inspecting the flowery wallpaper. It always strikes me as funny whenever I come here. Jocks with teeny tiny bright flowers on their walls, hah.
“Do I need to punch him out?” Tyler repeats, and I finally meet his concerned gaze.
I shake my head. “I think the coach is having him thrown off school? Apparently this wasn't the first time something like this happened…”
“Idiot. Wish I aimed for his head instead of his back that time at Yetties,” Tyler murmurs, now busy with my face. I focus onhim, on his beautiful big brown eyes. They’re now squinting in concentration, having his game-face on.
I trust him and love how he stays calm. He’s familiar with injuries, being thrown around like a ragdoll on the field and shit, and it doesn’t take him long to come to the same conclusion as the coach did; aside from what in all likelihood is going to be a beautiful black eye, I’m fine.
At least until Ava notices it and starts ranting about how I’ll fuck up her precious pictures of our group. Or she’ll love it for some bad boy image thing. It could go either way.
