Page 21 of My Brother's Teammates

I didn’t feel like laughing anymore. “Are you serious?”

“From the look on your face, I’m guessing the sinking feeling in my gut that I fucked up and deserved every punch you gave me is accurate?”

“Jesus, Ry! You tried to dump her before you even dated her! Of course, she annihilated you!” I frowned. “If you made her cry, I’m punching you again.”

He nodded. “Seems fair.”

We were both silent for a few minutes, lost in thought. My jaw ached and I could feel my eye swelling, but I mostly just felt annoyed that I couldn’t leave to find Jenny.

“Now what?”

I did laugh then. “You blew your shot. You pre-dumped her. Idiot. So, now, I guess Hud and I will play Bachelorette or some shit to see if she’s interested?”

“Fuck.”

“Yep.”

***Jenny***

Iheardacommotiondownstairs and put in my earbuds, determined to not give into temptation and go down to see what was happening. I had enough to do. Plus, I wasn’t sure I liked two of the four men living in the house right then. I didn’t want to chance having to play nice.

I reread the same passage for the third time and closed the Physical Psychology book, giving up. Iwashungry. If I went downstairs for food, I wasn’t giving into temptation, technically.

I pulled on an oversized hoodie and made sure it hid the marks Ryder had left all over my neck. I was finally thankful that they kept the house so cold. I was going to have to go out into the September heat the next day and I had a feeling that I was going to be angry at Ryder all over again.

Creeping down the hall in the place I lived was weird, but I was nervous about seeing the guys. I stopped at the top of the stairs and looked down just to see Jason staring up at me. I jumped and gasped. “You scared me, asshole!”

He laughed. “I was just wondering why the fuck you were moving down the hallway like the crypt keeper. Come down here. You should see Thelma and Louise.”

The stairs reminded me that I wasn’t just creeping around because of nerves. My vagina hurt. Every step was a solid reminder of what I’d done that morning, thanks to Ryder’s dick and my own stupidity.

“Holy hell, Jenny! You’re moving at the speed of peanut butter! Grandma Jones could move faster than you right now.”

I punched him in the arm when I got to him. “Grandma Jones is dead, you jerk.”

“I’m aware. And I meant what I said.” He laughed and dodged another punch. “Hudson and I are guessing what happened to these two. So far I’ve guessed mugged by a gang of children and Hud guessed lured into the wrong MLM.”

I followed him into the kitchen and gasped when I saw Axel and Ryder standing next to each other with ice packs on their faces. It was too late, though. The swelling and bruising were already dramatic. My mouth flopped open and closed a few times as I tried to form a coherent thought, but I was shocked speechless.

Axel winked at me. “You should see the other guy.”

I noticed the slight upturn of Ryder’s mouth and had a feeling Iwasseeing the other guy. It would’ve been easy to jump to conclusions about why they might’ve been fighting, but I wasn’t doing it. I didn’t care, or at least that’s what I told myself.

“So, what do you think happened to them?” Jason was having a great time, I could tell. He loved when it wasn’t him who’d ended up with a black eye.

I opened the fridge and bent down to get a bottle of water before looking back at the both of them and frowning. “I’ll go with they tried to fit both of their egos in the same small space.”

Hudson and Jason laughed, but the other two looked annoyed. I grabbed a bag of gummy worms from the cabinet and turned a fierce glare on Jason when he took them from me.

“You need to eat something real, kid.” He opened the bag and popped one of them into his mouth. “You can’t live off of this shit forever.”

“I don’t tell you when you’re eating fake thingsloudlythrough the night next door to me, asshole, so I expect you to return the curtesy when I choose to shove a gummy bear or three into my mouth.” I snatched the bag from him and stomped back upstairs.

“Hey! That was mean, kid!” Jason’s voice was full of laughter as he shouted after me. “Also, why are you climbing the stairs like you’re smuggling a ham down your pants?”

I screamed and rushed into my room just to slam the door shuttwicefor good measure. Barely five minutes later, I felt so bad for being mean to Jason that I waddled back down to the top of the stairs and called out to him.

“Yeah?” He stuck his head out of the living room and grinned up at me. “What’s up?”

---