Of course he would be there… it was a pep rally for his team.
He stared at me like I’d grown a second head. “Yeah, I’ll be there. Don’t tell me you’re thinking of coming?” Contempt dripped from his words.
“Yeah, well… for research.” I ducked my head, my heart crashing wildly in my chest. His hatred for me bled from him like a river, washing over me until I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“Avery, I am sor—”
“Didn’t you screw Chase over enough already, snitch?” The sudden weight of Micah’s arm draped over my shoulder made me flinch.
My eyes found Avery’s again and the air instantly cooled between us. I braced myself for his retort, but instead he spun on his heel and walked away.
“Shit, snitch, what the fuck did you say?”
“Get the hell off me, Micah.” I nudged him away from me and flicked my hair off my shoulder. “You don’t have to be such a dick all the time.”
“Says the girl who single-handedly screwed us over.” He scowled.
“I’m not doing this with you.” I dodged around him, but he grabbed my bag strap and yanked me back.
“Not so fast, snitch.” I glanced back, arching a brow, refusing to show even an ounce of weakness. “Little word of advice.” The corner of his mouth lifted into a vicious smirk. “Stay the fuck away from Avery.”
Until last year when I’d made the cheer squad, I’d never been to the football stadium before. It felt strange coming back here to sit in the bleachers. Kids gave me a wide berth as I tried to find a seat, stepping aside or bunching up to their friends as if they might catch some contagious disease from any contact with me.
It didn’t bother me. I hadn’t exactly been a social butterfly before the paper ran the exposé. I preferred my own company, reading books and watching real life crime documentaries. I had friends, my co-writers at the paper and my colleagues at the library. I just didn’t have close friends. Except my mom. She was my best friend. Always had been, always would be.
Eventually, I found a seat on the end of a row. The guy next to me scooched closer to his friends and I shook my head.
“You won’t catch anything.”
“I don’t know, I heard you gave Micah Delfine crabs?”
“What? I didn’t—” I rolled my lips together, refusing to feed the rumor mill. Clearly Micah wanted to play dirty.
“He’s just covering for the fact that he couldn’t last, if you know what I’m saying. All that locker room talk of Micah Delfine going all night long…” I beckoned the guy closer, my lips curving with amusement. “I heard he pays the cheerleaders to spread rumors that he’s an energizer bunny in the sack, but he’s more of a floppy duck if you catch my drift.”
“Oh, shit.” The guy exploded with laughter, leaning over to tell his friends.
I smiled, satisfied. But then it quickly died when I realized I’d potentially poked the beast.
Chapter Five
Avery
The crowd roared my name as I stepped up beside Coach.
Chase.
Chase.
Chase.
It filled the football field like a battle cry, rippling through me like a wave hurtling toward the shore.
But I knew that come game day, it would be ten times as loud. Because the whole of Rixon would turn out to see our first game of the season.
“Did you tell him yet?” Coach Ford asked me out of the corner of his mouth as we watched the cheer squad do their thing.
“No, but I will.”
“You have until Monday. I won’t lie to him, Avery. He’s my best friend.”
“And I’m your star player,” I quipped, earning me a nudge to the shoulder.
“Watch it, kid. You might be my star player, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to give you an easy time this season.” He nodded over to the bleachers. “I see Miss Fuller came.”
“Hadn’t noticed,” I grumbled.
“Of course you hadn’t. It might have been light years ago, but I remember what it was like to be seventeen.”
“Mom told me you fought your feelings for Felicity for most of senior year.”
“Your mom talks too much. But yeah, I was an asshole back then.”
“Then? I hate to tell you Coach but you’re still kind of an asshole.”
His deep laughter reverberated through him, but then the cheer squad made their grand finale, and all eyes were back on the team.
Coach stepped up to the mic and the crowd ushered into silence. Anticipation rippled through the air. “Rixon High,” he said, “are you ready to play some football?”
The bleachers exploded, the chorus of hoots and hollers hitting us like a forcefield. The rest of the guys joined in, cheering and clapping, while the team mascot, a huge foam Viking head worked the crowd into even more of a frenzy.
“Okay, okay,” Coach boomed. “Last year we got our asses handed to us by Marshall, but this year we’re bringing that championship title home. And the guy that’s going to get us there… your quarterback and captain, Avery Chase.”
It was a heavy burden to carry, the hopes and dreams of every teacher, every single kid at Rixon High, their parents, my teammates. But I bore it with pride and honor. As I stepped up to the mic, a sense of deep responsibility weighed down on me. But nothing worth having came easy. You had to fight for it tooth and nail. You had to dig your heels in and keep going. If my dad and Coach Ford had taught me anything, it was that it wasn’t about being the best, it was about being better than you were yesterday.
Last season, we’d lost. We’d let the championship slip between our fingers. But this season, it was not an option.
I needed to go out on a high, to leave my mark, and follow in my dad’s footsteps.
So I would push. I would push my team and myself and our fans…
And I would win.
I followed the guys out of the locker room
