Football players are assholes. I know; I'm related to their king. My older, and annoyingly overprotective, brother Jake is the star quarterback at Santa Cruz High School. I love him but hate living in his shadow. Everyone worshiping the air he breat...
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The ride home was thick with exhaustion and 'I'm sick of you' vibes. Guys napped, listened to music, or played on their phones. No one talked except the coaches. I wanted to burn all of Josh's coat hangers.
The inland forests became rocky coastlines, and I slumped in my seat. She couldn't trust me. And I hated it.
I shouldn't care. What Ellie thinks of me shouldn't affect me.
Irritation chewed me from the inside out. And I couldn't convince myself it was because she hadn't seen the entire picture. Why did I care? Because her reaction would've been different if presented with the truth. I wiped all that shit off my phone. She didn't see my heated face and the veins raised on my neck when I told Josh that the trio of idiots needed a lesson in common decency. I was one roar away from Frankenstein's monster mode.
Why was I so pissed? Her soft words hit harder than a smack in the face. I felt like she jabbed a sharp object into my conscience and twisted it into a raw wound.
Josh looked at me from across the aisle. "You okay?"
Unless three pages counted, I'd not read my AP chem book for the past two hours. The blurry words deserved a rejection, so I set the book in my bag. "I'm fine," I lied.
He slid closer and dangled his right leg into the aisle. "You're a shitty liar." Why was he right so much? I was a shitty liar, at least to him. So, I sat silent. Josh, however, did not. "Still think the JV shits told her?"
The reminder made me clench my teeth. I hoped those three enjoyed their last weekend of existence. "Yeah." They had to have told her something. How else would she have guessed? By the certainty in her tone, she challenged me to deny its existence.
"You like her," he said in a low voice. "Eleanor."
Well, now he's wrong. I expelled a sharp breath. "No." We sat for a minute of silence before I sighed. "She knows about the game and assumes I'm a player."
His hand dragged down his face, and he groaned. "Fuck, how much does she know?"
With my current luck, she knew the idiots labeled her the trifecta by now. "Lucky guess? I don't know, but I couldn't lie to her."
"I doubt that impressed her." Josh shook his head. "You did the right thing shutting that shit down. Does she know you canceled it?"
I shook my head. "Nope." Fuck, I deleted that shit game three times during camp. Might need a new, idiot-proof approach. Josh blinked at me as if he expected more truth vomiting. The words stung as I admitted, "I'm just 'asshole football player who doesn't have the decency to treat girls like they're people with feelings.'"
Ellie's disappointment carved a hole in my chest. Not a sharp one, more like a dull spoon gouge. My fingers fidgeted, and I shifted in my seat. Impressing her was superficial, but perception bit me in the ass.
