Pride

Chapter 5- Jordan

"I can't believe I have morning detention and I have to dedicate all my free time to working on the 'undesirable' tasks of every club in the school," I grumble to Nathan. I'm lying on his couch, ignoring my English homework while Nate does math on the end of the couch. If I stretch, I can poke him with my feet.

"Your own fault," he replies without looking up. I stretch to poke him with my foot.

"But it's annoying," I whine. "I'm never going to have any time to myself anymore."

"No, probably not," he says, again without even pausing what he's doing. I nudge his elbow with my foot, poking my toe out the hole in my sock.

"I can't believe that Coach Johnson would do this to me. If I threatened to quit the team, do you think he'd revoke the punishment?"

"Doubt it."

I shuffle my upper body further down the couch towards him and reach up with my sweatily-socked foot towards his neck, managing to poke his jaw before he reacts.

"Ew!" He smacks my leg away from him, pushing me half off the couch in the process. "Nasty! Get your gross, sweaty feet anywhere away from me!"

I grin. "You didn't seem to mind when it was your elbow."

He makes a face at me. "You foul creature."

"I'm ranting, and you're not even listening to me. Some friend you are."

"You're whining. You've been whining for hours. If your freedom is going to be severely restricted until the end of the year, one might think you'd try and take advantage of what you have left."

I jump off the couch. "Now you're talking. Let's go out."

He sighs, correctly guessing that he's not going to get any more math homework done tonight. "Fine. Where?"

I consider that. "A club. I'm feeling some mindless entertainment to the tune of girls and alcohol. And loud music."

He finishes packing up his homework and raises his eyebrows at me. "You just described every club. Got a specific one in mind?"

I check my phone. "Rae's Nightclub?" It's one of the most popular, especially with kids from our school (unfortunately, both basketball and football fans. But I'm willing to overlook that right now).

"Sounds good to me."

"Great. I'll go change."

Within the hour, we're arriving at Rae's Nightclub. As soon as we walk in, girls are all over us. Football fans, no doubt. Despite constantly getting into near-fights with the Basketball Boor and then consequently going to the principal's office, I do still have time to be arguably the most popular guy in school. I am the quarterback of the football team, after all. The only one who might give me a run for my money is the person idolized by the rest of the student body- the captain of the basketball team. Ugh.

I get a drink and throw it back, before going to the dance floor with a few girls who are still clinging to me and giving me bedroom eyes. This is the life.

The next morning isn't quite as fun. Nate drags me out of bed at a completely unreasonable hour (like, ten o'clock. Disgusting, right?) and forces me to get dressed and brush my teeth and everything, because of course we have football practice today. I just love having weekend football practice when I'm hungover. It's just great.

Practice starts at noon, and somehow we get there on time, and I'm actually awake, which I find shocking.

"How come you didn't remind me we had weekend practice?" I grumble to him as we're changing in the locker room.