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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Fucking pathetic things had come to this. I gave Bryce every chance to quit. Now, we had to do this the hard way. The Jake Harrison way.
Bryce's text that proclaimed me the winner of the game, under false assumptions that I slept with Ellie and ridiculous texts from the team, was the last straw. I arrived early Monday morning and waited in the parking lot. Liquid irritation, not blood, flowed in my veins. I clenched and unclenched my steering wheel, making the gaps between my knuckles appear and recede.
The more cars that filled in around me, the more impatience and anger fought to control my mood. Bryce's black truck throbbing with music beats gave anger the edge. I narrowed my eyes and clenched my teeth when he stepped onto the pavement.
"There he is." His light-hearted tone and head-to-toe visual scan made my hands fists. "Years of celibacy freshly fucked away isn't a good look for you, bro." His face stretched into a wide grin, and one of his palms lifted for a high-five. My teeth ground against each other and everything outside my direct focus blurred out of recognition. I tightened my jaw so tense that my neck strained. "Fucking finally ended your dry spell."
My body reacted with a flinch. Anger coiled so tight, I snapped. Tiny red spots flashed over Bryce's smug grin. Tension drew my shoulders up, pinching the muscles in my upper back as I drew back my left fist. I clenched my stomach, grunted like a fucking caveman, and punched the middle of his stupid, grinning face.
Crack!
An explosion of pain burst between my first and second knuckles and shot down my left hand and wrist. Bryce's head snapped back, and his chin lifted skyward. His knees wobbled, and he fell to the pavement like I'd punched the life out of his body.
I hadn't been in a fight since middle school, probably for a reason. "Tell me," I threatened through gritted teeth and cast a shadow over Bryce's slumped body. With small flicks of my left fingers in the air next to my leg, tingles shot up my wrist. "That. It's. Over."
"Bro?" His eyes looked up at me with white surrounding his irises. A small trickle of blood beaded up and threatened to spill out his left nostril. "I-I'm sorry, bro." The shock in Bryce's eyes was replaced with a flash of fear as my right hand clenched into a tight fist.
I would've hurt Bryce more if I'd used my dominant right hand, but I wasn't stupid enough to risk injuring my throwing arm. And I didn't want Bryce hurt, but my words were ineffective. So, here we were. "The correct answer." An unfamiliar voice, low and threatening, vibrated my throat. I leaned over, pain returning in my left hand's knuckles as I tightened both fists around his shirt. With a grunt, I squeezed the collar into the back of his neck. "Is yes."
"Y-yes," Bryce stuttered.
Rushed footsteps approached, which I ignored and squeezed harder. "Stop being a fucking idiot. You could get us all suspended or in jail for all the nude pictures of girls shit. Good luck explaining that to recruiters on Friday. Probably doesn't look good on a college application either."
