Just like my old man, the words made me shudder. He was everything I was trying not to be. The prime example of someone letting it all go to their head. It didn’t matter that Dad had me and Mom at home. Some skirt only had to bat her eyes in his direction and he’d be foaming at the mouth. My mom, now there was an example of a strong woman. She’d stuck by Dad through it all: the depression, the melancholy, the endless string of faceless women. But everyone had a breaking point, and Dad had found hers. Mom finally walked away and I had to choose—a new life, new school, and new team, or Rixon. A decision I would never forgive him for.
A decision my mom had never forgiven me for.
“There you are.” A familiar hand slid over my shoulder.
“Jenna,” my voice was clipped but it didn’t deter her from sliding into the stool beside me.
“Drinking all alone?”
“Just catching my breath. You know how it is after a game.”
“I know how it can be.” She walked her fingers over my arm. “You look tense.”
Tense was the fucking understatement of the year.
“I can help with that.”
My eyes slid to hers in question. Of course I knew where this was going, the only way it ever went between us. But my dick wasn’t in it, not tonight.
Unperturbed, Jenna leaned in, brushing her lips against the shell of my ear. “Meet me in the storeroom in five.”
“Oh yeah, you going to make it worth my while?”
She pulled back, running her tongue across her bottom lip, a slow seductive sweep. “I think we both know that when we’re done, you’re gonna be feeling a whole lot better.” She stood up, making a show of flicking her long blonde hair off her shoulder and letting me get a front row seat to her impressive rack.
“Five minutes.” She mouthed before sauntering away, heading straight for the back of the bar.
“That one has trouble written all over her.”
“Maybe I like trouble, old man.”
“I knew another guy who said exactly the same thing once.” Jerry gave me a knowing look, whipped the towel off his shoulder and began wiping the counter.
I hadn’t wanted Marissa. She was new. All shiny and eager. Probably hoping she could impress me enough to want to stick around. But Jenna knew the score. She knew it was nothing more than sex between us. A way to burn off some steam and relax.
And given how tense I was, I knew I’d be a fool to resist what she was offering. Decision made, I downed the rest of my whiskey and made my way to the back. But before I disappeared down the hall, I glanced back, searching for my friends. For Felicity. She was still laughing at Asher, her eyes alight and lips curved. She looked happy. My chest tightened, Jerry’s words rattling around my head. He was wrong. I wasn’t my father.
I would never let myself become my father.
But I was no saint either.
Felicity
“Are you sure he won’t come back here?” I asked Hailee for the millionth time since we left Bell’s.
“He rarely comes home Friday night, either crashing at Asher’s or…” she trailed off, giving me a sympathetic smile.
Jason had barely looked twice at me at Bell’s, and every time he did, it was with a scowl painted on his face. As if that wasn’t enough, I’d watched him follow Jenna Jarvis into the back and return a while later with a lazy smirk and fresh wrinkles in his Henley.
“It is what it is.” My lips pursed.
She shook away her grim expression. “Anyway, we didn’t come back here to mope over stupid boys; it’s girls’ night. Are we going with Scott Eastwood in The Longest Ride or shall we go old school with a bit of R Patz in Breaking Dawn?”
Smothering a giggle, I shot her an incredulous look. “I still can’t believe, you, Hailee Raine, are a closet Twihard.”
“What?” She shrugged with no sign of remorse. “He’s hot.”
“If you say so. I’m more of Tim Riggins kinda gal. You can keep your sparkly vampires; I’ll take Friday Night Lights any day of the week.”