Ruthless Love (Ash and Innocence 1)

“Part of my job is changing the play based on the reads, dumbass.” I gripped his shoulder pads, squaring up with him. “If I hand you the ball into stacked boxes and watch you lose yardage all game, then it’s my ass. So, take it when it’s given, and be happy about it. Clear?”

Cassian made no move to put his hands on me again, but his eyes were burning with hatred. He nodded slowly, then walked off the field once I let his pads go. One of the coaches went after him, trying to get him to stay and finish out the practice, but Cassian blew him off.

We finished up practice a little while later. Gage and Logan found me. They were both dripping sweat. Logan was shirtless under his shoulder pads, but Gage and I both wore the team-issued black shirts, which were completely drenched.

Gage raked a hand through his damp hair, slicking it back. “What was Cassian’s problem?”

“He wants the ball,” I said. “Nothing new.”

Gage shook his head. “He’s a monster with it in his hands, but he’s going to wind up getting kicked off the team if he keeps losing his temper.”

“Doubt it. Coach only cares about winning.”

Logan flicked his eyebrows up, nodding. “At some point, being an insufferable bag of dicks becomes a detriment to the team.”

Gage smirked. “A bag of dicks? I’m willing to bet there has never been such a thing in the history of this planet.”

Logan blew a raspberry. “Dude. Think about it. There’s…”

I left them to their debate when I noticed a group of scrawny guys and some girls walking out to the football field. They were all wearing cameras around their necks and looking like they wanted to die of embarrassment. But that wasn’t what commanded my attention. Wheels was with them. She noticed me looking, then started studying her knees as she pushed her chair out to the center of the field. Coach called over some of the guys, me included, and gathered us in front of the dozen or so students.

“You guys are helping the videography class with a little project. It’s a win, win, okay? They make you a recruitment video and all you’ve gotta do is the same shit you do every day. Just let them film you. Ok? Anyone gives them trouble, they don’t play. Not my rules, that’s direct from the athletic director. So don’t fuck with me on this.”

The videography kids looked like they had never heard a faculty member curse before. Hell, I wasn’t sure if some of them had heard anyone curse judging by how fresh they looked.

“Now. Rules are you each get paired up with one of these—ah—people,” coach said carefully. He started reading a list, setting up players with kids from the class one by one.

Gage and Logan happened to get matched with the two prettiest girls in the class. But there were only two kids left and my name still hadn’t been called. Either I was going to be paired with a guy who looked like he was allergic to sunlight, or Wheels.

I didn’t take my eyes from her. She had been staring at her lap the entire time, cheeks a permanent shade of red.

Coach checked his list, then read off the name of the guy and matched him with Trevor, one of our offensive linemen.

I looked at Kennedy, who was the only one left from the class. I’d nearly convinced myself to leave her alone after the jailhouse. But the challenge she presented hadn’t stopped tempting me since she’d thrown the rock through my window. Fuck you very much, Kennedy Stills. I grinned at the memory.

I had a sneaking suspicion that she’d be thinking about fucking me very much more when this little project of hers was over.11KennedyI took my morning medications, plus the new gray horse pills my mom added to the rotation yesterday. She said some exciting new studies came out about one of my conditions, and this pill was supposedly some kind of miracle worker. As much as I trusted my mom on that sort of thing, I was skeptical it would help much, even though I tried not to let her see that.

The truth was, almost every time she had me take more pills, it just seemed like I felt even worse. But that could have just been that my conditions were getting worse and the pills couldn’t keep up anymore.

At breakfast, my mom tried to get me to eat some toast.

“I’ll grab something at school.” I knew if I tried to eat anything right then, I’d barf. My head was spinning, my stomach was turning, and I felt so weak I wondered if I could even manage to push my chair to the bus stop in a few minutes.

“You look beat, sweetie. You sure this whole school thing is still a good idea?”