“Can’t believe you walked off the field,” Heath snaps. “What are you gonna do if you get hurt in a game?”
“The same thing. There are substitutions,” I retort. “Maybe you shouldn’t hit so hard.”
“I didn’t even hit you that hard! You just wanted to come over here and flirt.”
I open my mouth to reply, but Olive cuts me off.
“Maybe he did!” she snaps. “That’s none of your business. But anyway, I was watching, and you did hit him too hard. You need to calm down, Heath.”
Heath grits his teeth. If it was just us out here, just The Brotherhood and Olive, I have no doubt this wouldn’t be the end of it. Not even close.
But as it is, there’s too many eyes on us. Heath just grits his teeth again and pushes his mop of damp, sweaty hair out of his eyes.
“I’m going to the locker room.”
“I’ll come too,” Beck pipes up, clearly looking to get away from here as fast as possible. They turn and walk off.
“Olive,” Jasper says, stepping closer. “You wanna dump this loser? It’s been a while since we talked. What do you say we meet up later tonight?”
“I have to study,” she replies crisply, her grip on my knee tightening. She turns to me, eyes searching. “But I’ll be free tomorrow night.”
She says some more things, but I’m not listening. She might be trying to catch my eye, but my eyes are locked with Jasper’s. I can see the rage building there, and it’s because of me, because I’m supposedly moving in on his girl. I lean a little closer to Olive so that her lips are almost at my ear. Jasper’s whole face darkens, scrunches up.
This is a dangerous game, one I wholly blame on my probable concussion.
“Alex?” Olive says, her voice swimming back into recognizable sounds, like I’ve just emerged from beneath the surface of a pool. “What do you say?”
“Yeah, sure” I reply, vaguely aware that she’s asked me something.
She takes her hands off my knee and claps them together. The sound startles me the rest of the way out of my locked-eyes stupor.
“Excellent! It’s a date, then. Meet you at the bar in town around six?”
“What—” I whirl around to get her to clarify what the fuck she means, but she’s already standing and running up the bleachers to her girlfriends, who giggle as she sits down among them.
Jasper stares at me when I turn back to him, his jaw working as though he’s grinding his teeth down into blunt nubs. His eyes bore into mine. If he wasn’t carrying his helmet in one hand and his stick in the other, I’m sure his fists would be clenched into tight knots at his sides.
He doesn’t say anything. He just turns and stalks back to the locker room.
I watch him for a bit before getting up and gathering my things.
“Don’t forget!” Olive calls out to me. “Six o’clock tomorrow night!”
As if I could forget. I know Jasper won’t, and in extension, the rest of The Brotherhood.
I turn and wave to show that I’ve heard her, but my stomach has twisted into such a knot that if I open my mouth to reply I’m sure I’ll vomit. I just drift toward the locker room with my armful of padding and try to think exactly how I’m going to get out of this.
The coach barely acknowledges me as I breeze past him to put my equipment away and change into my regular oversized hoodie pulled on over my uniform. Everyone’s pretty much cleared out except for Heath and Beck, and Beck is already dressed and heading out as I finish up.
He doesn’t say anything, but he gives me a look when he passes me. It’s surprising, however. I can’t quite read it. It’s not his usual maniacal anger. Instead, it almost looks … soft? Pitying?
I let it slide out of my mind when he leaves the locker room and I’m left alone with Heath, who’s sitting on a bench still in all his gear. I turn to him and our eyes meet. He isn’t still here by accident.
“Hey,” I say, my voice taught with tension. My head still aches and my ears still ring from the way he slammed into me earlier.
When he just gives me a non-committal nod, I grit my teeth and stride up to him.
“So, wanna tell me what the hell is going on with you? Why are you hitting me so hard? Are you trying to break my ribs? They’re still not healed from last time.”