WEST
Raleigh wasn’t waiting at my locker when I got to it today. I was relieved not to have to deal with her. Sometimes she was a nice distraction, but this morning I had been up since three with my dad. He’d gotten sick again, and I had woken up to the sound of my mother running down the hallway to get him a glass of water.
I had gone to help her, and we had all stayed up together. I was afraid to sleep. What if I went to sleep, and those were the last moments we had together? He was getting so thin and weak. The doctors couldn’t do anything else. Last month they had sent him home with no hope. Just pain medication to ease him.
Facing school as if my life wasn’t falling apart wasn’t easy. And pretending like I wanted Raleigh around was something I definitely had no patience for right now.
I had just started pulling out my books when a dainty hand with cute pink fingernails touched the locker beside mine. It was Maggie. Someone who kept finding her way into my thoughts. Even though I was trying like hell to forget how she looked at me, like she saw something deeper than the asshole I’d shown her. Or how perfect she felt in my arms.
I glanced up to see her profile as she studied the lock and worked the combination. She really was something to look at.
With a small turn of her head, she peeked at me before angling back to her locker. I stood there, waiting for it to open, but after three tries she still hadn’t gotten it.
“Move. Let me get it,” I said. “You got the combination?”
She gave me her complete attention. Then she handed me her cell phone. I glanced down to see her combination on the screen. “Thanks. Now move back.”
When she was out of my way, I quickly entered the combination and opened her locker. “There you go,” I said just as her phone buzzed in my hand. Glancing down I saw Nash’s face and the text Good morning, beautiful.
What the hell? Why was Nash texting her, and how the hell had she gotten a picture of him on her phone? Brady had said she was off-limits.
I held the phone out to Maggie. “We got a lot riding on us this year to win State. We can’t do it if our quarterback’s cousin is messing around with the football team and screwing with our mojo. Back off.” I sounded harsher than I’d meant to, but fuck that. I was exhausted.
She jerked the phone from my hand and glared at me. The whole point of acting like an asshole was so she’d hate me and stay away. But seeing that flash in her eyes made me regret the shit that had just come out of my mouth. Angry with myself, I turned and stalked off. Really it was Nash I was mad at. Nash, I should have corrected. Not Maggie. I had already made sure she kept her distance from me. She wouldn’t even make eye contact with me now. I didn’t have to keep being such an ass to her. Fact was, if I didn’t act like a jerk around her all the time, I might forget and say something I shouldn’t. Something true.
Nash was walking my way as I headed for first period. I knew he was going to find Maggie. That was bullshit. Brady had made it pretty damn clear he didn’t want any of us going near his cousin. Because of his stupid-ass decision to ignore Brady’s request, he’d made me snap and lash out at her.
“Don’t,” I snarled, and reached out to grab Nash’s arm as he started to pass by me. “Brady doesn’t want this and you need to respect that.”
Nash tensed under my hand then jerked his arm free. “Didn’t ask you, Ashby,” he snapped, then kept going toward Maggie.
I couldn’t worry about this. It wasn’t something I was going to be able to control. If Nash wanted to do this, then I’d make sure he paid for it on the field today. We all would. And if he couldn’t walk on Friday night, then I’d take up his slack. We could win this game without his stupid ass.
But we couldn’t win it without Brady. And we were going to win it. I wasn’t going to let my dad down.
“What’s up with Raleigh being all over Jackson Hughs?” Gunner asked as he took the seat across from me in World History.
Last night Raleigh had apparently hooked up with Jackson Hughs, the only real soccer player we had at Lawton High School. He moved here from somewhere up north where they care about that shit. So now he was making a name for Lawton in soccer.
“Don’t care,” I replied honestly. When I first saw them together this morning on my way to first period, I stopped and waited for the hurt to come. Hell, for anything to come. After all, I’d been with Raleigh on and off for a year. But I never felt anything. Not one damn thing.
“Really? Y’all were all over each other yesterday in the hall,” Gunner reminded me.
“She was all over me, so I let her enjoy herself.” That was the truth—almost. Really I just needed the distraction she provided. I’d also been trying to get the memory of Maggie’s kiss off me. It was haunting me and, damn, it was hard to forget.
Gunner chuckled. “Raleigh keeps looking over here. She’s waiting on a reaction out of you.”
She wasn’t getting one. I shrugged and opened my textbook.
“That’s cold, Ashby. Like, seriously cold-blooded. That’s why you’re a monster on the field. You just don’t give a shit.” If he only knew. I gave a shit about something. Something that was tearing me apart.
“Nothing to care about,” I replied.
“Nash said you were pissed at him about talking to Brady’s cousin. I told him you were right.”
This time I turned my head to actually look at Gunner. “I’ll shut that down this afternoon on the field.”
Gunner smirked. “You gonna let him walk away on both his legs?”
“No.”
Gunner laughed in response. “I’ll be Instagraming that shit.”
Mr. Halter came into the room and started giving us reading instructions. Thank God, I’d get a nap in this class.
“My mom told me that girl saw her daddy kill her momma,” Gunner whispered, leaning toward me. “That’s fucked up.”
What the hell was he talking about?
“Huh?” I asked as I turned back to him.
“Brady’s cousin. She don’t talk because she watched her daddy shoot her momma. He’s in prison or on death row or something. My mom said she’s mental now.”
My stomach turned and twisted up in knots. I didn’t want to believe that. Not for Maggie. Hell, not for anyone, but especially not for Maggie. She was kind. She didn’t lash out or mistreat anyone. Even me, who she should have slapped at least three times now. There was no anger behind her gaze. Only a loneliness I wanted to ignore. But what Gunner was saying . . . That kind of horror would completely ruin a person.
Gunner’s mother was famous for gossip and thought she knew everything in town. I wanted this to be wrong. But what if it was true? How was she living with that kind of nightmare?
