The team comes to a halt after the assistant manager calls for a time out.
The air is grim like the grey clouds, and the school’s pitch appears like a scene from an apocalypse — minus the bodies.
Our football team attracts all the ladies’ attention. They always appear at our practice, calling our names and cheering us on. I grin at them as they stand by the sidelines, and they wave and scream my number, thirteen.
That’s right — my number. Needless to say, I’m the most popular. My fucker friends can claim otherwise, but they’re wrong, so they don’t count.
I head to the bench with Aiden and Cole and snatch a bottle of water before Cole can get it. I’m in the middle of downing it when I meet those black eyes that should belong in some gothic tale about black magic and sucking people’s souls into nothingness.
Teal stands behind the school stadium’s barrier with Elsa and a miserable-looking Kim — because Xander isn’t here and she’s kind of too soft for that fucker.
She waves at me anyway — Kim, I mean — and I wink, grinning even though I’m close to crushing the bottle of water between my fingers.
Teal isn’t even watching us. She’s focused on Coach, who’s yelling at a freshman, asking him if he wants to be on this team or not.
Her phone is snuggled between her fingers, almost forgotten, but not really. Soon enough, her concentration goes back to whatever voodoo spell is in there.
After her display at dinner last week, she’s been acting as if nothing happened, as if she didn’t fuck up my fifteen-year plan that includes not getting married.
Nothing is over, though.
That tiny girl with black hair and eyes, and possibly a black heart, has riled up a part of me I’ve been keeping hidden for so long I actually thought maybe it’d start disappearing, but nope, it came back reeling from the dead.
And now she’ll fucking pay for it.
“What has that bottle done to you?” Aiden asks from his position on the bench. He’s also sipping from a sports drink, but his entire attention is on Elsa. There’s even a slight smirk on his lips; his male ego is happy she’s made it a habit to show up to watch him practice after being against it for months.
Cole sits beside him, wiping the side of his face with a towel. We’re all wearing blue Elites jerseys and shorts since we’re starters and are playing against the second string, which will take over next year once we’ve all graduated.
Knox is jesting with the goalkeeper, and I seize the opportunity his absence provides. I barge between Cole and Aiden and wrap an arm around each of their shoulders, grinning at them suggestively.
“Withdrawals, Astor?” Aiden raises an eyebrow.
“Nope, been smoking my usual stash just fine. Thanks for asking, though.”
“He meant sex withdrawals,” Cole elaborates. “You haven’t thrown a party in a week since your parents are back.”
“Nah, I’m doing fine.” Lie — about the partying, not the sex part.
“If you were, you wouldn’t be clingy like a stripper.” Aiden glares at me. “Not interested.”
“Fuck you, King,” I say, but I don’t remove my arm.
“I might be interested.” Cole raises an eyebrow. “Depending on the circumstances.”
“You keep your kinky shit away from me, Captain,” I warn.
“Are you sure?” Cole drawls. “You never know when it’ll be useful.”
His gaze strays to the spectators and he smiles at Teal. She tips her head in acknowledgment before focusing on her phone.
The fuck?
I stare between him and her then back again. Now that I think about it, Cole and Teal have been getting disgustingly close for some time now. It’s almost unnoticeable, but he’s possibly the only one amongst the horsemen — or the entire male population — that she exchanges words with.
In the beginning, I thought it was because they’re both nerds, but even if I don’t know her — yet — I know Cole. He doesn’t take a step without calculating a thousand years ahead — no kidding, he’s probably writing a financial plan for his fourth generation by now.
Cole is kind on the outside, but he doesn’t actually let people get close. The fact that he did with her is…interesting. Interesting for me because that means he’ll give me indispensable information.
“What do you know about Teal?” I ask them both, because Aiden practically lives at Elsa’s house now and might know more about her than he lets on.
“If Marquis de Sade and Snow White had an offspring, it’d be her,” Aiden says.
“What else?” I probe.
“Why are you asking us about your fiancée?” Cole nudges my side.
I grin. “I’m trying to get to know her and figure out what type of flowers she likes.”
“She prefers dark chocolate.” Aiden appears serious. “Elsa buys her packs all the time.”
“Give me more. I want to woo her.” I wiggle my brows.
“Could’ve fooled me.” Cole smirks.
“You know something, don’t you?” I narrow my eyes at him.
“I might.”
“Tell me.”
“Why would I?”
“Because we’re friends.”
“I might be friends with Teal, too.”
“I came first.”
“Now you’re starting to sound like a clingy ex.” Aiden points his bottle at me.
I flip him off and face Cole, speaking in a dramatic tone. “Remember all the shit I did for you?”
“Like what?”
“Like throwing parties so you could shag and no one would hear the screams.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“What? You thought I didn’t hear them?” I grin.
“Told you, Captain.” Aiden smirks.
“You too, King.” I squeeze his shoulder. “I might have some footage.”
“No, you don’t.” Aiden scoffs. “If you did, you would’ve used it for your cause about now.”
Fuck. I really should’ve kept some footage. Surely Lars and his conniving mind would’ve made it happen. He might even have an entry about it in his little black book.
“Besides…” Cole tilts his head. “Why should we do the work for you? Where’s the fun in that?”
It’s times like these I wish Xander was here. His playfulness balances their arsehole behaviour, but he had to fuck it up with alcohol and disappear for a while.
Wait, is it because I’m surrounded by these two fuckers that I’m starting to have these buried, unusual thoughts?
Those are only excuses and you know it.
“Who told you I haven’t done my homework?” I smile. “I’m a lot more than noble. I’m the nobility itself, and there’s a manual that says we always get what we want.”
“And yet you still can’t find an answer.” Aiden cocks his head too, so now I have two pairs of eyes judging me.
“Of course I can.” Lie.
I’ve watched Teal for a week. She’s either in a ‘fuck off’ mode or an ‘I don’t care’ mode. She doesn’t smile, doesn’t do any club activities. Her only friends are Elsa and Kim, and she rarely speaks. Her head is usually buried in her phone, reading articles about medieval torture devices.
I charmed Mrs Abbot, the librarian, and found out which books Teal borrowed from the school’s library. They’re all about wars. Every last fucking one of them.
Why would the nerd only read about wars? Who fucking knows. Cole does read about war, but that’s not all. He has philosophy and psychology books. It speaks to his personality a little.
What does it mean if you only read about wars? That you’re fucked up, that’s what, but that conclusion still doesn’t give me any way in with her.
Me being with other girls didn’t bother her. I’ve hugged a few, slapped a few on the arse when she was in view, and she just walked past me as if I and the girls didn’t exist.
Being a dick didn’t work either. I made sure to slam into her and made her fall to her arse. She merely pulled herself up, gathered her books, and continued on her way as if nothing happened.
Her lack of reaction is beginning to grate on my fucking nerves. Her disinterest and mighty attitude has started to scrape against my walls, and even I don’t know how I’ll act if those walls somehow end up falling and letting everything break loose.
“You’re used to girls falling at your feet.” Cole’s voice pulls me out of my head. “It’s time someone tells you no.”
“She didn’t say no — she said yes.” The fact that I don’t know why she’s so insistent about this bloody marriage is probably why I’m on edge.
Sure, she wants to help Ethan, but with her psycho personality, I’m almost certain that’s not all.
I focus on her again as she stares at her phone.
What the fuck are you hiding, ma belle?
“Yes can mean no.” Aiden takes a sip of his drink. “Ever thought about that?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You’ve known me for years, haven’t you, Astor?”
“I have.”
“You know when to stay away and when to get close, and you just act like you don’t know sometimes to be a dick.”
“Who? Moi?” I feign innocence.
“Like that.” Aiden points at me. “Your game is strong.”
“What he’s trying to say is” — Cole twirls his finger — “think with the other side of your brain. Let it loose.”
I grin, and my cheeks hurt with the motion. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’ll have to figure it out. Otherwise, you’ll just continue to lose.” Cole speaks in a calm tone. “Either you make the first move or you have to follow someone else’s first move.”
In other words, either I go all the way or I lose.
“And think about the kinky stuff, and the…screams.” Cole’s lips curve in a suggestive smirk. “It might come in handy.”
“Real talk, Captain.” I dig my fingers into his shoulder. “What will it take for you to tell me what you know?”
“Information,” Aiden says matter-of-factly. “Give him something he doesn’t know about the subject of his obsession, though I doubt you have any valuables.”
I grin, and this time, it’s genuine. Since I found out about Cole’s hidden tendencies and figured another thing out, I planned to hold on to this piece of information until I needed a serious favour from him, but I’m at the end of a road here, and I need to carve a way out. “I might have.”
Cole’s head tilts. “What?”
“Une seconde, mon ami. If I give you what you want, will you give me what I need?”
“I might.”
“Not good enough for the shit I have. It’s all documented and with evidence.”
He narrows his eyes before quickly going back to normal. “Fine.”
Of course Cole would choose his battle instead of anyone else’s. He’s Cole, after all.
Friends? Fuck that. Those don’t exist when it comes to himself.
“You go first, Captain.”
Teal insisted she doesn’t have a secret, but as I said, everyone does.
And when I have hers, nothing will save her from me.
She’ll wish she’d never said yes.
