Chapter 5

Shane

Today was the day. Today I would ask Dallas to the prom and, based on her reaction to our kiss yesterday, today would be the day she said yes. I could barely wait. I was distracted all through football practice, feeling nothing but the burn in my arm from the throws and the burn in my belly that still simmered from our kiss.

She was perfect in every way. Beautiful, yes, but so much more than that. There was a depth to Dallas that I hadn’t accounted for. I knew she was kind and sweet and intelligent, but a lot was going on in her head besides that, and I was desperate to learn. I wanted to be the one to listen to her problems, the one she could come to when she hurt or when she wanted to celebrate. I wanted to be there for her. Period.

Beyond that, there was something electric between us. Something real. I could only hope that she felt it as keenly as I did because I’d spent all day wondering how long I’d be able to breathe if I didn’t get to see her soon.

I was so wrapped up in my head that at first I didn’t notice Wes and his friends having a chuckle party by the water cooler. I wouldn’t normally care either, except they were extra loud and obnoxious today and they were supposed to be practicing too. I expected the coach to go over and tell them to get back to work, but then again even the adults at this school didn’t mess with Wes Gromley. Or they didn’t mess with his dad, I supposed.

I’d never cared much either way, but I knew I wasn’t Wes’s favorite person. He would be the quarterback if it weren’t for me. I couldn’t wait to see his reaction when he found out that Dallas chose me over him. I’d been watching him try to put the moves on her lately. She would never go for him, whether I was in the picture or not, but it was going to be a particularly sweet piece of entertainment when he realized that once again, he didn’t make the cut.

I toyed around with the idea of going over there to tell them to get back on the field but decided I didn’t care enough. Then I heard my name.

Anger flared in my veins. Were they talking about me? Laughing about me?

I stomped over to them, pulling off my helmet and letting it hang by my side.

“Hey!” I called. “What’s going on over here?”

Wes was surrounded by his usual goons—Rob Boleskine, Nelson Vurdock, and Paul Chesterfield. Rob was the beefiest guy in our school and clocked in at about 6’6”. He had arms the size of steel beams and a gut that he could barely wrestle into the uniform. Nelson was shorter and slighter, and immediately recognizable wherever he went because of the shoddily done barbed wire his drunk of a cousin Ronnie tattooed around his bicep the previous summer. He thought he was tough shit, and was always the loudest of the bunch. Paul often hung in the back. He was the skinniest of all of them, though he was close to Wes in height. I got the impression that like a pilot fish, he hung around as a way of self-preservation. Stay close to the predator, and you don’t become the prey.

All four sets of eyes turned to me as I approached. They all laughed.

“Here comes poor boy himself,” Wes taunted.

I ignored the insult. Or tried to, at least. My veins pumped fire, and I knew taking the high road wasn’t going to get me any relief. I could at least use my anger to encourage them to get their asses into gear.

“Why don’t you worry a little less about me and more about practice?” I asked. “Maybe if you did, we might win a game now and again.”

I could tell that struck a chord. I played because it helped me relax, but they all played for the glory. Actively ignoring the fact that we barely ever had reason for celebration was probably the only way these knuckleheads got to sleep at night.

“Of course,” Wes said like he’d just had a lightbulb moment. “If we don’t get you a scholarship, you’re never going to afford college, are you? Is the trailer park throwing a big graduation party for you?” He turned to his friends, chuckling, “I reckon it’ll be a real hillbilly hoedown!’

“If you’re going to try to insult me, the least you could do is come up with something original.” I folded my arms and glowered at Wes. “Are we going to have a problem or have you finished peacocking for the day?”

“What’s peacocking?” Paul asked. “It sounds dirty.”

Wes shot him a nasty glare, nastier even than the ones he reserved for me, but Rob saw an opportunity and pounced.

“No, you’re thinking of a pearl necklace,” he said. “I hear Shane’s mom will do that for you for a bargain.”

I gritted my teeth. He’d done it now. He could make fun of me all he wanted, but my mom worked her fucking ass off, and I wasn’t about to let some shit for brains jock with an inferiority complex drag her name through the dirt.

“You better take that back, Rob.”

“Or what?” he taunted. “You’ll run home and cry to your mommy? Just make sure she doesn’t have a client over. You don’t want her to miss out on potential income.”

Most people say they see red when the anger takes over, but I saw nothing. It came back to me afterward, the flash of surprise on Rob’s face, the sickening sound of crunching bone, his agonized scream as he fell back into the dirt. The others were either too shocked or too scared to come at me, and instead, they flocked to the side of their fallen comrade and shouted for the coach. He’d been watching nearby and arrived on scene within seconds, pushing me out of the way to assess the damage. He yelled something at me about going to the principal’s office, but I was already on my way.

My knuckles stung, but they weren’t broken. That meant the thing that broke was on Rob somewhere, and I remembered back to how his jaw seemed to give under the pressure of my fist. Unnaturally so.

I smiled. That would teach him for talking about my mother.

Unfortunately, now it was my time to face punishment.

The principal yelled at me for a full fifteen minutes before Coach showed up. He yelled at me for an additional fifteen minutes. When they finished yelling, the pair had to decide what they were going to do with me. I obviously couldn’t stay on the football team. Coach wanted me expelled to boot, but the principal wanted to keep the situation as clean as possible. Rob and his family were unlikely to take it to the school board, and he preferred to keep school drama as contained as possible.

Besides, Rob would find another way to come for me. Neither of them said so, but they were both thinking it. Rob’s dad was big in with Wes’s dad, so that meant I was basically fucked. I didn’t care. I was probably the first person ever to stand up to that bully and I’d do it again a thousand times if I needed to. If nothing else, he might think twice about who he picked on in the future.

After my haranguing I was sent home and told that they’d be in touch with my parents to tell them what a bad boy I’d been. That was the only part of the entire situation that made me uncomfortable. My mom adored me and worried about me more than her well-being, so I knew if she found out I got into a fight she’d be furious. There wasn’t any way to keep it from her, unfortunately, since I couldn’t steal her phone and impersonate her, though the idea of doing so made me smile on my way out to my bike. At least because of her crazy schedule, she probably wouldn’t find out tonight, which would give me some time to relax for a bit before she started in with the worrying.

I parked my bike in our trailer’s little carport, glad to make it home just before it started to rain. The aluminum door creaked open loud enough to wake the dead, though that never bothered my mom when she was sleeping during the day. In fact, we often joked she slept even sounder than my dad—though sadly that was because her job was more exhausting than the business of living entirely.

The trailer was empty, as expected. Mom was working a double today, so she wouldn’t be home until long after I went to bed. I cracked open the fridge to suss out the dinner situation and was surprised to find a homemade lasagna on the top shelf, with directions for the oven and everything. I didn’t know where in her day Mom found the time to make me a big ass lasagna. She probably didn’t think anything of the gesture, either. To her, it was just her duty as a mother.

Fuck.

Guilt washed over me like a tempest on the rocks. How was I supposed to explain what I’d done today? I had to be the one to tell her, as much as that was going to suck. I couldn’t wait for the school to do it. She deserved better than that. I’d be damned before I told her the real reason for my lashing out though. If she asked, I would merely say they were making fun of me. Just me.

The most annoying part of it all? None of the other guys would be going home tonight wondering how to explain themselves to their parents. None of them gave a shit. Wes especially. His father would congratulate him if he decked some guy at school for pissing him off, justification or no. Hell, Preston Gromley probably wished his son would go around punching more people.

My only consolation was that I’d broken Rob’s jaw, which meant he wouldn’t go wagging it at anybody anytime soon.

A small comfort, I know.

Today was supposed to be the day I asked Dallas out. Instead, I got myself kicked off the football team.

Oh well. There was always tomorrow.