“Spit it out,” I snarl.
“I just wanted to talk.” He lifts his hands in surrender.
“I have nothing to say to you, other than your team sucks, but actions speak louder than words, so I’ll just remind you of that on the field next week.”
“About that.” Gus taps his mouth with his finger, making a show of it. “I see your little girlfriend didn’t bring you up to speed on our latest convo.”
I rub my jaw.
“Adriana tries to forget you exist. She hates you like the rest of us.”
“Nah. The one you actually give a shit about.”
Daria.
My jaw clenches, and I’m ready to fuck his face up if he so much as breathes in her direction. She’s going through enough—partly because of my miserable ass—and doesn’t need him on her case.
“Leave her out of our beef, or you’ll have a much bigger problem than getting your ass kicked next Friday.” My voice turns to steel, and any traces of the booze leave my system. I’m wide-awake and sober now.
“Too late, lover boy. I got my hands on her journal. Fascinating shit.” He whistles, fanning his face. “This thing’ll blow up the school when it comes out. Spanked and humiliated by her principal in his office like in a bad porn flick, dicked by you in a forest, and basically shitting all over your sister’s and her mom’s dreams. Daria’s been good at being a bad girl these past four years.”
Principal Prichard spanked her? The words burn on my skin, and all I see is red. He touched her. No, worse—he hurt her. Under my fucking watch.
Anger clogs up my veins and settles in my stomach. I am on the verge of detonating under the bleachers all over Gus.
Taking a step toward him, I wrap my fingers around his throat. I can choke him to death in cold blood right now and not even regret it tomorrow morning. The thought scares me because it is real. I was livid when I found out he was messing around with my sister, but apparently, the two parts Via and Daria split me in aren’t that even after all. Daria’s chunk is bigger. I care about her more.
“If this shit comes out…”
Gus tries to swallow without success, producing a sound that’s between a cackle and a gag. My hold on his meaty neck is so firm, I can see his blue veins popping out from between my fingers. His eyes turn red as his blood vessels begin to burst.
“What do you think is going to happen if you fuck me up, Scully? That’s right. Whoever keeps the journal for me is going to print it out and give it to anyone who’s willing to read it. And trust me—people’ll line up for your girlfriend’s shit.”
“What do you want?” Spit flies out of my mouth. I’m losing it. I’m losing her. The air begins to pulse, and the world is a living thing, swaying and swinging, trying to trip me.
“Lose the game, bro. I told her the only way she is getting this bitch back without any repercussions is if your ass lets us win. Everyone knows you’ve been approached by all the big ones. Just take a step aside and let others have a piece of the pie.”
“I still have my teammates. They’re the ones who deserve the pie,” I grit out.
Not everyone has been contacted yet with potential scholarship offers. Kannon hasn’t. Camilo has scouts eyeing him but has yet to receive a concrete offer. Neither has Nelson. By throwing the game, I’m throwing their futures, too.
Not to mention Coach Higgins.
Not to mention my goddamn morals.
“They don’t have your back, so I don’t see why you should have theirs.” Gus pushes my chest, and I realize I’ve released my hold on him without even meaning to. The red marks on his neck are going to be purple tomorrow morning.
“Don’t talk to me in riddles. If you have something to say—say it.”
He picks up the clipboard and slaps the plastic above him three times. I hear people standing up and circling the bleachers, and less than a minute later, I am standing in front of his entire football squad, sans Knight Cole. His posse is here, arms folded, chests puffed, ready to bring Gus’s point home.
“Throw the game.” Gus jerks his chin up. “Save your princess. She’d do the same for you.”
I stare at him through a mist of rage that’s blinding me.
I get in his face, sneering, too.
“Mark my words, Bauer. I’m going to fuck you over so hard and raw, no college will want to touch you with a ten-foot pole.”
Via stole Daria’s diary.
Via is still banging Gus.
Via also most likely told him where I live.
On my way back home, as I was struggling to pull my shit together so as not to get into a fatal car accident while the adrenaline coursed through my bloodstream, I figured out why Gus hasn’t thrown my sister into his mix of blackmail even though she handed him the ammo against me on a silver platter.
Gus protects Via.
Via protects Gus.
Nobody protects Daria.
I storm into the Followhills’ living room without so much as registering their faces. The only thing I see is my sister’s head peeking up from her homework on the kitchen island. I bunch the fabric of the back of her dress and hurl her outside to the backyard. Bailey lifts her head up from her homework and starts protesting before seeing the look on my face.
“Penn, what are you…?”