The gym locker beside mine slammed with a rattle, revealing Ace in all of his pissed-off glory as he said, “I can’t wait to get the hell out of this place.”

You and me both, I thought as I snorted. After closing my locker, I hoisted my book bag over my shoulder and added, “Good thing graduation is just around the corner.”

Ace snatched his old gym bag from the floor, walked over to the garbage can, and chucked it. The stench of unwashed socks wafted through the air, heavy and putrid. I waved my hand in front of my nose, trying not to gag.

“Oh, like your gym clothes are any better,” he grumbled.

“Believe it or not, Ace, I know what a washing machine is,” I quipped, making a bee-line for the locker room exit.

He’d been in the same put-off mood since Aiden picked us up that morning, and I had a feeling it had something to do with Riley. Call it intuition, but I knew something big was coming between the two of them. Knew once graduation was over and we stepped into the real world clutching our diplomas tight to our chests that everything would change. And there wasn’t a damn thing any of us could do about it. Adulthood loomed ahead of us like the harbinger of doom ready to force us to split and become who we were meant to be. Forcing us to grow up. And none of us were ready for it. Not even a little bit.

“Yo, Aceton,” Coach Morris shouted from across the courtyard. He didn’t look pleased.

“Shit.” Ace sighed and jogged over to him while I kept a slower pace, walking toward the corner where we usually met up with the others.

“What’s this I hear about you turning down the full ride I secured for you with Tennessee?”

Cringing for him, I leaned against the wall and waited. I didn’t have to be close to hear every word Coach said, because it seemed like he wanted the whole school to hear him call Ace out. Then again, Coach never was one for discretion, especially when it concerned him not getting his way.

Ace’s hands twitched at his sides. I could tell he was one rant away from boiling over. The pressure of our futures pressed on our shoulders, but Coach was wrong for going around Ace and trying to strong-arm him into going somewhere he didn’t want to go.

“I put my name out there for you, son, and this is how you repay me? By embarrassing me?”

Ace’s shoulders fell. “Sir, I appreciate you looking out for me, but I—”

“I don’t care what your excuse is,” Coach said over him. “You’re going to call them back and tell them how stupid you are for not accepting their offer…”

“I wonder,” a voice said as it came up beside me, bringing the lanky form of Jared with it, “if that little vein in Coach Morris’ neck will explode one day with all that blood pressure making it look like a big fat nightcrawler?”

I laughed, though it was hollow. “Guess he doesn’t like not getting his way,” I said as I shoved my hands into my pockets, not envying Ace’s current position.

“Oh, yeah?” Jared smirked at me and then, like always, opened his mouth. “Hey, Coach,” he shouted as he wandered over to them as if he were invited.

Coach Morris’ head swung in Jared’s direction, eyes squinted, pegging him with a warning look.

Jared, either oblivious or uncaring of what that look meant, came to a halt beside Ace and jabbed him in the shoulder with a quick punch. “Been looking for you, man. Aiden’s gonna leave our asses here if we don’t hurry up.”

Coach’s forehead rippled with anger as a bright sheen of red pushed underneath his weathered skin. “I’m in the middle of talking to him, son.”

The easy smile on Jared’s face vanished as he slowly pivoted to look in Coach’s direction.

Here we go, I thought with a heavy sigh as I braced myself. Jared had never liked Coach Morris.

“I’m not your son, so don’t call me that. And Ace isn’t your little bitch, so don’t talk to him like he is.”

Coach’s chest poked out as his shoulders stiffened. “I don’t know where you get off talking to me like—”

“You wanna know why he isn’t going to Tennessee?” Jared continued, talking over the top of Coach, unconcerned. “‘Cause he’s a Bama boy, and ain’t no damn Bama boy gonna turncoat to be a Tightass Titan. We don’t roll like that.”

My mouth dropped open as Coach’s eyes widened. A hoot was locked somewhere in my throat for that big ‘ole dig he’d given the former Tennessee High School football coach. The man who’d gone around Ace and put in a ‘favor’ to get him a full ride scholarship was, at last, shut down.

Jared wore the biggest shit-eating grin as Coach Morris sputtered, pointing his finger at him.

“I’m not waiting on you idiots all day. Let’s go,” Aiden hollered as he rounded the corner of the building.

“Oops, there’s our ride,” Jared said, jostling Ace away as Coach shouted for them to get back there.

I made my way over to where Aiden stood with his hands on his hips, shaking his head. When I got close enough, he asked, “Did Jared at least get a good slam in before I interrupted?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure you’ll get the play-by-play on the way to the parking lot. Where’s Eli?”

“Gave him my keys so he could put his bag in my truck. You know Eli—when he heard Coach yell for Ace, he thought better and stayed behind before Coach started on him about that track and field program he wants to start up next year,” he answered.

“Like Eli would want to come back and be Coach Morris Jr. when he’s been chewing at the bit to don his superhero cape and fly all the way to Haiti.”

“He is gonna fly, dumbass,” Aiden said, laughing.

I rolled my eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“Damn that felt good,” Jared said as he and Ace approached.

Ace shoved him. “Yeah, thanks. Now I have to put up with his shit for the rest of the week.”

Jared gave him a toothy smile. “Just wear your Crimson Tide T-shirt and strut around. Bet he finally blows his top if you do.”

Ace shoved him again, sending Jared scrambling to keep his feet. “I’ll leave the strutting to you, asshole.”

Jared busted out laughing.

 

 

The sounds of the weight room broke through the memory, leaving me wondering why I’d thought back on that day. Maybe it was because of how unsure I felt about the future right now… just like I’d felt back then. Or maybe it was the sounds around me. I could close my eyes and see us there in the weight room at the high school. Could remember conversations and situations that happened right before we graduated as if they happened yesterday.

The hum of the treadmill belt under my feet had lulled me into a mindless state that allowed me to turn inside myself and remember the past. But it never did me any good looking back. If anything, it depressed me. My life had been at its peak back then. Friends. School. Fun weekends packed with fishing, swimming, and not a care in the world. I hadn’t had a plan back then, not really. The acceptance to Penn State had been a whim I’d latched onto because it was a place to go. I had no major picked out. I had no idea what I’d wanted out of my future, but the others had.

I bumped the pace down on the treadmill while I tried shifting my thoughts from past to present. The six of us were all together again after a period of being apart. But that brief period had changed us, and we’d never be what we once were.

When I stepped off the treadmill, Ace tossed me a water bottle. The gleam of his wedding band flashed against the fluorescent lighting. “You ever wonder what it would have been like if you’d taken that scholarship to Tennessee?” With the past so close in my thoughts, the question popped out before I could stop it.

He sat down on the weight bench and gave me a questioning look. “Hell no. That school was never an option. What made you think about that?”

I shrugged, not sure how to explain it, but settled on, “Just thought back on that day Coach gave you a bunch of crap for turning down Tennessee.”

He chuckled. “God, he was pissed, huh?”

I nodded, smirking. “Maybe it’s just being here.” I mopped the sweat from my face. “How many afternoons did we spend in the weight room at school while you and Aiden went through your workouts?”

Ace didn’t look nearly as winded as I was. He rose from the weight bench and tossed his empty water bottle in the recycling bin. “Eli did a bit of lifting back then, too. You and Jared would be propped up against a wall, doing homework unless we needed a spotter.”

“Jared never did homework. He just shouted encouragement, slurs, and more dirty jokes than I could ever remember,” I said, draping my sweat-soaked towel around my neck.

Ace clapped me on the back. “The good old days.” He smirked. “You’ll never bulk up like that, though,” he said, walking over to the leg press and adding five more pounds to the eighty already there.

I bit my tongue. I didn’t want to bulk up. I just wanted to keep my resistance at its peak and my muscles right where they were. I was happy being the size I was, which was somewhere between Jared’s lanky build and Ace and Aiden’s bulky forms.

“Keep it up and you and Eli will be the same size,” Ace goaded.

Eli only came to the weight room to maintain. He used the treadmill and some of the weights, but flat out refused the offer Ace and Aiden gave to come up with a weight-training plan to help him pack on the muscle.

I’d taken their offer, but put my own stipulations on it. Help me to a certain point, and then leave me to it. They’d accepted, but I could tell they wished I’d taken on their Hulk in a Month Course.

“You okay, Josh? You’ve been pretty quiet since we got back from Barbados.” Ace crossed his arms, leg presses forgotten for the moment as he looked at me, waiting.

I didn’t want to talk about Barbados. Didn’t want to think about the days I’d spent with Ella pretending to be something we weren’t and wishing like hell we were.

I didn’t want to remember hearing she was married to a traitor. Married to a man who tried to kill all of us. A man, I believed, that she still loved regardless of her plan to take him out.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

It wasn’t a very convincing lie, either. Ace knew it, and so did I, but he let it go, respecting my need to keep whatever it was to myself until I chose to share.

Ace was like that, though. He could wait, unlike Jared or even Aiden and Eli. Although Eli might ask again, he wouldn’t hound me. Not like Jared would at least. Aiden would push a little, test the waters, so to speak, but if I told him to leave it… he would. More so now since his focus had shifted a little. Airen kept him on his toes most days, and in his place on others. She was his balance. The same way Riley balanced Ace, and Murphy kept Jared, for the most part, in check.

Soul mates did that, I supposed.

The only two unattached in our group were Eli and me. I was fine with it. As happy as one person could be living underground in a den of secrets and undercover operations.

Eli had a passion for the work he did. Me? Most days I couldn’t tell if I was coming or going. At least that hadn’t changed since high school.

At what point in life did people know where they were supposed to be? What direction to take? Who to become? Did some just fall into it and settle? Or was it because they knew what they wanted and went after it with guns blazing? What about the rest of us? The lost ones. The ones searching for something, yet had no idea what it was they were looking for?

I wasn’t fine. I was far from fine.