by Mj Fields
“Block him, Justice!” I scream as Tobias nails him in the side.
“Show me the Truth, and I’ll show you mine.” His tone is unguarded, sincere, and unlike Harrison Reeves.
I look at him, and he shrugs. “I won’t hurt you, Truth. It’ll be you who ends up hurting me.”
I look back at the ring. “I can’t do this right now.”
“Sorry, saw an opportunity and wanted to take it, you know.”
Yeah, I know exactly how that feels, I think to myself.
“How about you take the opportunity to just chill and enjoy watching my brother kick Easton’s ass?”
“I can get down with that.” He laughs.
I cringe when Tobias sweeps Justice’s legs again, and this time, Justice lands on his side. His head bounces off the mat, and then Tobias begins to mercilessly hit him in the left side, the same spot, over and over again.
“For fuck’s sake, Easton!” Harrison yells. “This isn’t even a real fight!”
I cover my face, and he pulls me into a hug.
“You want me to end this, say the word.”
“Justice would be pissed.”
“He’s gonna bring it back, man. You watch,” Patrick says. “Come on, JT; get out from under him!”
Justice rolls to his back.
“Not like that, man! Fuck!” Harrison yells. “I’m calling this shit.”
Just then, Justice head-butts him, and Tobias falls back.
“Fucking animal!” Max yells.
“Fuck him up, JT!” Amias cheers.
I grin as Justice jumps up and pounces on him. Blow after blow, and I don’t feel the least bit sorry for Tobias after what he just pulled on Justice.
The bell rings, and our whole section cheers.
Justice doesn’t go to his corner; he comes to the side. “Hope you pulled an extra steak out for tonight. Probably gonna have a goose egg.” He winks as we laugh, and then he walks very casually, with a helluva swagger, to his corner.
“Remind me; is that little bounce in his step considered cocky, conceited, or confident?”
“With him, it’s confidence. With you, who knows?”
“A secret, Miss Steel?”
I nod. “Sure.”
“I was terrified, standing in front of your family.”
“Yeah, right.” I laugh.
“Dead serious.”
The bell rings again.
Harrison laughs. “Oh, look, here she comes again. This time looking straight off Pornhub.”
I smirk as I watch her walk around, looking like a hooker.
“Pornhub wouldn’t even have her!” Patrick yells over the crowd. “She’s got no curves.”
“Curves are everything,” Harrison says, and I look up at him. He leans down and whispers, “Completely and totally mesmerized by your ass.”
“Oh my God, shut up!”
“I’ve tried. I can’t. Never wanted to eat an ass before you moved here, but I can’t imagine it not tasting like cavi—”
“Stop it!” I laugh.
He grins. “I’d lick it every day. Twice on Sundays.”
I swear my face is on fire, and when I turn away, I see Dee kissing Tobias again. But this time, he’s got his hand on her hip, squeezing it like he did mine just yesterday.
I look down, and Harrison lifts my chin. “I’ll never tell you I’m not an asshole or that I’m perfect, but I promise you right now, I will never be that guy.”
“Just shut up and kiss her then,” Brisa grumbles.
“May I?” he asks.
I nod … and so he does.
It’s soft, it’s sweet, and he tastes like peppermint and smells like musk and money.
Against my lips, he whispers, “How many dates do I need to take you on before I get to lick it?”
I laugh and push him away.
“Don’t hate, Miss Steel. You girls have the rules, and we men have Pornhub. It’s a tricky situation for us to navigate, so I’m going to ask and not assume.”
Kiki sighs. “I wanted to hate your freaking guts, too.”
My head’s not spinning, but I feel okay with this.
Why waste time with someone who doesn’t want you when you have someone who’s a different kind of hot, admits he doesn’t know what he’s doing, asks you to navigate, and wants to lick your ass daily … twice on Sundays?
Smiling, I look up to find Tobias is glaring at me. I shrug and give him a little fuck you look, which he absolutely deserves. Nostrils flaring, head nodding, he turns and looks at Justice, who’s coming toward him. His jaw tenses, and he steps forward, arm swinging from the side. It’s as if it’s all playing out in slow motion. I know what’s coming next.
“Nooooo!” I scream as Justice’s head snaps violently to the left, and then Tobias hits him on the right, causing blood to fly out of his mouth.
“I hate you! I fucking hate you, Easton! Justice! Get up!” I slide under the rope as tears fall down my face and immediately get pulled back.
“Let me go!” I scream. “Let me go!”
The others are screaming, too, but I have no idea what they’re saying as the sound of rushing blood fills my head.
Still being held up, I pull my knees to my chest and cry as I watch Tobias turn and walk away. “Let me go!”
“Wipe your eyes, Truth. You’re missing what’s going to be your favorite part,” Harrison whispers.
I run my sleeve under my eyes then my nose and watch as Justice pushes himself up, spits blood onto the mat, and yells, “Where the fuck are you going? We ain’t done.”
Tobias squats down and taps the mat.
“You gonna bitch out?” Justice yells at his retreating back.
“You have got to be kidding me.” Harrison laughs as he sets me on my feet. “To show myself where my loyalties will now lie, I bet on your brother, and he just fucking won.”
I smile and start to wipe my eyes.
“Allow me.” He whips out a hanky and begins dabbing under my eyes. “In case you missed it, that’s a big sign.”
I nod. “Yeah, it was.”
Chapter Nineteen
Idiom
In the same boat.
Truth
Different f’ing ocean.
Lying in bed, cuddled up to Kiki, with Brand on the other side of her at the rental, I watch as the sun comes up. I haven’t slept a wink, and I’m not even a little bit tired.
All of us, Brand included, who was “blending in” by dressing up as a hip hop artist, which would have been hilarious had it not been for the fact that no one was aware of it, because it took all of us to get Justice out of the warehouse because he was hell-bent on finishing the fight. It wasn’t until someone yelled “cops” that myself, Patrick, Max, and Amias finally got him in the vehicle and legit had to sit on him to keep him in.
Brand, aka B-Dog, was in the driver’s seat of Justice’s car and none of us had a clue who the hell he was or how he even got in, so I snatched his wig. We all lost our shit, including Kiki, who was driving my Rover and saw it all happen.
Once we got back, Brand cooked and Justice flipped the hell out for an hour, until he ate, and then we all crashed.
The parents would be proud. Not an ounce of alcohol was consumed.
I sigh. Lovely fucking night.
In Tobias’s defense, and I will never defend him again, he didn’t leave a mark that couldn’t be hidden by a couple days’ worth of stubble.
Brand whispers, “She awake?” and Kiki hushes him.
“Been awake all night, B-Dog,” I answer.
Kiki starts giggling, and Brand pushes up on his elbows, smiling.
“Look at your husband; he didn’t even get any last night and he’s still happy.”
Kiki rolls over and snuggles up to me. “He’s so annoying.”
He pushes up off the bed. “You have an hour to do whatever you need to do, then it’s off to our little Falcons nest, wife.” He smacks her ass before walking out the door, leaving Kiki and
me alone for the first time since all hell broke loose.
She sighs. “We have one hour to talk this all through. Spill it.”
“Not much to spill.”
She rolls to her side and props her head up on her hand. “What’s your name?”
“Oh, shut it.”
“What’s your name?” she asks again more firmly.
“Truth,” I groan out.
“Then don’t give me anything but.”
I roll to my side. “This stays here.”
She nods.
“I promised to make nice with Gabrielle so she could save face with the fuckheads at Suckshore, and he promised not to mess up Justice’s face.”
“Oh, shit,” she gasps.
I nod. “So, as much as Justice wants to kill him, he’s not first in line.”
She rolls to her back and rubs her hand over her face. “So fucked up.”
“Yeah, well, it is what it is.”
“And Reeves?” she says, trying not to laugh.
I shake my head and try not to laugh, as well, as I tell her, “He wants to eat my ass.”
She burst out laughing, and I quickly cover her mouth. “Shh …”
“So, you’re into him then?”
“I don’t know. I think I was more into wanting to—”
“Piss off Easton.”
I shake my head. “No.”
“So, you had your first big public kiss with a boy you say you don’t like just for… what?”
“Brisa told us to,” I whine.
She gives me the look, you know, the one your mom gives you when she knows you’re lying. Yeah, that one.
“Fine, I wanted to see if it affected him at all. And look what happened. Justice paid for it.”
“Justice is a big boy. It was his choice to fight.”
Shocked, we both sit up and look over the side of the bed.
Tris stands up, grabs her blanket, and looks at us. “I’m over your head-trips.” Then she walks out the door.
“Did you know she was fucking there?” Kiki gasps.
“Hell no!”
We both cover our mouths and start to laugh.
“She’s a creepy little shit lately, isn’t she?”
“Try living with her,” comes from the other side of the bed.
Kiki and I both jump, and then die laughing when Brisa pops up.
“No, really. She’s losing her shit. She’s recently started collecting crosses.”
“What?” Kiki laughs harder now.
“Dark crosses, like really dark.” She climbs on the bed and stretches out like a cat.
Tris walks back into the bedroom with her toothbrush and paste in hand, then walks by us, shaking her head and sighing.
“Tris, babe, we need more girl time with you.” Kiki laughs.
She calls to us from the bathroom, “They’re not upside down, for God’s sake. Chill.”
And we all lose it.
I open the door to Justice’s room and peek in to make sure he’s still asleep. I find him, eyes closed, lying on top of his covers.
I tiptoe in to pull his blanket over him, and not just as a comfort thing, but to ensure if Mom or Dad walk in, they don’t see the bruises.
“T, I’m awake, probably going to be staying awake if you keep coming in here, checking on me like I’m five.”
“I just—”
He sits up. “Or there’s something you wanna talk about that involves you kissing Reeves, because the guy you really like was kissing on the number chick.”
I sit down on his bed.
“Or that, while I was getting my face pounded, all I could hear, aside from get up, Justice, was how much you hate him.”
I close my eyes.
“You made a deal with him, and he broke it.”
I shrug.
“To be honest, if I couldn’t tell that in your voice, I’d have probably still been lying there. So, for that, I’m grateful.”
“So then you get why you can’t go after him, that it’s literally my fight?”
He chuckles. “He’s safe until I get him back in a ring.”
“No! Hell no! Fighting doesn’t work for you. You lost your shit. You didn’t want it to end. Promise me right now that you—”
“Not gonna do that, because I am. Still want to know what the deal was.”
“I accept her apology so she can save face with her peers, and he doesn’t touch your face.”
Justice laughs as he lies down. “He fucked that up now, didn’t he?”
“Clearly,” I say, lying across the foot of the bed.
“Good. That’s a game changer.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Why’s he protecting her, T?”
“Honestly, she’s not got it easy.”
“The fuck she doesn’t. But if that’s the angle he played, it makes it a fuck of a lot easier to figure out how to get back at him.”
“Can you just let it go, please?”
“He manipulated my sister. That’s fucking low, T. That’s bottom of the barrel shit right there.”
“He’s gone in a couple months.”
“Wars aren’t won overnight.” He smiles, and it’s not a comforting smile.
“Justice …”
“No, T. I’d take twenty blows to the face over that shit.”
“Just don’t break any laws.”
He sits up and smirks. “Not even a misdemeanor, T.”
“Why do you look happy now?”
“ ’Cause I am.”
“What are you planning?”
He turns and fluffs his pillow. “A good night’s sleep, maybe a run before breakfast, school, baseball, home, dinner, chess with Mom, and repeat.”
“And nothing in between?”
“We’re good, T. You keep me in the loop from now on, and I’ll do the same.”
“And no fights at school.”
“Mom and Dad pay way too much for us to have that so-called privilege, and I like ball, so we’re good there, too.”
I stand up and walk to the door.
“You’re gonna get an early morning wakeup call, T. Gotta fix my face before they see.”
I nod. “Yeah, I know.”
Chapter Twenty
Idiom
Give It A Shot.
Truth
How about some kevlar.
Gabrielle is the first person I see when I walk down the hall toward my locker, because she is standing at my freaking locker. She’s alone, sort of; her minions are just down the hall, waiting for her.
Right away, I give her a warning, “I’m not a morning person.”
“Neither am I without at least three cups, which is probably why I’ve been in a shit mood for the past year or more,” she jokes as I cup my combination in an attempt to shield it in case she decides to fuck with it.
I give a passive-aggressive response. “Guess we’re all having that kind of year.”
I pull my locker door open and shove my backpack inside. Then, I begin digging through it to find my weekend assignments. Assignments I half-assed this morning between getting ready, covering up Justice’s bruises, and on the ride here as Justice drove us to school.
“You lose your nanny, too?” she jokes.
I don’t reply.
“Mine made the best coffee. Now I’m forced to drink this American shit.”
I close my locker, spin the combination, give the lock a tug, and then turn to look at her.
Her smile begins to fade, which is a good thing. It was kind of nauseating this early on a Monday morning. A Monday morning following this weekend’s near catastrophic events.
“I know he and you had a deal. I know he broke it. I also know that’s unlike him. But that’s further proof I was correct when I told you that he’s into you. I can’t say anymore—I have to stay out of it—but I want you to know, not only do I genuinely like you, but—”
“I’m true to my word. Our little tiff is over. Just don’t
fuck with me or my crew.” I step forward, and she steps with me, blocking me.
“I do fake boyfriends—I’ve done a lot of them actually—but I’ve never done fake friends.”
“Then don’t be one.” I walk past her.
She walks beside me and whispers, “I’m not. Aside from Tobias, I’ve never had someone push back when I’ve lashed out to keep them away.”
“I’m really not in the mood right now,” I say as we turn the corner and see Harrison, Kai, and Miles all standing together in a semi-circle around Tobias, who is leaning against a locker, expression unreadable … of course.
“Why can’t there be another way around those assholes?” Gabrielle mumbles, and I almost laugh to myself, because it was my thought exactly.
The good thing is that they don’t seem to see us. Not one looks back from the obviously heated discussion, so when we walk by and Tobias averts his gaze, I flip him off, knowing damn well he sees me.
“Truth, he’s not—”
“I have no idea who you’re even talking about. To me, he’s nobody.”
Throughout the day, I avoid them all, but I know they’re all talking about me. A picture was taken of the back of Gabrielle and me as we walked down the hall this morning with the caption, “Best Asses At Seashore,” hashtag this or that. I’m not going to lie; the hate for my ass is dwindling day by day.
Apparently, someone broke the rules at the fight. Videos of his fall and rise were posted, not one of them showed Tobias tapping out, though. Pretty fucking telling on who runs the show now.
During AP Chemistry, Alexa was talking about the fight and how awesome it was. How fucked up is it that I didn’t even know that half my classmates were apparently there? I’ll answer that.
Pretty fucked up.
The latest Sound notification comes in while I’m at my locker, getting my shit together to catch a ride with Patrick. I open it up and shake my head.
“It’s Sound official.” I hear from behind me and slam my locker.
“Not in the mood.” I turn and walk toward the doors.
“There are a million ways I could get you there,” Harrison calls from behind me, and I just keep walking.
