Ruthless Heart

by Eve L Mitchell

  “Exactly. Honesty and respect.” He sat back and looked at me. “You ran to your daddy because you didn’t like my coaching method?”

  I smiled. “I went home to my father, who requested my presence because he didn’t understand why I wasn’t playing on Saturday. You see, my daddy has my respect too. I told him exactly what I told you. The difference is, Coach, he believed me.”

  Coach Bowers glared at me. I didn’t flinch from the stare. “You’re out for Saturday.”

  Bastard. “And the week after?”

  “I told the team you were out for two weeks with an injury. After Saturday, your two weeks are up.”

  “Thank you, Coach.” I stood at the jerk of his head in acknowledgement. I hesitated at the door. “If I deserved this, I would take it.” I looked over at him. “I didn’t know I had taken it.”

  Coach Bowers rubbed his jaw. “I believe you,” he grudgingly admitted. “I didn’t need the fifteen-minute reaming out of my ass on Sunday from your father.”

  “He can be passionate.”

  Coach snorted. “Will we have a problem going forward?”

  “Absolutely not, Coach. You still get to give me shit, and I’ll still take it.” I grinned at him, and he laughed. “I do respect you, but when your head’s up your ass, well…” I half shrugged and ducked when he threw his foam football stress ball at me.

  “Out!”

  Laughing, I went back to the locker room feeling a lot lighter than I had.

  “Fixed?” Gray asked me as he looked up from putting his cleats on.

  “Yeah, the ankle will be ready for Sunday,” I told him, the hidden message clear.

  I saw him frown, but as he rubbed his shoulder, he looked to the coach’s door. “We did think it would be two weeks to completely heal.”

  “Exactly,” I replied. “So, I’m going to go to class, and you can all enjoy four hours of training.”

  “Dick,” Gray muttered as he pulled his jersey on. As I left the locker room, I wondered if my brother knew I would rather be doing the practice session than sitting in economics, learning about foreign trading patterns. Putting my shades on, I realised of course he did.

  Ash had seen Ava earlier, so we knew she hadn’t been told to leave; however, I wondered what she had been told. I was back on the active playing roster, but that didn’t mean I was any closer to knowing who had deliberately tried to ruin my career.

  I recalled Onyx telling me to stop playing with my food and get it done, and I wondered if it was time to break Uptight.

  There was still speculation about why I’d chased her across the campus, and although I hadn’t pushed it and the talk had quietened, I knew one word from me would start the rumours again. I headed to the coffee shop, and as I waited for my coffee, I had Elise beside me.

  “Baby, I missed you this weekend.”

  I seriously doubted it. “You did? I heard Jamie filled your…night on Saturday.”

  Elise gave a light laugh as we exited the shop, and she hooked her arm through mine, ignoring me when I shrugged her off. “He tried, know what I mean?” Elise raised her pinkie finger and wiggled it.

  I laughed despite myself. “Ouch,” I said as I took a drink of the scalding black coffee. Thank fuck Ava hadn’t flung this at me, I’d have been blistered.

  “You fill my night better,” she said to me with what I think she thought was a sexy smile.

  I didn’t comment. She was a good lay, but once was enough for me. Elise had stage five clinger syndrome, and I didn’t need a clinger in my life.

  “Where were you this weekend?” she asked me curiously. “With a girl?”

  See, clingy. “If that girl was my mom, then yes, I was.” I spotted Quinn crossing the grass and saw her hand lifting in a wave when she saw me. “And Quinn, of course.”

  “Of course.” Elise had lost her smile when she saw Quinn approaching.

  “Yeah, Quinn really helped me with that girl, you remember the one who stole from me.”

  Elise’s eyes lit up. “Yes, I was wondering what happened there.”

  Quinn was now beside me, and without a word, I handed her my coffee. She took a drink gratefully. I noticed Elise’s eyes widen at the sharing, but she said nothing. She had been burned before by Quinn and hadn’t quite recovered.

  “You know, the usual.” I shrugged carelessly.

  “You fucked her?” Elise said in surprise.

  “Fucked her? Nah, but I didn’t protest when she apologised.”

  Quinn snorted and handed me my coffee back.

  “You accepted an apology?” Elise looked scandalised.

  “She was on her knees for a while, know what I’m saying? In fact she keeps wanting to apologise to me, over and over.” I smirked as Elise filled in the blanks, and as Quinn and I walked away, Quinn looked over her shoulder.

  “She’s already on her phone,” she said with disgust.

  “Excellent.”

  “You throwing your blonde to the wolves?” Quinn asked casually.

  “Yeah, see how she fares. She doesn’t like attention.”

  “So…you’re just putting her in the spotlight.”

  Slinging my arm around Quinn’s shoulders, I pulled her into me. “I’m a giver,” I teased her.

  “You’re a bastard,” Quinn told me playfully.

  “I am.” I kissed the top of her head. “It’s why I’m your favourite.”

  “It’s why you’re my best friend, dickhead.” She laughed. “I never said you were my favourite.”

  “Onyx was reserved on Friday,” I said carefully as we walked, sharing my coffee.

  “I believe I have your other brother to thank for that.” Quinn looked down as she spoke.

  I raised my eyebrow in surprise. Gray had said nothing to me about it. “Well, if you’re gonna thank him properly, put a cushion down first; your knees will ache before he’s done.”

  Quinn threw her head back as she laughed at my implication. “A blow job isn’t the answer.” She giggled as we walked.

  “It isn’t?” I asked her with a grin. “Pretty sure that’s always the answer.”

  “Your dad’s such a gentleman, he would die if he knew you were such a sleazy dick,” she said good-naturedly.

  He probably wouldn’t. He and my uncle had been no Boy Scouts when they were younger either.

  “Quinn.” I hesitated. Did she need to know, I asked myself.

  “You didn’t let it go?” she said softly as she sobered while we walked to her first class.

  “We couldn’t.”

  She held her hand out for my coffee, and I gave it to her. “And? What did you find?” She didn’t look at me, and I hated that she couldn’t look me in the eye.

  “We haven’t gotten it all together yet,” I admitted. “We found more than I think we were expecting.”

  “If I ask you to stop?”

  “It’s no longer just about you,” I said as I pulled her arm to get her to stop walking. “Plus, you know he was never going to let it go.”

  Quinn was looking away from me, and I watched her as she struggled with her emotions. “You aren’t supposed to be telling me, are you?” Her dark brown eyes shone with unshed tears when she finally looked at me.

  “They don’t think you need to know.”

  “Idiots, both of them.”

  “That’s what I said.” I gave her a small smile. “Do you need to see?”

  “No.” Her eyes were wide with alarm. “No,” she repeated softly.

  “I will nail the fucker to the wall, I promise.”

  Quinn nodded as she drank more of my coffee. “Don’t tell them I know,” she whispered to me before she headed into the sports building to go to her first class.

  Finishing my coffee, I tossed the cup. I was right to tell her, she needed to know.

  Checking my phone, I grinned when I saw the social chat for the sports teams. There were already about a hundred messages and comments about my screamer, and as I read some of them while head
ing into class, I chuckled at the more ludicrous ones.

  Ava quite obviously hated the spotlight. She wasn’t an Elise, desperate to be seen. She wasn’t like Quinn, who ignored the attention she received because of her looks and who her friends were. Ava actively went out of her way to avoid notice. This was going to be hell for her, she was going to get hit on by every guy who thought she was an easy lay, and every girl would be ready to rip her to shreds for being an easy lay.

  Whistling as I headed into my class, I knew I’d enjoy seeing her reaction to the attention she was about to receive.

  It was shaping up to be a good week.

  Professor Matson was in full flight as she presented her class that afternoon. Her enthusiasm was rubbing off on me, and I had caught myself leaning forward a couple of times, engaged in her lecture about the self-destructive tendencies of Romeo. But leaning forward stuck my head out of the row I was in, and at the very end of that row, perched like an Angel of Death, sat Jett Santo.

  He never looked my way. He made no effort to catch my attention, but I was acutely aware of him. There had to be about ten or eleven people between us, but it felt like I could reach out and touch him. I wasn’t sure he knew I was in the same row as he was, but I no longer believed in coincidences when it came to Jett.

  My week had been torturous hell. Almost every person was accusing me of either being a thief or a slut. At first, I’d been confused, and then I heard that I was apparently begging him to sleep with me and he kept saying no. He or his psycho family had told people I was a whore, a desperate whore, who was begging to be with him. Bastard.

  Mia had advised we ignore it and pretend like it didn’t matter, and I had, but it was hard. The beginning of the week was terrible, so bad that I ended up hiding in the library. On Tuesday, the dark-haired girl from the class Shane and I had—who I now knew was called Elise—spilled her smoothie all over me in the cafeteria, and when I had jumped to my feet amid all the laughter and insults, I’d looked up at his table to see him and his brother laughing along with everyone else. He’d had the audacity to wink at me before I turned and almost ran from the cafeteria before I either burst into tears in a temper or punched his smirking face in.

  But I couldn’t do anything because I was on probation. Dean Porter had confronted me about my side earning with Wade’s band, and after he had lectured me, he looked over all my records. He even had emails from my professors about my performances in class. Professor Windsor, or Joe as I would happily call him now, had sent a really supportive email, which seemed to have impressed the dean. However, the fact of the matter was, I’d been stupid and careless with the gift that was my scholarship. The dean had me on a six-month probation, so I couldn’t afford to put a foot wrong, which is why Elise didn’t get a smack in the mouth.

  There was no escape though. Today, I’d had a few comments already flung my way this morning, asking if being chased was my turn on and how many dicks I was willing to suck at once.

  It was unnerving. I was the girl who blended. One night with Jett and then a sprint across the green away from him, and I was suddenly desirable...and it wasn’t in a complimentary way. It meant I was a cheap lay. Funny, I never heard any comments from anyone asking Jett if he was willing to chase them. Double standards. Unacceptable in this day and age. Yet, still it was present. I was a cheap whore, and he was a conquering god. Pathetic.

  Ducking my head back out of his line of sight in case he looked my way, I settled back in my seat. I couldn’t even accuse the fucker of spreading the rumours, as I had no proof. As always, a Devil was blameless.

  “Hey, hey, you.”

  I froze and turned to the guy behind me. “Me?”

  “Yeah, you, whatsyername?”

  “Why?” I whispered suspiciously as I took in his smug grin and his friend, who was also watching me.

  “Is it true what you did when you got caught?” he asked with a sly grin.

  Ugh, enough with the bullshit. “No,” I snapped as I turned around again.

  “That’s not what I heard,” he continued to whisper behind me. Inching forward in my seat, I edged away from him. “Heard you blew the Devils. Both of them. Like they tag teamed you.”

  I tried to focus once again on the professor. I had been in that building for five minutes. How the fuck would I have done both of them? Realising this wasn’t the point, I furiously did my best to ignore the whispers behind me as they got more and more derogatory and preposterous.

  “You been double dipped?” the guy asked a little louder, causing several answering snickers, and that was it, I’d had enough. A girl could only take so much, and I had endured a week of this.

  “Quit it!” I was on my feet, and I was so angry I didn’t care that I had once again stopped Professor Matson’s class. “You repulsive dick, what gives the right to talk to me like that?” I demanded with my hands on my hips.

  “Is there a problem?” Professor Matson asked curiously, and when I met her enquiring look, I realised she recognised who I was. “You...again?”

  “Sorry.” I turned back to the guy behind me when I heard his snigger. I didn’t recognise him, but that meant nothing. “Keep your mouth shut, or I’ll shove my hand so far up your ass it’ll be your tonsils that are getting tickled. Do you feel me, asshole?”

  The lecture room was silent for a brief moment before the class erupted into laughter. My face was red from temper, whereas his was red from embarrassment. Turning back to face forward, I gave the professor an apologetic look, who acknowledged it with a slight incline of her head. I could feel him staring at me, and almost like a magnetic pull, I turned my head to look.

  Jett sat at the end with his left leg stretched out in front of him. His left arm was draped casually along his desk, his right arm rested loosely across his armrest. His head was turned my way, and when our eyes met, that smug smirk slowly tipped his mouth upwards. He looked...triumphant. I didn’t know why that was the word that I associated with him, but it was. Suddenly, it was replaced by one of coldness as his eyes flicked over me before he faced the front of the lecture room.

  “Bitch,” the guy whispered behind me as the professor once again resumed her lecture after I had interrupted her.

  “Shut the fuck up,” I snarled back at him.

  I felt the kick at the back of my chair, but with my hand clutching my pen so tightly and the other one gripping my desk, I knew better than to turn around.

  “Ignore it.”

  Turning my head slightly, I looked at the guy beside me. “It’ll be over soon.” He must have known I wasn’t following. “The Santos will have someone new to torture, and you’ll be forgotten.” His look of pity made me feel worse than anything douchebag had said behind me.

  With a brief smile at him for being decent, I tried my best to focus back on the lecture. But all I could think about was the horrible rumours and assumptions that people were making about me. Realising what I had been putting off, I knew I needed to talk to Jett, and then this would be over. I was sure of it.

  As the lecture came to a close, the professor asked me to stay behind. It wasn’t completely unexpected. I idled at her desk while she spoke briefly to her TA, and on his way out, I once again made eye contact with Jett. His trademark smirk made me want to punch him, and I hastily looked at my feet to break eye contact.

  “So, again I find myself with a disrupted class,” Professor Matson said as she came over to me. “Can you tell me what happened today?”

  “The guy behind me was saying...unpleasant things. I tried to ignore him, but he just wouldn’t quit. I didn’t mean to lose my temper.” I took a breath as it rushed out. “Or cause a scene.”

  “Another scene,” she reminded me. Her long brown hair was pulled back from her face but hung in waves down her back. Black, leopard print glasses, with a white collar showing under her emerald green sweater, she was an attractive woman. I imagined that she would probably tick the boxes of the professor pin-up fantasy.

  “Y
eah, um, that time it was a rat.”

  Her head tilted to the side as she looked at me. “What’s your name?”

  “Ava Bryant, ma’am.”

  “Ava, do you think I’m blind?” she asked me curiously as she looked me over. “Do you think I don’t know who the star quarterback for the Saints is?”

  “Um, I...”

  “And do you think I wouldn’t know who his teammates are?”

  The guy wasn’t Jett’s teammate, but I decided now was not the time to tell her that. “Um.”

  “Ava, let me give you some advice. Woman to woman.”

  Huh?

  “They are not interested. They are here for football and to perform for scouts. Academia is not their priority, I know this, and I am sure you do too. What I don’t know, is it yours?”

  “Yes.” I nodded vigorously.

  “Good, ignore the boys in the class and concentrate on your degree. Unfortunately, you will mean nothing to them. Even if you’re a warm body one night, it is unlikely that you will stay that way. You need to focus on you.”

  Oh my God, she was parenting me? It was weirdly sweet but also truly horrifyingly awkward. “Um, yeah,” I stumbled. “Um, thanks.”

  “Good girl. No outbursts next week, okay?” Her hand rubbed my upper arm as she smiled at me, and in a cloud of awkwardness, I departed her class.

  As soon as the door closed behind me, I was fishing out my phone. I needed to tell Mia.

  Me: Prof Matson just gave me the sex talk

  Me: Like can I hashtag awkward?

  Mia: I’m heading into class – tell me everything but I won’t be able to respond

  Mia: and it’s #awkward dork

  I laughed out loud, which turned into a squeal when hands grabbed me, and I was jerked into an empty classroom.

  “What the hell?” I yelled as I was pushed forward, and catching myself from stumbling, I straightened before turning with fury to feel all my rage dissipate when I met the sky-blue eyes of a Devil. “Jett?”

  “I hear you wanted to talk to me?” he asked me with an almost friendly look. I watched as his right hand reached over, lazily rubbing over the bicep on his fully tattooed left arm.