The Rebel of Raleigh High (Raleigh Rebels #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,28
around my mouth?” I pretend to wipe something from my lip.
Quentin eyes me like he’s trying to figure out if I’m fucking with him or being serious. Man, the guy must have played football in high school himself. He’s definitely taken a few knocks to the head. After a long pause, his eyes narrowing further and further until they’re nothing more than slits, the coach slides his clipboard underneath his arm and points a finger at me. “I don’t appreciate your attitude, boy. And I didn’t like the Sopranos either. If you want to be a member of this football team, the sass has gotta go. Is it permanent, or is there an off switch? ’Cause if it’s permanent, you might as well walk off this field right now and don’t come back.”
Holy shit, I’d fucking love to do it—walk off this field and never come back. But I think of Ben, stuck at that bitch’s house, waiting for me to go get him, thinking I fucking abandoned him there and just left him, and I swallow down the fire in my throat. Hard. It’s really fucking hard to do. “I’m just here to try out. Nothing more. You won’t get any trouble from me.”
Quentin squints. Funnily enough, he looks just like James Gandolfini when he does it. “You a team guy?” he asks.
The winning smile I send his way must dazzle the shit out of him. “Sure am.” I refrain from mentioning that Maeve’s file on me clearly states, ‘Does Not Play Well With Others’ in big, bold letters on the very first page.
“Alright, then. Suicides. Move. And don’t you dare stop running ’til I say you can stop.”
SILVER
I’m sure he can’t see me, but I feel the need to duck down behind the bleachers all the same. Pathetic, really. Technically, the fact that I’m here, watching Alex try out for the football team is not my fault. I can’t help it if I just so happened to decide to eat my lunch here today…
This should be the last place I’d want to come, really, what with this being Jacob’s territory, but the team is rarely out here during lunch. On the odd occasion Coach has them out here running drills, I make sure I’m far, far away, usually in the library, or taking refuge in my car. Today, I figured I would risk an unwelcome encounter in the hopes that I could watch what goes down with New Guy.
I keep calling him that in my head, hoping the tactic will force some mental space between Alex and me, but so far it hasn’t been all that successful.
I don’t even know why I care about him. Yeah, he’s attractive, but before, when I was hanging out with Kacey and the girls, I would have screwed up my nose at him, deeming him too low on the social food chain to warrant my attention. The tattoos alone would have had me hugging the opposite walls of the hallways whenever he was around, purely so the other girls wouldn’t have thought I was interested in any way. There was a lot of that kind of stuff before—me acting in particular ways, to make sure I was always seen in a particular light by Kacey and the Sirens. Mostly Kacey.
But now…it’s almost freeing in a way, my exile from the glory of Kacey Winters’ good graces. I find that I’m learning more and more about myself every day, now that I’m no longer trying to be her. And it turns out, for better or for worse, that I’m reluctantly attracted to the hostile bastard that’s currently sprinting back and forth up and down the length of the football field.
I unwrap the sub I made myself this morning and take a bite. I relish the burn of the hot sauce I slathered all over the sandwich, enjoying the reaction in my mouth as Coach halts Alex and sets him to linemen drills, getting him to alternate between hitting and blocking on the padded blocking sled he’s set up on the field. Alex doesn’t even break a sweat. Correction: Alex does break a sweat. A large, dark patch forms in the red material of his t-shirt, right between his shoulder blades, and I find myself transfixed by the idea that he would fall prey to such a regular, normal physical response; it feels as though he should be exempt from all mundane, everyday bodily functions.