The Rebel of Raleigh High (Raleigh Rebels #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,29

single challenge Coach Quentin throws his way look easy. Far too easy. He’s going to ace this tryout, and then he’s going to be on the fucking football team. Alex may have made a show of being disagreeable with Jacob this morning, but there’s no way he can join the football team and not be in Jake’s back pocket. Literally no way. Jake’s father paid for the damn college-level field Alex is standing on right now. Mr. Weaving also pays for a team nutritionist, a sport’s physiotherapist, and a masseuse for the players before especially big, critical games. Darhower would never allow anything to jeopardize that. Alex could be the best football player in the world, and he would still be booted from the team if Jake decreed it so.

I look down, finding to my surprise that my sub is gone. I’ve eaten every last bite without registering it, as I’ve followed Alex’s form up and down the field. My cold brew coffee’s vanished, too. Should have paid more attention. The cold brew’s usually my favorite part of lunch, and now I’m just sitting here with the sour, metallic taste of unease in my mouth. Justified, it seems, when Coach Quentin reaches out to shake Alex’s hand. If I needed a sign that this was a done deal, then the handshake is it.

Coach Quentin gives Alex several papers—probably the team practice schedule and their calendar of preliminary games—then he stalks off the field, leaving Alex standing there, staring down at the papers with a bewildered, unhappy look on his face that I find instantly confusing. He was determined to gain extra credit. Like, determined. A guy like him, on his last warning before jail? There’s a reason why he needs that extra credit, and it’s an important one. I would have thought making it onto the team would have made him happy, but the look on his face is far from it as he clenches his hand around the papers and he slowly makes his way back toward the locker rooms.

It’s lucky that I made him put his cell number into my phone earlier in the bathroom. I’m going to need to give him the bad news. It doesn’t matter if I’m attracted to him or not: if he’s going to wind up being just another one of Jacob’s puppets, then I won’t be teaching him guitar. I doubt he’ll lose a moment’s peace over it, but I also won’t be associating myself with him again. Whatever brief acquaintanceship was forged between us during our two, equally brief encounters just fizzled out and died an irreparable death. I, Silver Parisi, will never be speaking to Alessandro Moretti again.

7

ALEX

I find the piece of paper wedged inside the vents of my locker door; I almost don’t even bother to unfold and read it, but my own damned curiosity gets the better of me. It’s a flyer. An invite, really.

‘Scuntapalooza – Chez Leon. Friday night 8. BYOB!’

Scuntapalooza? I’m not even gonna pretend to know what the fuck that means. Printed on the red paper in black ink is a crude drawing of Big Foot smoking a giant joint, with veiny, bloodshot eyes. I laugh to myself at the BYOB remark. I haven’t been introduced to a Leon yet, but he’s a fucking sad sack if he hasn’t figured out how the hell to get his hands on a keg or two at the ripe old age of seventeen. I ball up the flyer in my hand and I lob it at the trash can; the projectile arcs perfectly through the air and disappears.

“Nice. Didn’t even touch the sides.”

I turn toward the female voice, half expecting to find Silver standing beside me, but it isn’t her. Instead, a girl with bright, startling green eyes and skin the color of honeyed cinnamon is leaning against the locker next to mine, her head resting up against the locker door. Her hair’s a wild mass of corkscrew curls, tumbling around her face to her shoulders. First thought: you’re pretty enough. Second thought: now go the fuck away.

She smiles broadly, expectantly, like she’s waiting for me to drop down to my knees and worship her. I’m sure guys do that a lot around her. She could have been an Egyptian Goddess in a past life. “Shouldn’t be so quick to turn down an invite like that, though,” she tells me. “They don’t come around very often.”

“Doubt I’m missing anything.” I dump my notebook in my locker and