JAX (The Beckett Boys #2) - Olivia Chase Page 0,103

I said.

“Well, let me know. If they’re on again, I want to see Piper’s face when she finds out.”

“I think she’s pretty happy with Adams now,” I said.

The bartender scoffed. “Adams is a poor man’s Jacob Everett, even if the poor man doesn’t know it yet.”

Adams himself came downstairs a few moments later, trailed by Piper, who was grinning— grinning too hard, actually, making it clearly forced. Adams made something of a spectacle of himself, like he wanted to make sure everyone saw where he’d been and who he’d been with.

“Nice!” one of the freshman players said.

“Damn, Piper, he looks like he’d had the time of his life.”

“Feeling loose for the game, Adams?”

The carousing went around a few times before Adams, drunk on alcohol and high on his own sexual prowess, lunged over the bar and grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels. The bartender protested lightly, but gave up— this was Football House, after all, where football players were kings among men.

“I propose a toast,” Adams said, holding the bottle up.

“To your cock?” someone shouted.

“Already proposed that one, and she drank up,” Adams shouted back, and the room laughed. I took a step back, trying to blend into the doorway just behind the bar— despite the fact that on the surface, Adams had everything Jacob had, I felt repelled by him rather than reeled in.

“A toast to Harton football, obviously,” Adams began, and a round of cheering rose up. As it was dying off, I saw Jacob and the other people who’d been outside walking back in, empty beer bottles or cocktail glasses in hand.

Adams went on, louder now— I couldn’t tell if he’d seen Jacob or not. “And a toast to the future of it! You guys know how much this team means to me, and I’m excited to lead it to the next level. Enough with all this old hero worship and injuries and other bullshit, right? So, the future, guys. Say it! To the future!”

The freshman players cheered, as did plenty of the girls— Piper included— and a number of the juniors. But near the front door was a mass of silence where the senior players stood, with Jacob at their center. His face was all lines, hard and furrowed and angry in a way I had never seen before— a way that made him look dangerous and bestial. His hands were balled into fists, and he took three long steps forward— he was going to get in a fight. He was going to start throwing punches at Adams, and he was going to injure his shoulder worse, and everything he cared about would be over in a flash.

I realized just as Jacob was taking the fourth step that this might very well be exactly what Adams wanted, giving a toast like that. With Jacob out of the way permanently, he’d be the new Harton hero. He’d lead the team. He’d be the king.

I stepped forward, abandoning my drink to go to him, unsure what I would do or say when I got there but certain I was the only thing that stood between him and disaster. Adams was still pouring Jack Daniels into his mouth, but Jacob was getting closer—

Jenna was there. It was incredible, really, how she appeared— like some kind of petite little sporty fairy, sparkling in at the last instant. I was too far away to hear what was said, but Jacob looked down at Jenna and his expression softened. Jenna’s fingers drifted up his injured arm, and then easily, gently, she took his hand in hers and swept him out of the room with a coy smile. Where were they going? I wanted to know. For an instant, I HAD to know, and was a breath away from running to the door and watching where their silhouetted forms went.

But what if she was leading him to the garden? Or what if he was taking her to his apartment? Or the alumni resort? Or any of the half dozen places I’d given myself to Jacob over and over again?

I’ve got no right to be mad— I’ve never talked with him about exclusivity, I reminded myself.

But Jacob having sex with Jenna— with someone he had a history with, with someone the whole school thought he was meant to be with— that was what horrified me. It meant that I, Sasha, was just another partner. Another body to warm his bed in-between on-agains with Jenna.

It meant that despite the frequency of our sex, I was