It was always overshadowed
By the bad.
Chapter 7
Jase
Brooke was in the locker room changing in front of everybody. The command didn’t have separate rooms for us, and nobody ever gave a shit, but now she was using it to her advantage. She had an audience of men watching her taking off those painted on yoga pants she wore. Then, for good measure, to make a solid point, she bent over dramatically to pick up something out of the bottom of her locker. She even pretended to look around a bit, waving her ass with its lacy little panties in the air for the whole damn precinct to see.
She was playing some stupid mind game and trying to get me jealous; I snorted out a laugh and turned my back on her, letting her put on her show for whomever she wanted. I didn't care what she did. I threw my belongings in my locker, jammed my Glock in its holster, and left without her ever realizing it. She was too caught up in her “Brooke” show to even notice. Forgetthat mess. I’m a grown man; I don’t play stupid high school games.Well, unless we’re talking about naked Twister or something like that; I’malwaysup for those games.
I was only ever jealous with one girl.
I was only jealous when it came to Charlie.
∞
Even when we were fifteen and all my thoughts were clouded with Charlie, the loser I was still hadn’t told her how I felt. We were sophomores in high school. Both of us had a few dates with other people, but nothing serious ever happened with them.
Then spring came, and with it came the blossoming of hard-ons for every teenage boy in the vicinity of any girl, anywhere, but especially anywhere near, or around, Charlotte Stone. Hell, even the mention of her name or the thought of her in a T-shirt…
I watched Joey as he scanned the field for Charlie. His eyes widened when he saw that jerk, Mason LeDoux, talking to her. Yeah, it made my damn gut twist up, but what the hell was I going to do? All the guys in the whole damn school seemed to have it bad for her—except for Joey. He was immune to Charlie. It baffled me that he didn’t spring wood every time she walked in a room. Everyone else did, and there was no way I could stop them all. And believe me, I wanted to. I even threatened a few,but don’t tell Charlie that.
“Jase, you better step up your game and stop the stalling,” Joey said, giving me a hard shove to the shoulder. “Mason LeDoux looks like he wants to eatyourdinner.”
“Shut up, Joey.” I gave him a glare and a harder shove back.
“You shut up, Jase. You have had it so bad for her for so many years and now you’re just going to hand Mason your girl?” He tossed me the basketball we’d been doing drills with in PE class as we watched MasonLa Douchemaking time with my Charlie,my girl.
“I got it covered,” I mumbled, bouncing the ball back at him, knowing full well I didn’t have anything covered when it came to Charlie. “And you should talk! You’ve had a hard-on for Ava Marie since you felt her up at her thirteenth birthday party, but you can’t even say ‘hello’ to her without turning all green.”
His eyes narrowed and he hurled the ball back at me, slamming me in the side of the head with it, hard. I loved this kid like he was my brother but, damn! I could kill him some days. He always knew how I felt about Charlie, but the last few weeks he’d been giving me crap about it, calling me out on it, saying I needed to make my move before it was too late. The night before, he even went as far as unscrewing all the handles on every one my drawers, so that all my stuff fell all over the place when I opened them. Then, thinking he was so clever, he told me to‘go get a handle on my love life.’ So, after that, I flipped him on the floor and did a full nelson on him.
The problem was, I had too much crap going on in my head, and I was freaking the hell out about telling Charlie. I couldn’t lose my best friend. That girl knew everything about me. She was myanchor. If I lost her… Just the thought of it made me feel like I was just going to die—or float away.
She was my family. She was my home.
It had gotten to the point where my father was never home, which was perfect for me, since then he couldn’t tell me what a “waste of life I was” or call me by my favorite nickname he’d coined endearingly for me, “useless piece of shit.” The man even set up a twenty-four-nurse service to take care of my mother; I swear I think he was screwing every damn nurse that came there. I had no clue how my old man’s dick wasn’t dribbling with pus and falling the hell off. I wished it would. I would’ve served him right.
It didn’t matter to me, though; I didn’t care about what happened at home, anymore. There’s only so many times you can try to help someone get out of a situation, like my mother, who refused to speak to anyone now. I just stayed the hell away. It worked for me—for them—for everyone.
Besides, it gave me more of an excuse to be with Charlie. Most nights, Charlie slept in the tree house just to get away from the pervy eyes of her mother’s boyfriends. Jesus, that woman had a lot of them, too. Whenever I saw Charlie’s little drawing light on, I’d sneak out my back door, climb up my garage, jump over, and sleep by her side all night.
She had to know how I felt about her, right?I mean, what guy would go to all that trouble to sleep next to a chick? And I do meansleep.
Charlie waved goodbye to Mason and started walking toward us. Mason’s gaze dropped to her ass and then the jerk adjusted his dick through his pants. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he whipped it out and started losing his shit right on the field, while watching her ass sway as she walked away. Hell, I jerked off to Charlie every day. I kept a bunch of pictures of her in my nightstand, and I have one amazing video of her walking around in her little white bikini that I loved so much. I swear to you, when that tiny piece of material on a string was wet, you saw right through it. Yeah, I watched that video every damn day.
“Hey, guys. Wassup?” she grinned.
“Hey,” I croaked, my voice cracking like I was twelve again. God, I was such a mess around her.
Joey, again, shoved me on the shoulder. Hard.
“What the hell, dude?” I snapped.
“Oh, sorry,” he smirked at me and laughed. “I thought I’d try to push some sense into you, chicken shit.” He turned to Charlie before I could say something back to him, “So what’s up with that Mason dude? Your heads were stuck pretty close together.”
“Yeah, he just asked me to that spring fling dance next week.”
