I had maybe been too hasty in my assessment of Mia Davis.
Chapter 5: Gray
She had company? Was she fucking kidding me?Glancing at my watch, I checked the time. It had been three hours. Three fucking hours, and she had company?
“Gray!” Jett’s tone was sharp, and my head jerked up to look at him.
“What?” I snapped as I pulled my hoodie off, tossing it on my bed as I kicked my sneakers off.
“Why are you getting undressed?” Jett asked me curiously. “You’re not listening to me,” he sighed, and I thought about the last few minutes. Nope, I’d heard nothing.
“What?” I asked him again, my impatience seeping through.
Jett raised his arms in front of him in a dismissive gesture. “Forget it, I’ll go myself.”
“Go where?”
“To Ava’s.”
“Okay.” Why the fuck did I need to go with him? He was a big boy. Heading to my bathroom, I stopped at his next words.
“I’ll take her home first.”
She was with company . . . I huffed out a rueful chuckle. My hands on the side of the doorframe, I turned and looked at my brother. “Quinn at Ava’s?”
“Yes,” he answered, exasperation bleeding into his tone. “I told you this.”
“Was thinking of my assignment,” I lied easily. “You taking Ava back here?”
“Yeah, see if she goes for it.”
“You’re falling deep.” He didn’t have time for this. I mean, his girl was nice enough, but personally, I didn’t see the appeal. She did like football, though, so that wassomething. But I didn’t particularly like his loss of focus. “Can you stall hot and heavy until after the season?”
“No.” My bedroom door had been opened, and Jett closed it behind him as he stepped further into the room. “You want to say something to me?”
“Pretty sure I just did.”
“I’m not fucking up the season, I know what I’m doing with football, with Ava,andwith Quinn.” Jett shoved his hands in his front pockets, and I knew it was to stop him from clenching his fists.
“Two of those three things are time sensitive,” I reminded him. The season was short, the window of opportunity that we had on scumbag central was small, and the only thing that didn’t matter at this moment in time was Ava.
“You think my girlfriend doesn’t matter?” Jett asked me with narrowed eyes.
“Not at the moment. If she cares, she’ll hang around, but you have other things to be doing. Other than her.”
“The fact we’re related blows my mind sometimes.” He turned and yanked the door open, closing it hard behind him.
I knew my brother better than anyone, and I knew I should have handled that better. We were eight games into the season, we were undefeated, we could not fuck this up, and we had four games left. Grabbing my hoodie, casting a defeated look at my desk where my workbooks were, I headed out of my room to find my asshole brother.
He was already halfway down the block, and I set out in a light jog until I was pulling up alongside him. Jett’s hood was pulled low, and his shoulders were slumped as he walked, straightening when I fell into step beside him. We walked the few blocks to Ava’s dorm in silence until he turned to me.
“I’m not going to let you down on any of it,” he spoke quietly.
“I know.”
“Then what was the shit for?”
“I’m tired, I have an assignment due, we have a lot going on.” None of this was a lie.
