CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Leo
“—if you get what I’m saying.”
I haven’t listened to a thing Jack has said in the past five minutes. Still, I nod, mutter a convincing, “Makes sense,” and continue getting dressed so I can get the fuck out of here, away from him.
He continues talking.
I continue to not listen beyond picking up on key points in case the fucker decides I need to provide more than a two-word response.
I catch Mitchell’s gaze out of the corner of my eye, and he narrows it on Jack, who’s decided the best thing to do is sit in a towel on a Serpents’ office chair, three feet away from my locker.
There’s the faintest green hue around his eye from the bruise he gave himself to blame me. The dramatic cunt drove himself to thehospitalfor a couple of bruises after texting a group chat my name, accusing me of attacking him. Coincidentally, his injuriesweren’t bad enough for him to not play—a true Christmas fucking miracle.
And every single asshole on this team was ready to hang me out to dry over it.
Jack tosses a hacky sack and catches it midair. I think he’s talking about someone we were mutual friends with in college—one who conveniently stopped talking to me the moment Jack befriended him—but I couldn’t be paid to care.
He leaves for a moment, only to come back and start getting changed right next to me. Putting a bullet in my head would be less painful.
“What are you doing tonight?” he asks, shoving on his clothes in record time and eyeing me up while I try to make my hair look presentable.
I should’ve used the mirror in my car.
The muscle in his jaw twitches even though the rest of his face remains unchanged. He’s displeased. I’m trying to look decent. Which means I’m about to meet someone who isn’t him.
Instead of the button-up I planned on wearing, I throw on a shirt and hoodie, and intentionally mess up my hair.
“Home. I want to watch more gameplay before tomorrow.”
I can’t tell whether he buys it. We have a travel game tomorrow against a team we’re always neck and neck with. Every single one of us will be pissed if we tie with them again.
“I was planning on doing the same. How about?—”
“Sabrina’s bringing some gross vegan lasagna that she wants to try forcing me to eat,” I quickly say before he can suggest coming over.
A few of us went over to his place a couple of nights ago to do just that, and I wanted to crawl out of my skin the entire time. It’s my attempt at playingfriendswith him.
“Good luck with that.”
I don’t need to look at him to know that he’s not happy. His eye twitched yesterday when I skipped out on practice early to make the funeral. I’m on thin ice already, but if I spend more time with him than I already am, I’m going to go to prison.
“See you tomorrow,” I tell him, grabbing my shit and leaving, so he doesn’t take what I said as an invitation to join us for dinner.
To sell the story that I don’t dislike every person on my team, I say my goodbyes to anyone who’s still here, leaving Jack with a final nod and a mentalfuck you, then drive across the city, breaking several road rules in the process. I stop by my house to finish getting ready before spending an hour in traffic replaying every second of my interaction with Mina yesterday.
I’ve never seen her that upset before; I’m nauseous just thinking about it.
Fuck, okay yeah, it’s my fault the argument with her mother started, but it needed to happen. The sooner Mina cuts ties with her family, the better she’ll feel. It’ll be hell at the start, but she won’t be going through it alone like I did.
If she needs convincing that I’m all in, then that’s what I’ll do. I thought I proved it already, but I digress.
My phone rings as I turn onto her street.
“Any updates?” I say the moment I answer the call. The private investigator was paid for a service. I don’t care about his day; he doesn’t care about mine. There’s no point wasting each other’s time.
“No. Mr. Norton seems to have been at a meeting on the other side of the city when the assault and robbery happened; however, we have been unable to confirm this as of yet. We still have someone keeping an eye on him, as you requested, and will continue investigating his alibi.”
