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His hand grabs my shoulder to stop me.

God, I fucking hate this guy.

“I asked you a question, Kane.”

Arching an eyebrow, I let him push me into the wall like a 1950s greaser bully. Though he’s more like an annoying insect you keep swatting at but can’t kill—and it keeps coming back. Taunting you.

“Do you know how much we wish this season was already over? So you’d be gone?”

“I’m sure,” I deadpan. “You finished?”

It only amps him up more. He grips my shirt, pushes me harder, enough that my hands drop my helmet, just in case I need to actually do something to fix this asshole’s overactive mouth.

“You know, I read that article.”

“Yeah?” I flash my canines. “Which one?”

“You really are a fucking psychopath, hmm? Domestic violence?”

My throat feels tight, nostrils flaring as I breathe heavy, desperate not to hit him. To be the goddamn bigger person I want to be.

“It’s no wonder no one wants you around. I heard it was a robbery too? That you’d planned the whole thing when you met her? Fucking the little rich girl to get into her house and clean it out?” He laughs but my entire body tightens. What the fuck? This isn’t public. It’s sealed information . . . How the hell does McKill know anything?

“What happened? She got in the way, and you knocked her out? Or was it worse? Fucking psycho—”

“Hey!”

There’s a flash of auburn hair then, and a girl too short to make it farther than my peripheral vision as McKill and I face off.

Lily LaBlanc, all five feet of her dressed in black nylons, tight skirt, gray long sleeve, rushing to my defense.

“Get the hell off him,” she snaps, her hand reaching up and using a move I definitely taught her to break the junior’s hold. She shoves his chest then, and it’s probably because of the surprise factor she’s able to knock him backward a few steps.

“Holy shit—”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lily shouts—her voice is too loud, echoing in the space. I’m surprised we haven’t been interrupted yet.

Then I see it, the fire that lights in her eyes, her hand forming into a fist at her side, before she practically leaps toward McKill.

I let her land one hit, to the left side of his face, before I reach and scoop her around the waist.

The memory is vibrant, this exact same position, like a flashing scene of every time I’ve circled my arms around Lily’s slip of a waist, yanking her back while she shouts louder than a girl her size seems capable of. People think I’m the aggressive one, they always have, and maybe I am now. But I wasn’t.

In prep school, I started throwing punches only if Lily did—mostly to make sure she avoided detention while I took the fall. Forget the tiny redhead, it has to be the giant emo kid who can’t control himself. But it was also my desperation to shield her from her dad’s fury by taking the blame.

I feel the same now, the strange mix of apprehension and adoration. Seeing Lily so riled up always turns me on, but seeing her this terrifying in defense of me? Knowing how things are between us, and she still defends me?

A warmth presses through me.

Fuck, am I blushing?

I am. It’s embarrassing. And yet, I don’t care.

“Relax.”

“No,” she says furiously. “He can’t say stuff like that to you. You’re on the same team.” She huffs again, finally looking away from McKill and up at me. “It’s mean.”

“What the hell is going on?” Coach Harris says, seemingly appearing out of nowhere.