Dare You To Keep Me: HawkRidge High II Read online

And then there was the news of my trust fund, which I could lose if this situation wasn’t resolved in my favor.

  This day hadn’t started out with much promise, and it was ending with the threat of my best friend Drew having a heart attack.

  A.

  Heart.

  Attack.

  He was eighteen.

  Eighteen.

  Did eighteen-year-olds even have heart attacks?

  I mean, I was close to a panic attack, but cardiac arrest?

  Surely not.

  And my boyfriend, the guy who’d texted me about this shit, wasn’t picking up his fucking phone. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hug him or hit him the second I set eyes on him.

  “Jessa, calm down. I’m sure there’s an explanation,” Max rasped, and I tilted my head to the side to stare at him, wondering how he could look so fucking cool driving my Mini convertible.

  But then, that was just Max.

  He was simply effortless in his scruffy clothes, and in my world, that just didn’t exist.

  Effort went into everything. Three of the girls in my year had already been under the knife, and before we were all thirty, I half-expected one of them to have a full plastic surgery makeover. Guys were just as bad. No one said anything about them though. Take Harry Greaves, for example, a football player and the guy dating one of the girls I hated most in my year. He’d had some work on his brow. He’d had a weird forehead, like a monkey, next thing, dude showed up at school looking like Brad Pitt!

  I reached up and began to toy with my bottom lip. Nerves and fear and panic swirled around my body like a toxic cocktail. Just sitting here, doing nothing? It about killed me.

  I loved Sam.

  He was my boyfriend. The love of my life.

  But Drew?

  He owned my heart too. Had for years.

  Maybe a woman shouldn’t love more than one man, especially not at the same time, and definitely not with some kind of morality clause standing between her and a hundred mill, but I didn’t really give a fuck.

  As today had proven, life was so short. Too short to be miserable, and that was why, even though just the day before Drew and Sam had admitted they had feelings for each other, we were going to move things ahead. Light years ahead.

  If Drew was still alive, that is.

  God, he had to be alive, right?

  My heart was racing like a terrified dove in my chest, and I knew, point blank, that I was going to be sick.

  “Pull the car over,” I begged.

  Max, thank God, didn’t argue. He complied and the second we came to a stop, I shoved open the door, clambered out to the side of the road, fell to my knees, and puked up the little I’d eaten all day.

  When I’d purged my stomach, the scent hit me and made me heave again, then I felt it.

  Heat.

  A hard hand on my back, gentle fingers stroking up and down my spine.

  God, that felt good.

  So good.

  I shivered, my arms quaking from holding me up as weakness assaulted me. Beneath my palms, sticks and stones from the roadside dug into me. All around, there were bits of trash and litter, but I didn’t have it in me to get up. Not yet.

  I knew my body and knew that being sick would have fucked with my blood sugar. Christ, I hated having diabetes. Who wanted to eat at a time like this? And yet, I’d have to.

  Almost as though he knew what I was about to say, there was a bar waved in front of me. I stared at it, stared at the hand connected to a boy who was a friend, but who also felt so right. Bypassing those thoughts and the feelings that were attached to them because I just didn’t have it in me to think about that now, I noticed he held one of the bars I often ate. The same brand and my favorite flavor.

  How was he carrying one? Had he grabbed it from the glove compartment?

  “I started carrying them around when I found out about your diabetes,” he murmured, answering my unspoken questions and making my heart melt.

  I had no idea what to say in response to that, but I reached up—not for the bar, but for his wrist.

  What was it with me?

  How could I want Sam and Drew, and then have these strange feelings for Max? And they were strange. All day, I’d felt muddled over him. His fear and concern for being tossed out of HawkRidge High, his certainty that he was going to be blamed for putting the drugs in my locker when he hadn’t had a damn thing to do with it… My protective instincts had been stirred, and then, when I’d known he was going to run and I’d gone to his home to hold him off? We’d hugged and it had felt…

  I released a shaky breath as I acknowledged what I felt.

  Safe.

  Warm.

  Needed.

  My throat closed up as I thought about my mom’s words. How the principal was trying to shove the blame at him, and how she thought he had feelings for me. Heart pounding, I cupped his wrist, my fingers spreading over his pulse before I grabbed the bar. “We need to go.”

  He nodded and tipped his chin at the chocolate bar in his hand. “We do, but you need to eat first.”

  There was no point in arguing with him. He was right. I felt dizzy and shaky and there was no way I was going to make it back into the car without puking again if I didn’t at least attempt to settle my stomach.

  Even as I reached for the bar, he hauled me up as though I weighed nothing. Maybe to him, I didn’t. He was huge, after all. Tall, bulky with his muscles. Similar to Sam who was a tight end, and everyone knew how big they could be.

  Like with Sam and Drew, I felt small beside him. Delicate. And I wasn’t sure why, but I loved that feeling. I loved how they could haul me around, loved their strength because it made me feel cherished. But also, it reminded me that I was strong too.

  Sam and Drew didn’t have to congregate around me, nor did Max. But they did. Three strong young men, each with their own minds, their own moral code, and their own dispositions, chose to be with me.

  Two of them even chose to love me.

  If that wasn’t empowering, I wasn’t sure what was.

  They said that behind every powerful man there was a strong woman. What did that make me if I had three men who chose to be with me?

  Lady Hulk?

  Rawr.

  My lips curved as I plunked down in the passenger seat. I wasn’t certain if Lady Hulk would have puked up her breakfast and lunch at the prospect of losing one of her men, but my emotions and hormones had been all over the place this week. What with Buddy and the crap with the drugs and now this… It was a wonder I wasn’t alternating between puking and sobbing.

  Now that would be a sight to behold.

  ❖

  Drew

  Coach Mellors’ jaw clenched as he stared at me, and I knew if he was chewing on a toothpick like he’d been doing for the past few years since he’d quit smoking, he’d probably have a mouthful of wooden shards.

  At least a tongue splinter would take his focus off me, but I had a feeling not even that would make him forget his anger.

  Honesty, I couldn’t blame him. In his position, I’d be fucking angry too.

  “I’m sorry, Coach,” I rasped, and at my side, Sam, my best friend and the guy I’d loved for over half my life, jerked upright and began pacing across the medical room. Not that it eased his agitation any. The room was smaller than a closet, but long enough to fit a gurney—Sam wasn’t going to find much satisfaction in walking off his tension.

  I’d been in here for a concussion last year, poked and prodded after I’d been led off the field. Wrists were wrapped here, tight muscles were stretched, and James Anderson claimed the nurse who’d been fired last year had lost her job because she’d sucked him off within this tiny space.

  Anderson was a grade-A bullshitter, of course, but the nurse had been hot, and she had looked at the players like I looked at junk food when Coach wanted me to drop a few pounds before a big game. It was fifty-fifty that the nurse had sucked off Anderson, but I actually believed the ass for once.
/>   Coach said jack shit to me in response to my apology. Didn’t even move a muscle. My body felt flushed with heat, not just from the excess chemicals in my system, but from fear.

  I’d ruined my life.

  My future was no more.

  Shuddering at the thought, at the ramifications, I wanted to curl in on myself, retreat into a shell like a tortoise. If only.

  “You think sorry’s enough?” Mellors eventually drawled, making me jolt because I hadn’t been sure he’d say a fucking word to me. His tone told me that no matter what happened, he’d make me pay for fucking up, and I’d pay the price.

  I’d been a dick.

  A twenty-four carat, solid gold piece of shit.

  “No.” I hung my head, genuinely remorseful for being stupid enough to rely on prescription meds to get through senior year.

  Whether it was a bad batch or something—I was no chemist—taking two Adderall had me experiencing palpitations during warmups, which had made me feel like I was dying. The pain in my chest had been epic, and according to Sam who’d helped haul me in here with Mellors, I’d passed out for a couple of minutes.

  After my brain had cleared some, Mellors had shoved some water at me, allowed me to take a breather and the palpitations had stopped but the questions had only just started.

  This guy could have been a part of the Inquisition. Dude was a badass motherfucker that reminded me of Nick Fury in The Avengers. I swear, throw in a torture device, and this bastard would have me admitting to shit I hadn’t even done just to get him to back off.

  “You stupid bastard,” Sam ground out, as he carried on pacing, back and forth, back and forth, so fast he was like a goddamn yoyo. So fast it was a wonder he didn’t walk into the walls.

  “I have a lot going on,” I defended weakly, well aware that there was no justification for what I’d done. For my stupidity.

  “You could have asked Jessa or me for help. Max too! Goddammit, Drew.”

  His anger made me feel sick inside, but his disappointment in me was worse. “You don’t get it.”

  “What don’t we get?” Mellors asked, his tone making the Arctic look tropical, but he moved away from the wall where he’d been leaning since I’d admitted to taking Adderall. Each step closer made my nerves soar.

  “I-I…” I blew out a breath. “I’m trying to work as many hours as I can, study as much as I can, train as much as I can… There isn’t enough time in the day for everything I have to do. Sometimes, I can’t even sleep because I have homework.” I reached up and rubbed the back of my neck. “I’ve taken on extra shifts at the store too.”

  Sam stiffened as I’d known he would. “What?”

  I shrugged and cut him a tired look. “When you let me have your car, I’d go there in the morning. Help out.”

  “Why?” Coach barked.

  “I need the money.” I almost yelled the words in Coach’s face, but his eyes were stony, his face like a mask. “Why the fuck else?”

  “For more drugs?”

  “No.” The dick. I glowered at Coach. “For my grandmother.”

  Sam gaped at me like he didn’t know me, and this shit? He didn’t know. I couldn’t tell him. How could he even begin to understand what the fuck it was like to be poor? Sam was one of the elites in an academy for elite jerk offs. He and Jessa, Sam’s girlfriend, made rich people look poor. How could he ever understand the shit average folk had to do to get by?

  Unease, anger, and frustration warred inside me. He’d never understand. How could he?

  “F-For your grandmother?” Sam spluttered. “What the fuck? What’s wrong with her?” He shook his head. “She isn’t even talking to you since you stopped going to church!”

  Mellors’ hand came up to clamp down on Sam’s shoulder. “Let the boy talk.”

  I almost grunted at Mellors’ subtle way of putting me down.

  Boy.

  Like I was five or something.

  Shit, with the decisions I’d been making lately, maybe I deserved the title.

  “She’s going to lose her house soon.”

  “Why?” Coach pressed, his eyes narrowed, and I sensed he was looking amid my answers for bullshit.

  Christ, it really was like an interrogation. “Because she’s sick,” I whispered, admitting something the family hadn’t admitted to anyone. Not since her diagnosis. “And her insurance isn’t covering all the medical bills.”

  “You can’t help out on a part-time wage, Drew,” Mellors rumbled as he stared at me, but there was a softening on his face that told me I’d inadvertently passed his test.

  Whatever that test was, I wasn’t entirely sure, but my words had been scanned for bullshit and his meter reading came out negative.

  Truthfully, I’d never been on his bad side before, so this, unlike with some of the other guys on the team, was new to me. I was the QB, a star on the field, and with Sam on defense and me on offense, we were pretty fucking unbeatable. Except when neither of us were playing in the damn game, that is, like tonight.

  I cleared my throat. “Sam, shouldn’t you get back to the game?”

  Mellors squinted at me, then he nodded. “He’s right. Go. You missed the first quarter, but you can join the next and help us beat those dicks from Lone Elm.”

  Sam sputtered and argued, “You can’t be serious. I’m not leaving Drew—”

  “You’ll go and do as I say,” Coach growled, grabbing him by the shoulder and shoving him toward the door.

  Before Sam could do more than huff, he was on the other side of the door and Mellors had his back to it. I heard a loud growl, then a bang that told me Sam had either punched a wall or thrown something at the lockers. I closed my eyes in the vain hope that the idiot hadn’t hurt his hands—they were the moneymakers, after all. Eight fingers and two thumbs, so delicate in a game where two-hundred-pound teenagers could stomp on them as easily as breathing.

  Folding his arms over his chest, Coach stared at me and fuck, any softness had disappeared.

  “I should call the principal.”

  My heart, which had already been dancing this evening, began to pump like mad. When he did that, then… well, that was it. The beginning of the end. My life, which was just about to start, was officially over.

  No graduation.

  No scholarship.

  No more football.

  No more Sam or Jessa. Hell, no Max.

  I could feel my eyes start to burn and though I hated myself for almost crying, I just tilted my head back, stared at the fuzzy tiles overhead, and waited for him to deliver my fate.

  “But I won’t.”

  The words fell like lightning bolts into the room, and the queasy feeling in my stomach didn’t dissipate—if anything, it began to churn ever harder.

  Rolling my head forward, my eyes round, I stared at him. “Why?” I croaked out.

  “Because you’re the only decent kid on the fucking team except for Sam, and Sam’s a rich kid asshole in his own way.” Mellors reached up, grabbed his chin, then jerked his head to the side. He sighed with relief when his neck popped. “Sam’s good, one of the best I ever trained, but you?” Mellors shook his head. “You’re NFL quality, Drew. Knew it the second I watched you play in the junior team.”

  My throat closed, because while most kids in my position could probably think of nothing better than hearing those words from their Coach, all I could think was—but I want to be an engineer.

  I didn’t say that though.

  For whatever reason, if Mellors was on my side, then he wouldn’t ruin the future I’d been so stupid to jeopardize in the first place.

  “I’m not about to let you throw everything down the drain because you’re a punk kid who doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.”

  I gritted my teeth at that. “I had no choice.”

  “There’s always a choice, dipshit,” Mellors retorted, his jaw tensing as he folded his arms across his chest. The big-ass biceps bulged as he squeezed them. “Always. And drugs are never
it. You’re going to leave here soon, then you’ll go to college, and you’re going to be tempted by pussy, alcohol, and more drugs. They’re going to turn your fucking head, and because you’re young, you’ll follow that path, but it won’t be on my watch, and I’ll know that I’ve done my best to steer you to the greatness you can achieve.”

  Narrowing my eyes at him, I rasped, “What do you want from me?” There were always consequences, and Mellors was a bastard when it came to punishments.

  “I want you to quit your job.”

  I gaped at him. “Did you even hear me? Did you fucking hear me when I said my grandma needs the cash?”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “I did.”

  “And? How the hell can I quit my job? We need every cent, man.” My fists tightened with the impotent rage that I’d been dealing with for years. Not only because she was dying, but because the old witch wasn’t speaking to me. Hell, why not throw in the fact my dad was a negligent POS too? It was no wonder my frustration and anger were throttling me from the inside out.

  My anger washed off Coach, however, and in a bland voice, he stated, “I’ll speak with the principal and talk to him about your scholarship with us.”

  I stared at him, uncertain if he was threatening me or offering me a solution. “What?” Confusion made the word a croak.

  “You and Sam are the only two people who make those fuckers out there into anything special. They’re grunts. Good grunts, but with you two leading them, we get to a good place.

  “Principal Dickface wants us to win the District Championship this year. Minimum. But I know he’s got his eye on at least the Regionals. State, too, if those dumb fucks out there pull their heads out of their asses. If he wants any of that, then he needs you and Sam focused, because without you, they might as well be playing for fun. You and I both know that.” He cut me a dour look, one that told me that he wasn’t stroking my ego. But hell, my ego wasn’t even primping. I didn’t give a fuck about football. It was a means to an end for me. “—and I don’t even want to know what you and Sam have going down between the two of you—” he continued, now staring at me in a way that had my stomach twisting again. Fuck, did the man see everything? “But I know that Sam ain’t going to play his best if you’ve been kicked out of school, never mind the team.”