Total pages in book: 188
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
Second, the engagement. Yeah, that was a big one. A big fuck you that smacked me in the face and punched me in the gut. That’s what it felt like when I arrived at practice and found everyone looking at me with pity. I didn’t get it in the beginning. Until one of the guys on the team looked so apologetic for me missing the pass that I had to call everything to a halt and rip them all a new one. Which is when I found out.
My twin brother got engaged.
He’d been trying to reach me and I hadn’t checked my phone. They did the engagement in private, and it was never their intention to announce it to the world. Not for a while. Out of respect for me, of course. But things like this never stay hidden, and the whole world found out before me. So yeah, it was a sucker punch and yes, I lost my fucking head for a little bit. Poison overtook my veins, and I almost got into a fight with Stellan, my twin slash coach, for pointing something out about my form. Ledger had to be the one to stop it. Later, I almost got into a fight with Ledger and Riot intervened. At which point I punched him, or tried to, but then some of the guys held me back.
Long story short: I left practice early and drove around for hours. And missed my playdate with Snow, making me the worse shithead on the planet.
But I realized something later. Yes, it may have been the engagement that had gotten me upset because it came as such a shock. But it was more the fact that she wasn’t there, my Little Strawberry. It was more the fact that I couldn’t text her or talk to her or hear her voice. I couldn’t smell her or watch her fuss over Snow. I couldn’t catch a glimpse of her in my kitchen, prepping dinner for us, especially me, religiously following the diet plan she got from Callie. Because it’s usually her who takes care of my weekly menu when I’m in town. I couldn’t watch her flit from room to room, picking up after us even though I make sure to never leave any mess behind or pick it up before she sees it. I couldn’t ask her to dance for me so I could feel some peace from the world, from their pitying glances.
It was more about the fact I couldn’t go to her, the only girl I wanted to see and be with in that moment, because if I had, I would’ve done what I wanted to do, what I did two nights ago, fucked her senseless. And she wouldn’t have liked it because she was trying to do the right thing, my good girl. And that got me so fucking riled up that I ended up starting fights left and right. I ended up staying out, even though she wanted me to come home, until the early hours of the next morning.
All of that to say, no I do not want to talk about the engagement or my twin brother’s girlfriend—fiancée—because it’s not even about them. Not any longer. It’s about her, the girl whose texts I’ve been avoiding for the past two days.
“Look,” Byron says, breaking into my thoughts. “You either talk to us and tell us what the fuck is wrong with you, or you can mope around instead of celebrating your sort-of comeback.”
“I don’t give a fuck about my comeback,” I say truthfully, again because she isn’t here to celebrate it with me.
Ark leans forward then, putting his elbows on his widespread thighs, his tatted fingers clutched around the beer bottle. “Okay, this I gotta hear. What could be more important than winning a game for the famous Wrecking Thorn?”
“Don’t be a fucking ass,” I mutter.
“By is right though. You tell us and maybe we can help you. Or you can sulk in your corner all night,” Ark points out.
I give him a look. “You two assholes are the last people who can help me with this.”
“Hey, fuck you,” Byron goes. “I’ve always been better at chicks than you.”
I scoff. “That’s an outright lie and she’s not a fucking chick.”
“So she exists,” Ark concludes, smirking. “And there’s trouble in paradise.”
Yeah, there is. And that trouble is me and the lengths I went to, will go to, to get my hands on her.
Even if we put everything I’ve done up to this point aside for a second, not that we can but for argument’s sake we do, what kind of a lowlife bastard asshole takes a girl’s virginity up against a tree? Not only that, what kind of a lowlife bastard asshole doesn’t stop when he realizes how much blood there is? And there was a lot. I could feel it then, dripping down my dick. In the back of my head I was cursing myself for doing that to her, all the while thinking maybe the silver lining was it could be used as lube to make things easier for her.