Playing For Ruin

Karel

“What the fuck?” I cursed out, holding my head, staggering and dragging my drunken self into a place my head wouldn’t bang from the loud music down the hall.

The entire school was feeling the vibe I didn’t feel. I only drank to suppress the stupid feeling in my chest.

He’d cancelled my name from soccer. That means I wouldn’t play in the NSS, which was my only dream to escape Trenton, my stepfather.

Does he really hate me so much that he can’t even stand the sight of me?

We never actually crossed paths, but for three solid years I kept hiding myself from him.

My heart still raced whenever he crossed my mind.

“What a bum, Karel.” I sighed as I felt heat crawl up my body.

If only I was a proper human, I wouldn’t be thinking about him touching me in the right places after he’d embarrassed the shit out of me on the field.

I pushed open the basketball court, which was dark and quiet. The loud music from outside was now mere vibration. I made sure no one was in there before settling my mind. It was a suitable place to clear thoughts.

But I still wasn’t thinking straight after I sat on one of the bleachers. Ferdi’s cold voice came to my ears: “You’re done with football. Go home.”

Instead of cursing out at him, I cursed myself for shoving my hands inside my already opened shirt. Touching and moaning his name like sin, like a confession and like a curse.

I couldn’t control the feeling and the pain crawling up my thighs.

“Fuck, Karel, he removed you from the team.” I wrapped my hands around my shirt as one hand roamed lower. My lips wobbled at the influence of the alcohol working in my brain.

I didn’t forget how he’d helped me up out of the field yesterday like he gave a damn.

No, he didn’t.

That was just his way of making everyone think that the captain’s band around his wrist was good news.

It wasn’t.

I hated myself for not hitting him away and telling him to back off when he’d whispered, “Careful, Karel,” in my ears. Instead I unintentionally leaned into it.

My hands went into my waistband. The fabric got too uncomfortable for my throbbing member. I got a hold of it and worked my hand on it, throwing my head back as the pleasure built. Hard and fast. Eyes squeezed shut. Ferdi’s face stayed behind my eyelids the whole time—smug, grey-eyed, untouchable.

No one could see me like this, not even Dael or Miguel, the only friends I’d known since first year.

Sweat broke out of my skin as I worked faster. I needed to feel something more.

My hand suddenly wasn’t enough. A tear slipped out of my eyes.

“Damn you, Ferdi,” I bit my lips harder with shaky hands, jerking faster and faster.

I lost everything because of you—my spot and the tiny thread holding my sanity together. And here I am touching myself with the image of him in my head.

You’re a fucking loser, Karel.

The music from the hall became a heartbeat and the court suddenly went still.

Too still.

I was blinded by lust to even listen to the strangeness.

But a shuffle of feet behind me made me pause my hands.

I turned my head slowly to the direction.

Ferdi.

Fucking captain.

I forgot how to breathe for two long seconds.

He leaned on the pole, his grey eyes held smug self-satisfaction like a trophy.

How long has he been here?

His smirk was cruel and amused, and the way he tilted his head to the side didn’t wash down the growing urge in my abdomen.

He strode to me with hands in pocket. “You called my name.” He said it innocently, like he hadn’t been watching me for a while.

I hadn’t found the right word to use since it felt like the words got stuck in my throat. My hands slowly slipped out of my pants, making a soft sound.

Ferdi’s eyes traced my movement with darkness I’d never imagined.

Who knows what he was thinking in that fucked-up head of his.

“Mind me joining you? I came because I heard you.” He came closer to where I sat, leaning his hands on the chair before me.

“Get lost,” I gritted with the last piece of shit fixed together in my dumb skull.

I forced my eyes not to look down at his growing bulge.

But I did.

My Adam’s apple bobbed twice as I couldn’t look away.

He noticed me staring, then he looked me straight in the eye. “Your eyes are saying otherwise.” He raised a perfect brow. “Doing this in school is worth suspension. I wouldn’t tolerate it either.”

My jaw tightened. “You came here to mock me or preach to me, ‘captain’.” I felt my body clenching.

His gaze did a lazy sweep back to me. “I’m offering. Not preaching.”

What did my heart find attractive about this guy standing in front of me? He was ridiculously too good-looking and it crawled on my nerves anytime my chest hammered just like it was doing now.

I lost the team, which I knew I could get back.

I lost my family, which I probably could get back.

But I’d lost myself, which I’m sure I couldn’t get back. What terrified me the most wasn’t the fact that he was going to report me to the coach or authorities at most. It was the fact that I was hoping he asked me to fuck him.

I would definitely decline.

But a part of me screamed liar.

I looked at him with pure disdain. “Stop thinking you can have anything you want. Because of that stupid face of yours and your father’s money.”

His gaze hardened for a second but disappeared before I could register. “I get everything I want. Including you, Karel.” He drawled, his hands crawled up my neck, massaging my collarbone.

I pried his hands off. “Keep dreaming.”

The hands he kept on me felt like he was stating boundaries. And I wanted to be part of that boundary too, but I should know my place. I didn’t fit into his world.

He shrugged, stepping back. “See you outside the court. You’d hear from the coach.”

My chest caved. He was going to be this petty?

I couldn’t let anything take away my soccer dream. Even though Ferdi had removed my name himself, it still felt negotiable. But not when the boards held my name, not when I had nobody to defend me.

My head pounded rapidly. I have to pretend I was drunk to let it pass. I had to pretend I wasn’t doing the wrong thing.

I have to pretend I wasn’t going to fuck my way through so my name would be cleared.

And this person was no other person than Ferdi DeVries, my brother’s boyfriend.

I looked up at his departing figure, my lips trembled. “Ferdi, help me. I feel awful.”

He stopped at the door. Didn’t turn around fully. Just stood there for a long second like he was deciding something.

Then he spoke, quiet but clear.

“You know where to find me when you stop pretending.”

The door shut behind him. I sat there in the dark with my heart still racing, the ghost of his hand on my neck, and the sick knowledge that I was already going to follow him.