PHOENIX’S POVMy head felt light when I finally opened my eyes. I sat up straight and noticed the rows of neatly made beds separated by sliding curtains, each with crisp sheets and state-of-the-art monitoring equipment.“You’re up.”I jumped at the sound of Marlow’s voice. He looked different – carefree and giddy, with a very suspicious teasing grin on his face. I looked around me and saw no one else, just Marlow leaning against the pole holding up my curtain, grinning his face off silly. It was the first time I was seeing him like this – happy and so full of life. There was not an ounce of sleep in his eyes and his messy hair gave him a very cute boy-next-door look.“What’s going on? What am I doing here?”“That’s the same question I wanted to ask you.” He moved closer, his steps swift and eager, and plopped down on the stool beside me. He gave me a once over, his smile never once leaving his face.“You passed out during practice. Luckily, the guys and I were there to watch you so Mi
JUSTICE’S POV“What the hell did you think you were doing making Christopher a part of the tryout process?”I winced at Harry’s sharp voice. I was still trying to decide what to wear for the private room match – my favorite jersey that I got from Jackson or the ones the school gave me when I became assistant captain.“Harry, Chris is a key player in the team. Of course he should be part of the tryout process. How else would we be able to choose great new players to be on the team?” I patted his shoulder and he groaned loudly in frustration.“Do you have a death wish, Justice? Is that it? Is Jackson’s absence beginning to eat you from the inside out?” I pretended to brush off imaginary dust from my sneakers before putting them on. Harry found this to be irritating since I had done it in his general direction.“Christopher is one of the best players we have on the team. He is a vital player and his input during this recruiting session will be invaluable. Why on earth do you think it was
PHOENIX’S POV“Okay, so I asked around and the person you need to impress today is Cristopher, not Justice.”Zeke was pulling stuff out of the duffel bag that he brought with him. He had packed a bottle of water, a towel, protein bars and fresh set of clothes. One would think that he got all that for me to use after tryouts, but they were actually for him. He claimed that being near these many athletic guys would make him lose his cool and he’d need to be hydrated to continuing functioning like a normal human being.“By ‘asked around’ you mean you flirted with someone on the team,” Miles stated and Zeke replied with a cheeky grin.“Zeke, not to sound like the most righteous amongst us, but don’t you have a girlfriend? You’ve been flirting around lately.”Zeke’s face contorted into a frown while Marlow and Miles smiled. Something happened, and they knew about it while I didn’t.“Zeke?” I probed. “Did you break up with your girlfriend?”“As a matter of fact, he did.’ There was a smugnes
PHOENIX’S POV“I thought I’d lost you.”A groan escaped my lips when I saw Trevor shimmy beside me with a stupid grin on his face. I had managed to avoid him during the first race of the day, but he caught up to me.Saturday was gym day for the academic elite and those whose Monday-Friday curriculum didn’t allow for sporting activities. It was surprising how many of these guys who looked like they lived in the gym could not run for a minute without gasping for air and holding their chests.“Go away,” I said through gritted teeth.“You smell really good by the way.” My frown deepened as I remembered him accosting me with his goons and almost stripping me naked and revealing my identity. Oh, I hated Trevor Reed with a burning passion.“Get lost, Trevor. I’m warning you.”“You gonna send Justice to rescue you again?” I didn’t answer him but focused on stretching my limbs. We were about to do the beep test and the gym at HPA was bigger than most high school gyms. I was sweating, my binder
PHOENIX’S POV“You look different,” Zeke stated as soon as I sat down on our table. He was frowning slightly, tying to figure out what was new about me.“He showered,” Miles said proudly. When he came back last night and didn’t see me, he started to freak out, thinking that I’d been caught. He called me thirty-six times before finally deciding that he’d stay up instead since he couldn’t go out again because of ARCHIE. When I strolled back in wearing Justice’s clothes, smiling like I had won the lottery and smelling like I just came from a scent shop, he sighed in relief, hopped on his bed and was fast asleep before I could even tell him what happened. He heard the full gist this morning when he woke up. Words could not describe how pleased he was about me not stinking up the whole place anymore.“Really? What happened to your allergy?”A smile instantly appeared on my face at the thought of Justice. “A very sweet soul gave me his antihistamine.”“I didn’t know there was someone with a
JUSTICE’S POVI couldn’t sleep.Harry was snoring loudly, and usually that wouldn’t have bothered me at all, but I kept thinking about what happened last semester and how mad Jackson was.My mind went to his brother, Phoenix. I wouldn’t lie I was a bit surprised when I first saw him. he looked a lot like Fiona. Maybe it was because I was thinking of her when I saw him then. They all looked alike; Jackson, Phoenix and Fiona. I wonder why he never told me about his brother and his baby sister. He made it sound like it was just he and Fiona that existed.My head started to ache like it usually did whenever I thought of Jackson and his sister and the events of last semester. He didn’t tell his brother what happened between us. If he had, he wouldn’t have spoken to me and been all nice. Or maybe it was because he was new and needed help and there was no one else to guide him. There’s no way Jackson didn’t tell his siblings what happened, especially Fiona. He was closer to her than he was w