All Chapters of Stuck between Hockey Player and his Quarterback Brother: Chapter 31 - Chapter 39

"Am I?" he challenged, hobbling toward me until he was towering over me. "Because last night, I felt pretty stupid. I felt like the idiot younger brother who thought he could actually compete with the quarterback.""It wasn't a competition!" I shouted, frustration boiling over. "He cornered me! He grabbed me! I pushed him away, Evans! If you had stayed for five more seconds, you would have seen me slap him!""I saw enough," Evans spat, leaning down, his face inches from mine. "I saw you at his party. I saw you let him touch you. I saw you... comfortable.""I was terrified!" I cried. "I went there because you told me to! I was playing the role you wrote for me!""Well, maybe you're too good of an actress," he countered, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "Because it looked real, Tamine. It looked like you finally made your choice. You want the winner? You got him. Atlas won. He broke my ankle, he won the weekend, and he got the girl.""He didn't get me!" I yelled, shoving his c

I didn't sleep. I spent the night sitting on the floor of my bedroom, listening to my mother pass out in the living room, staring at the screen of my phone. The notification had come through at 2:00 AM. A single ping that sounded like a gunshot in the silent house. Blackridge Buzz: New Video Uploaded. I hadn't watched it. I didn't need to. I had lived it. But the comments... I couldn't stop reading the comments. “Omg is that her mom?” “Evans Thorpe was at THAT house?” “Explains why she wears those hoodies. Hiding the smell of cheap gin.” “Trailer trash trying to marry up. Classic.” By the time the sun dragged itself over the horizon, painting my peeling walls in gray light, the video had 4,000 views. I debated staying home. I debated faking sick, dropping out, moving to a different state. But staying home meant staying with her. And after last night, I couldn't look my mother in the eye without remembering the sound of that bottle smashing near Evans’s foot. So, I put on my ar

The bass in the club always vibrated in my teeth. It was a physical sensation, a rhythmic thumping that usually helped me drown out the world. But tonight, it just felt like a headache keeping time with my heartbeat.Thursday night. Three days since the video went viral. Three days since Dean Vance threatened my scholarship. Three days since I blocked Evans Thorpe.I wiped down the bar counter for the hundredth time, the smell of sanitizer mixing with the spilled lager and lime wedges. My phone was in my back pocket, silent. I had turned off notifications. I couldn't handle seeing the Blackridge Buzz updates or the empty void where Evans’s texts used to be.“Table four needs a refill on the pitcher,” my manager, Rick, shouted over the music. He tossed a rag at me. “And smile, Jordan. You look like you’re at a wake.”“I am,” I muttered, grabbing the pitcher.I navigated the crowded floor, dodging groping hands and spilled drinks. The club was packed with the usual Thursday crowd colleg

The gold dress was hanging in the back of my closet, shrouded in plastic like a crime scene evidence bag. I hadn’t touched it since Saturday night, but I could still feel the weight of it on my skin cold, constricting, and heavy.Monday morning didn't bring the usual dread of the bus stop. Instead, it brought the low purr of a black sedan idling in my driveway at 7:15 AM sharp.I walked out of the house. My mother was watching from the window, a cigarette burning between her fingers. She didn't wave. She just stared, her expression a mix of relief and something that looked uncomfortably like envy. She thought I had won the lottery. She didn't realize I had just sold the ticket to pay her debts.I slid into the passenger seat of Atlas’s car. The interior smelled of leather and the expensive, spicy cologne that now clung to my own clothes no matter how many times I washed them."You're late," Atlas said without looking at me. He put the car in gear. "Thirty seconds late.""I couldn't fi