Dangerous Life

Chapter Seven

"Gracie?" Masons voice is heavy and sounds half asleep through the phone and Xavier glances at me. I know he hates the fact that Masons' always called me that instead of Grace, but he's done it since we were little kids.

"Hey, how are you? You're on speaker" I decide to warn him early since Xavier's not being the chirpiest person today.

"Hey man" he greets Xavier, just by the tone of his voice I know somethings wrong.

"Mason" I send Xavier a warning glance at his clipped response.

I know he's rolling his eyes, even with sunglasses on. "What's up?"

"I've uh - something happened last night."

"Are you okay?" I ask quickly. If something serious has happened to him I'll feel awful for not calling him sooner.

"I'm fine" he pauses. "But one of my teammates - Mitch -  isn't, I've been sitting in hospital with him."

His answer confuses me. Mason plays for one of the bigger football teams in the states, he got selected after college and hasn't come home since so we rarely here from him like we use to. Why does he want to talk to us about this? Shouldn't he talk to his coach or friends where he is?

"Why are you telling us this?" Xavier's voice is anything but sympathetic and I nudge him with my elbow. Of course he had to pick today of all days to act like a jerk.

"Mitch got winded during training so I told him to walk home to my flat while we finished up. It's pretty close to the field so I normally walk home from practise, the same route he took. He didn't have his jacket so I gave him my team one, with Mason written across the back of it. We're about the same height and his hair colours basically the same as mine. He got beaten to a pulp, he's still unconscious and I think whoever did it was doing it on purpose thinking it was me."

"If you think that then you must've seriously pissed someone off" Xavier answers smoothly while I gap in shock. Is that what those men would've done last night if Xavier couldn't protect himself? Surely this can't just be a coincidence. "How do you know it wasn't just a random lowlife with nothing better to do?"

"Because a random lowlife isn't usually a girl in leather who climbs into a Mercedes Benz afterwards."

"A fully grown footballer got his ass kicked by a girl?" I slap Xavier's shoulder as he smirks with obvious amusement, is he serious right now?
"Maybe he just had a crazy ex with break up issues or something."

"Mitch is nice to everyone, nobody would do that to him. The whole towns in shock because of it and if I'm honest, the only way I can imagine a rich girl beating up an innocent guy is if it's related to a gang somehow. Know any women who would've wanted to kick my ass last night?"

"It happened last night?" Xavier's smirk is long gone and I swallow, tightening my fingers together on my lap.

"Yeah, why? What happened last night?"

"Some guys tried to do the same thing to Xavier" I answer before he can. I feel his warning gaze on me but I really don't care right now. I want to know what the hell is going on.

"What the - " Masons voice is loud at first, but then I can hear some kind hushing from his end of the line and what sounds like the voice of an old lady telling him to be quiet. "Fudge" he finishes in a bare whisper. "Are you serious?"