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*** Contains mild swearing***
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Chapter Twenty-One
Luke Archer
I hadn’t been so thrilled about having football practice this Sunday afternoon but now that I got it over and done with, I’m actually glad Coach made us come out here. Being on the field with the team took my mind off Jamie and everything that went down yesterday. And even though it only lasted for a couple of hours, I appreciated the brief distraction.
Jamie and I hadn’t talked since our kiss outside her mother’s café last night and as much as I wanted to call or text her, I kept reminding myself that she needed her space to straighten things out with Adam. Besides, I needed some time myself to clear things up with Aimee.
It was weird, not having to hide my feelings from Jamie anymore. Coming clean about how I felt about her had never been a part of the plan but when she went on and on about how I was a “good friend” to her, I lost it. She was the first girl to friendzone me- at least that’s what I thought she was doing at the time- and the worst part is she did it repeatedly without even realizing it herself. And there’s only so much a guy can take, you know?
“Nice work today, boys. I will see you all tomorrow! Don’t be late-”
“You know what you’ll get if you’re late. Oww!”
Bryce earned himself a flick on the back of his head when he did a poor imitation of Coach’s voice and finished off his end-of-football practice announcement.
“Don’t do that, Coach! That’s just gonna make his brain damage worse!” Seth cackled, breaking into a run when Bryce made a lunge for him. The other guys dissolved into laughter before turning away and heading back to the locker room.
“Hey, wanna grab some pizza later? I’m so hungry that I could swallow that tree over there,” Roger said, rubbing his stomach.
“Sure, man.”
“We should make it a group thing! Call Jamie and Adam. And Aimee.”
Call Jamie, Adam, and Aimee? I couldn’t think of anything more awkward. Then again, Roger didn’t know about the current… situation. No one but Jamie, Adam, Aimee, and I did.
“Nah,” I told him, slapping him on the back. “Let’s just make it a team-bonding thing.”
Luckily, Roger didn’t ask why.
I crinkled my nose when a rancid odor traveled to my nose before we hit the locker room. It always smelled like old socks, wet dogs, and sweat, which usually didn't bother me as I'd grown used to it, but there was a new addition to the mix today.
"What died in here?" Roger made a face as he pushed the door open, voicing my thoughts.
"Westwood left a sandwich in here Friday. It's spoiled," Paul explained, throwing a quick glance at a sophomore who was lifting his sandwich up by his thumb and index finger. Westwood cringed and his face contorted with disgust when a fly flew out of that bag. The other freshmen and sophomores standing around him cried out in disgust, like they'd never seen food go bad.
Our locker room is divided into two sections; JV on one side and varsity on the other. We don't usually practice together but the JV team had been losing half of their games lately so the coach wanted us to scrimmage together, hoping we could "inspire them to improve." His words, not mine.
Grabbing a towel and a set of clean clothes from my locker, I walked to the shower stall, ignoring the racket around Westwood. His JV buddies were still making a fuss and I don't know what irritated me more, the fact that they stunk up the locker room or the fact that they were acting like babies about it.
I stepped into the stall and turned my face up to the spray with my eyes closed, enjoying the coolness of the water and how it blocked out all the other noises in the locker room. Is Jamie with Adam right now? What if she changes her mind and chooses him in the end?
Feeling a bit irked with my head for driving myself insane with those ridiculous thoughts, I shut the water off quickly.
Jamie Vandeviere, what are you doing to me?
A breathy snicker sounded from the other side of the curtain while I was getting dressed and it quickly turned into a rumbling chuckle. I didn't recognize any of the voices so I had no interest in the conversation that followed, but whoever those guys were were much too loud to be ignored.
"I went by last night and the place is cleaned up. Even the windows are fixed."
"They sure work fast," another guy snorted. "I hope that cafe owner learned her lesson this time." Wait... Cafe owner? "And dude, thanks to you freakin' spray-painting my jacket while we were there, my mom thought I was taking up wall graffiti again when I went home Friday."
"I thought you told her we went to the Beach Party," the third guy hissed. "Your mom's freaking psychotic. If she finds out that we trashed the cafe, she'll have our throats."
"Relax. She knows nothing. Trust me. Besides, we did it for a good cause."
I yanked the curtain back with so much force that a few hooks came off. The three guys who had been talking, I discovered, were kids from the JV team and they gawked at me in shock when I approached them with anger and outrage.
"What place did you trash?" I asked Harvey Something, who appeared to be the leader of the three since the other two morons turned to him as if they expected him to know what my problem was.
Harvey's face twitched. "What? We didn't-"
I grabbed him by the shirt and pushed him up against the wall. His friend gasped but they didn't dare to say anything that might further upset me.
"You wanna try that again?" Harvey winced when I spat the words in his face. Bryce and Roger, at the sound of me shouting, came sprinting to my side from the other room. Seth, who had been in the shower, rushed out with his only his shorts on to see what was going on.
The locker room, all of a sudden, became deadly quiet.
"What gave you three assholes the right to trash up someone else's place?" I bellowed, when Harvey squinted at me like I'd just lost my mind. With my knuckles pressed against his throat, the little turd couldn't speak. "And you have the nerve to brag about it?"
"We had a good reason, Luke, okay?" Josh Brown, Harvey's accomplice, cried. "The owner was bothering-" As if realizing he had said too much, Josh pursed his lips and turned to the third guy, Ross Lee, for help.
I let go of Harvey when he seemed to be having trouble breathing, although I was tempted to suffocate that moron. He looked over to Roger, Seth, and Bryce, expecting them to step in and help, I suppose, but the three of them stood unmoving with their irate eyes fixed upon him and a frown on their faces.
"Who, Brown?" I approached Moron Number Two, when he began backing to the nearest corner like a scared rabbit. "You better start talking. As you can see, I'm not a very patient person."
"Summer! She was bothering Summer!" Josh put a hand over his face- there wasn't much to protect, by the way. Brown's not a good-looking kid- when I stood approximately a feet away from him and gave a nervous, girly creak. "Summer told us the shop owner has been giving her and her family a hard time for years. She asked us to help her put that mean lady in her place. Please don't hurt me."
Summer. It was Summer who gave the order to trash up Mrs. Vandeviere's cafe. I had my suspicion that she was behind the vandalism but since she was with us the whole night at the beach party and I didn't think she had it in her to be so cruel and low, I stupidly looked the other way. I should have never given her the benefit of the doubt.
"Do you have any idea whose family the cafe belongs to?" I asked quietly, my chest heaving with so much anger that I thought my lungs would burst.
"No," Harvey squeaked. "We asked her but she said it wasn't important. She said we'd be doing the right thing."
God, what is wrong with these people?
"The café belongs to Jamie Vandeviere's family!" I shouted, indignantly shoving him and his friends into the wall.
At this piece of information, the three morons widened their eyes and exchanged timid glances with each other.
"Oh, my God," Ross croaked. "Luke, we're sorry. We didn't know. Honestly, we didn't. We never would have done it if we'd known it belonged to Jamie's family. She's nice."
"We're really, really sorry," Harvey and Josh uttered hoarsely in unison, looking on the brink of tears.
"You should be sorry," Roger scoffed, raising his fists and bashing them into the wall behind Josh and Harvey's head. They flinched and their lips quivered when Roger's fists missed their head by about an inch.
"Un-freaking-believable," Bryce shook his head. "Are you guys brain dead or something?"
"What did you get out of helping Summer?" I demanded to know. Harvey, Josh, and Ross were idiots, but they weren't selfless idiots. Summer must have offered them something in return to get them to believe that the risks that they took wereworth it. "If you play dumb again, I swear you won’t be walking out of this room with two legs."
The three of them looked like they were about to piss in their pants.
"She said," Josh sniffled. "She said if we helped her, we could sit at the cool table with you guys for the rest of the semester. She also said she has a way of making sure we play for varsity next year."
"And how the hell can she do that?" Seth scoffed. "Have you seen yourselves play? You guys suck."
Bryce nodded with a grimace. "You're lucky if the coach even lets you stay on JV a year from now."
"A word of advice," I told them with a shake of my head. "Don't believe anything Summer says. You were manipulated and used by her. You gonna gloat about that, too, Harvey?"
Harvey shook his head fiercely."We really thought we were getting rid of a bad person, Luke. I wouldn't cross you or Jamie like that. Please, please believe me."
"We'll pay for all the damages!" Josh cried desperately. His buddies nodded frantically.
"Stay out of my sight for the next couple of weeks," I said, jabbing my finger at them to emphasize my warning. "There's no saying if I can control myself or them," I gestured to Roger, who had his teeth bared at dimwits, and Seth and Bryce, who were shooting daggers at them with their arms crossed in front of their chests, "from pummeling you. Am I clear?"
"Yes," they mumbled. Harvey even added a "sir" at the end. That wimp.
"Leave."
"But I haven't changed..." Ross trailed off when his friends elbowed him hard in the stomach with disbelieving looks in their eyes.
The three airheads scampered out of sight.
"Kids these days," Roger shook his head gravely. "If I were anything like them back when I was a freshman, I would have smothered myself with a pillow."
At that moment, it wasn’t those kids that I wanted to smother.
"Sorry, guys. It looks like I'll have to skip pizza today," I said, clenching my fists when an image of Summer laughing flickered across my mind. She must be feeling pretty satisfied with herself right now.
"It's fine, man. Do what you gotta do," he said, clasping a hand over my shoulder. Seth and Bryce nodded.
I knew exactly what I had to do.
***
I left the locker room briskly after getting my stuff and dialed the number that I never thought I'd dial again. Summer answered on the second ring, a hint of wryness seeping into her tone as she said, "Well. Here's a number I don't see on my caller ID every day."
"I need to talk to you," I told her, clutching my phone so tightly that my knuckles turned white. "I don't want to do this over the phone. Where are you?"
I could picture her surprise from the other end of the line. "I'm at Candace's right now."
"Fine. Stay put. I'll be there in ten."
Summer was sitting on Candace's porch when I pulled up in front of the house. How a person who looked so human could be such a monster was beyond me. I thought about how broken and devastated Jamie looked when I found her at Mrs. V.'s cafe and instantly, I wished it was Summer who had been sitting on the floor crying yesterday. Summer Merrick destroyed something special to Jamie and now I wanted to destroy her.
She got to her feet and smiled. "Luke-"
"Shut up," I cut her off and the smile on her face faltered. Clearly, this wasn't the kind of conversation she thought we would be having. "Was it fun, manipulating those dumbasses from JV to do your dirty work for you? What the hell were you thinking?"
She casted a look downward. "I don't know what you're talking about."
The nerve of her... Abruptly, I made a grab for her chin and forced her into making eye contact with me.
"Have you lost your mind?" she shrieked, shaking my hand off with fury.
"Have you? And don't look away when I'm talking to you, Merrick," I demanded hotly. "Answer the damn question."
She glowered at me and I glared back. Her lower lips were trembling as she said, "They went overboard, okay? I told them to mess up the place a little just to send the warning across... I never asked them to break anything. I swear I didn't want that. It was supposed to be a harmless prank. But those idiots went overboard trying to impress me. You know how freshman boys are. They saw a chance to suck up to a popular senior and they jumped at it."
That's Summer for you, always justifying her mistakes and shifting the blame to the people around her. I don't think I'd ever been more pissed off at her before today, not even when she proudly announced to the entire school she was cheating on me with my best friend.
"I expected a lot of nasty things from you, but this?" I laughed wryly. "This I didn't see coming. I didn't think you'd stoop so low."
Summer's jaw clenched and I could see tears beginning to form in her eyes. She blinked them away at once. It was nice to see my words still had some effect on her, although little, so I kept striking while the iron was hot. "Why the hell did you do it? What has Jamie ever done to you?"
The mention of Jamie's name seemed to have triggered her fury. "Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. Is she all that you care about these days?" she screeched, her chin raised. "I was only trying to show her that she's messing with the wrong person. She's brainwashing everyone. She's got you and the rest of your brainless football buddies wrapped around her little finger, and even Candace, my best friend, and Paul think I should give her a chance. She's turning all my friends against me and trying to make a fool out of me. And you know what? This is entirely your fault, Luke. I know you and her have been cooking up this sick plan to get back at me for what happened between us."
"She's not turning anyone against you," I cried out in frustration. "Are you freaking delusional? People like her because she's nice and not scheming and deceitful like you are.
The friendship between Jamie and me may have started based on the hatred that I held for Summer, but as I began to hang out with her and get to know her better, the less Operation-Take-Down-Summer, as we'd jokingly come to call it, mattered. In fact, I'd all but forgotten about it recently. Maybe Sienna was right about me using getting back at Summer as an excuse to spend more time with Jamie.
The front door behind us swung opened. Candace stepped out and judging by the appalled look on her face, she probably heard everything Summer and I had said. I mean, we weren't exactly being quiet about it, with my yelling and Summer's screaming.
"You got people to trash Jamie's mom's cafe?" Candace asked disbelievingly, a frown on her face. "How could you, Summer? It's her mom's job."
"Eavesdrop much, Can?" Summer snapped at her. "Mind your own damn business."
Candace's face stiffened at Summer's hostility, anger sparking in her eyes as she unflinchingly met her glare with hurt and resentment.
"Luke's right, Summer. Jamie's not turning anyone against you. You're doing all that all on your own."
Then Candace slammed the door in Summer's face. Well, technically my face, too, since I was standing right next to her. In all the years that I had known Candace, I'd never seen her stand up to Summer like this. And honestly? Candace was so much cooler before she and Summer became friends.
Summer gaped at the door with her lips parted and looked as if Candace had just electrified her. I didn't want to stick around for the aftermath.
"Stay the hell away from Jamie," I told Summer sternly. "I mean it, Merrick. This is my last warning to you."
Summer turned her head away without saying anything and swiftly flounced to her car. My work here, hopefully, was done.
And now… I just need to figure out a way to tell Jamie.
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I always find it more difficult to write in Luke's POV so hopefully this chapter turned out alright :) I originally planned for this chapter to be longer but I've decided to split it into two parts to shorten the wait.
Thank you to everyone who have stuck with me and waited patiently for this chapter! Every vote/ comment/ follow means the world to me and I love you guys so much for being supportive of PP. Please vote and comment on this chapter as well so I know you're reading! Thank you <3