Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
I can't... Fuck, I can't think straight.
Ellie gutted me with one admission. I thought her sarcastic wit came from being jaded about being turned down by a guy she liked, or too much practice rejecting interested guys, or too much exposure to Jake and his teammates, but not...
Not that.
Beyond an awful situation, I wasn't sure what 'that' was, but so much made sense. Jake was the last guy I felt sorry for, but his overactive anger and unreasonable protectiveness of Ellie? I understood. Ellie's sharp personality, her relationship with her brother, and our exchanges now made perfect sense.
The disgusted looks from the beach.
Every time she rebuffed me with a snarky comment.
She'd been around football players as long as I had, if not longer, and one of them crossed an unforgivable line.
And I wanted to know more. I had to. What happened to Ellie? I scrolled through every possible unpleasant Santa Cruz High rape and assault story online and found nothing except a potential candidate. Ryder Stevens. His stats read like any decent high school quarterback, a senior when Jake was a freshman, on an athletic scholarship to -
"UC-Davis," I muttered to my phone. The rest I could verify from a direct source. "I'll ask when I see him."
Me: Hey, I'm free tomorrow. Can we go early? Donating blood that day.
Mace: Great! Make sure you hydrate. See you at 6:30 am.
"Fabulous," I muttered. An early training session where Mason kicked my ass, then siphoning plasma and platelets was a literally draining day. I would make it work so Ellie wasn't harassed by my teammates.
Me: Yeah. Can you do me a favor?
Mace: Yeah?
Me: Who played QB for Santa Cruz HS three years ago?
There was a long pause before text bubbles appeared.
Mace: Tell you in person. See you at Paradigm.
A pit formed in my stomach, and Mason's words blurred. What the fuck did he know and wasn't telling me? Football parties were notorious for drunken encounters. I had several regrets with girls under those circumstances, but drunk or sober, I never crossed the mutual consent line.
I shut off my phone and held it to my chin. A sickening sensation filled my stomach like it dropped in a rush and rose bile up my throat. I was disgusting. Ellie didn't deserve to be played, a pawn in a retribution game against her asshole brother. The best thing I could do was leave her alone. She deserved to be left alone by an asshole like me. So, why did I feel so gutted by the idea?
Fuck, I was torn in half. I didn't need further proof than when I choked while kissing her. That wasn't supposed to happen. And I had no one to blame but myself. I was so stupid. I choked because feelings for her surged from out of nowhere, a damn near pressure built in my chest, and threatened to burst through my skin. Guilt strangled my throat and twisted my stomach until I felt sick and couldn't close the deal.
I stomped around my bedroom with my fists squeezed tight enough to tear open the skin on my knuckles. So fucking stupid, Hightower. With her chin lifted and pink, tempting lips parted, Ellie offered herself on a fucking silver platter of trust, and I choked because I didn't deserve it. I swept my hand at the stack of textbooks on my desk and slammed them into the wall. The pages fluttered before the books slid down to the floor. That didn't help.
With a sigh, I got ready for bed, but my mind flooded with Ellie memories. The vivid images replayed right like a fucking train wreck. Holding her hand, my fingers laced with hers, felt right. Her hand was so small, it tucked right into my palm, and my fingers reached the back of her wrists. "Fuck, I even made her promise not to lie." I groaned up to my ceiling.
"Why would I have reason to lie to you?"
Those damn, beautiful, big brown eyes. They made my breath hitch, my pulse buzz in my neck, and my chest tight. Framed by innocence, she had no idea what I was going to say. I was more nervous than for any stupid pep rally speech or class presentation. Biggest screw-up in your life, Hightower.
She gave me the first authentic comments I'd heard in a long time. No one cracked through my surface, but she went deep from superficial interactions. Her cheeks blushed pink, but her sincerity pinned me speechless. In comparison, my words were hollow and ingenuine. Most of the information came from Brody and I hated that until my heart leaped out of my damn chest at her liking when I called her my baby.
I pressed my palms into my eye sockets. Right there. She was right there in my own two hands until I blurted out the honest, painful truth. A slow-motion horror scene unfolded. Her skin was warm silk. I held that beautiful unpretentious smile in my hands.
Framing her face, she wanted me to kiss her. She trusted me. An invisible weight crushed my heart with that realization, and I fucking froze. My thoughts froze, and my muscles twitched once, then locked up. My breath hitched in the back of my dry mouth, and my pulse raced. That kiss was warm, soft, and wrong. It was a kiss I took, not gave, and shoved my unworthiness down my throat. The honest admission tumbled out without thought behind them. I inwardly kicked myself on every step back to my truck.
I was falling for Eleanor Grace Harrison. With a slow breath, I sighed up to my ceiling. My muttered words were a sharp kick to my gut. "And I just completely fucked it up."
I wasn't sure when I went to sleep, but sometime overnight my phone rang. After a few rings, I woke up and groaned at 3:17 am. "Hello?"
"Who is this?" A familiar gruff male voice slurred into the phone. "I'm calling forrrrr Ellieeee."
You have to got to be fucking kidding me. I blinked my heavy-lidded eyes. Why the fuck was Harrison calling? To harass me more, or threaten me for Ellie's sake? After a few of his raspy breaths on his end, I braced myself for his verbal onslaught. "Jake?"
"Yeah, Jake Harrison. Herrrr brother... Wherrrrre's Ellieeeeee?"
"Sleeping?" I mumbled into the phone in irritation. "Call her."
"I did call herrrrrr," he replied. I'd never heard so many slurred 'R's and 'E's before. "This isn't her numberrrrr?"
"No, Jake." I flopped into my bed and got under my blanket. "I'm going to tell you once to stop using words that have the letters R and E, then call her number because I'm hanging up."
"Wait." His voice shifted to a surprised tone. "Is this... Hightowerrrr?"
"Yeah," I spat. "Why don't you go call Ellie's other number, then have a couple more drinks and wait in a fucking ditch before she picks up your sorry ass, Harrison."
"Hightowerrrr... you... Y-you need to stay away from herrrrr."
Again with the R's. This kept getting better. "And why's that, Jake?"
"Beeeeecause."
Well, that cleared everything up. "Because why?" I couldn't resist. Maybe trashed Jake would admit why he hated me or at least messed up Mom's house.
"Beee-beeeecause..." he stumbled over the word. "B-because she rrrrreeeeeally likes you, that's why."
What the fuck!?
Now I was awake.
Before I could ask, he kept going, "Sheeeee won't want me to tell you, but sheeee does. Sheeee smiles all the time at herrrrr phone. I don't like that. So, stay-stay away from herrrrr."
"Alright, Jake," I mumbled as my brain tried to disentangle his words into coherent ones. Somewhere he said she liked me?
"Sheeee's going to... something tomorrow. I don't like herrr being alone. So, you need to go, keep an eye on herrrr for meeee."
What the fuck? He was out of his fucking mind. I'd exhausted any useful information here, so it was time to hang up. "Call her." I stretched my jaw and stifled a yawn. "Have her come to get you or sleep in a ditch tonight. I don't care. Bye, Jake."
I hung up on that awesome conversation. Should I call Ellie? He was her brother. I dialed her number to a pre-recorded message. "The number you have dialed is not available or out of service." Maybe that was why Jake tried this number. I frowned and tried her again. Same message. Weird. Was she okay? I should wait ten minutes. If Jake called again, then I'd try Ellie's number. What the fuck did Jake mean? I closed my heavy eyelids.
"Logan!" Mom's muffled voice accompanied a rough shake of my shoulders. "Wake up."
"What?" I flipped open my heavy-feeling eyelids. "What time is it?"
"Five-thirty," she answered with more energy in her voice than in my whole body.
I rubbed the sleep out of my eye corners and sat up. Fuck, had I slept at all? The fatigue dragging my heavy arms and legs argued no. I wore the same clothes as last night and felt like I hadn't slept at all. I closed my eyes and groaned. "Why are you waking me up?"
"You have to get going, Logan. It's Saturday, remember?" I straightened up. Saturday. She said today was Saturday. "Training with Mason, then your blood drive, right?"
"Yeah." I slacked my jaw for a loud, hot yawn and pushed up to a seated recline. "I need you to pick me up between three and four."
"Sure." A look of concern lingered in her eyes as they studied me. "But I'll take it that means things didn't go as planned last night with Eleanor."
I rubbed my knuckles across my eyes again. Fuck, there was no synopsis here that didn't paint me like the asshole I was to that girl. "I did what you said. You were right, she was there. Alone. I vomited my feelings, and told her I liked her just like you suggested."
Her lips pulled into a tight line and her voice sharpened. "Nicely?"
"Yeah, nicely." I crossed my arms.
Mom leaned closer, eyes entranced like she watched a dramatic movie scene. With a rough hand wave, she prompted, "And?"
She wanted to poke this out of me. "Crashed and burned," tasted as bitter as it sounded.
A frown creased between her eyebrows again. "She doesn't feel the same?"
The same? Beyond confused, and guilty as fuck, I didn't know how the fuck I felt. My money was on Ellie hating me. She deserved to hate me. "Honestly, I don't know how she feels," I confessed with a sigh because, also like an idiot, I hadn't asked her if she felt the same. "Too busy screwing it up myself."
"I'm not surprised." She hummed and sat near my feet, which she patted with her hand. "You're kind of an idiot with your feelings."
"Once again, not helpful, Mom." This conversation needed to end. "She's Harrison's sister, I told her how I felt, and she stomped off. End of story."
That wasn't the whole story, particularly where I was my own villain. By her frown, she knew I withheld some details. "As long as you went after her." I shook my head. "Then get your butt up and go after her. Go see her."
"Mom." I pulled myself up to the point of mental coherence. "Ellie's volunteering at our blood drive today."
"Perfect then!" She patted my shoulder and stood up. "If you messed up, then apologize. But take a shower after you're done working out. You don't want her to pass out from your exercise stink."
"Mom, I..." I gave up, slid out of bed, and headed into the bathroom. This conversation was over, so I splashed some water on my face. The guilt hanging in my eyes was the motivation I needed. She would never let me hear the end of this, but I called, "Mom? I need your help."
Mason's tall, ripped form stood over me with a frown deep enough to give him a unibrow. I sat on a hard, black floor, my knees open and palms splayed flat. My lungs burned, and I panted for breath. Sweat dripped from every pore in my body, including a sweat mustache tickling my upper lip, and my clothes clung to me as if I'd showered. Warm fatigue burned deep in my biceps and shoulders, and my bones were exhausted.
"I know." I looked down at my shoes and rasped out between breaths, "You don't have to say anything, I can feel it."
"I don't have to, but I will. You suck today." He laughed over me, then sat down next to me. "Were you drinking last night?'
"What?" That question snapped my attention up to his disapproving gaze. I wiped the side of my face on my shoulder sleeve. Disappointment was written all over his tanned face. "No."
His eyes took a visual tour of scrutiny over me. "Are you injured?"
I frowned at the team's same assumption after I missed practice. "No."
Mason tilted his head, his black hair catching the light from the overhead fluorescent lights. "Muscle cramps? Dehydration? Food poisoning from your Mom?"
"No." This was ridiculous. I wasn't performing that terribly today.
"New girlfriend?"
"Mace." I squeezed my eyes into tiny slits until all those lumpy muscles blurred. "Why would that have anything to do with it?"
"Maybe not a girlfriend then." He paused and raised his eyebrows. "But you're distracted by something. Good thing you're on a bye week. You haven't been this off since freshman year and couldn't hit a target to save your life."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence." The white cement walls enclosed a faint perspiration smell, or that was me. How the fuck was my trainer swapped out for a therapist? "I'm just tired. Got woken up last night."
"And you're donating blood later?" I nodded again and got another look of disapproval. "Why don't you just hit a bike for twenty, then go for an ice bath and up your protein so you won't pass out."
"Fine." I stood on tight calves and headed over to the equipment area. I put my water bottle on a recumbent bike then hopped on, adjusted the settings, and started pedaling.
I groaned when he spiked the resistance level to the max setting. The burn in my calves was instant. "Still not going to take it easy on you." He grinned at the angriest possible look I gave him, given I operated on reserved energy. "But let me answer your question, maybe it'll distract you."
"What question?" I gripped the handlebars and groaned as the sweat beads started to reform on my forehead.
"Ryder Stevens," he answered in a flat, emotionless tone. He crossed his meaty arms over his chest and frowned. "Faster."
I gritted my teeth and pedaled faster. Already, my legs screamed in protest, and I was half-convinced I would crawl, not walk, out of here.
"I played against Ryder Stevens the last two years I was at Salesian, remember?" he asked. I nodded, my lungs burning with my elevated breaths. "I heard rumors about him and girls, but didn't know if it was all locker room shit-talk."
"What... kind... Of rumors?" I wasn't going to last another eighteen and a half minutes. Heat pumped out of my armpits, and where my legs joined my hips. Fortunately, Mason watched the seconds tick down to an even eighteen minutes then lowered the resistance level by half. A rush of relief loosened my leg muscles.
"That's going back up." He tapped the dashboard. "You're doing intervals."
"Great." I grabbed my water bottle. A long drink wasn't enough to quench my parched throat. I dragged the corner of my shirt over my sweaty face. The fabric was ineffective in mopping up the leak my forehead sprung. Mason handed me a white hand towel, which I mopped my face with and slung over the handlebar.
"You didn't know Ryder?" His surprised voice hit my closest ear. "You were my backup."
"No." I shook my head. "Freshman year, I thought I was hot shit and was too busy taking anything I wanted from girls to care about anything else." The words put a bad taste on my tongue, but they were true. Mason's eyes widened, and his mouth opened. His shoulders twitched, and a stifled snort twitched his nose. The gleam in his eyes read he held back laughing at me. I frowned. "What?"
"Nothing, bro." He stopped not-laughing, but his smile remained. "Out of all the football dudes I work with, you're the only one who's ever admitted something like that. Probably every one of them should. Takes a lot of balls, to be honest about your faults."
My faults. Fuck, I had a list longer than Santa's when it came to Ellie. "Consider it a work in progress on self-awareness," I grunted. Mason was right, my fuckery distracted me from working out, but he wasn't focused on the conversation. "Ryder?"
"Right." His eyes fixated on the bike's countdown of another minute. "You might not know that Ryder and I both redshirted at UC Davis before I transferred to UCLA. We were roommates for a semester before I moved out."
I frowned when he cranked up my resistance again, sending a hot burn into my shins and calves. "You lived with him?"
"Yeah," he replied in a voice I'd never heard from him, quiet and firm but thick with restrained emotions. His eyes dropped to the floor, and he cleared his throat. "That dude is all kinds of fucked in the head when it comes to girls."
I gripped the handlebars with my sweaty palms as tight as I clenched my teeth. "Specifically?"
"You know how there's always that one ass on the team that gives the rest of us football guys a bad rep?" His head tipped to the side. "The heartbreaking panty-dropper who mows over girls like the landscape guys who cut the field?"
Ours was Bryce, minus the heartbreak part. He had a helmet full of rocks and a dick he couldn't stop shoving into random girls. He was innocent about it, stupid and innocent, and never acted against someone's will.
"He's worse than that guy. He more than takes advantage of girls." Mason brought his hands to his hips, then sighed and shook his head. "But the way he did it –does it– is dirty. I was shocked when I walked in on him once. He had a girl tied to his bed and... Fuck, I had to move out."
"Did he... rape them?" I choked on the word. Fuck, there were so many ways a guy could get himself off, without or without her consent. The possibilities churned my stomach and set fire to it at the same time. What Mason said sounded crazy. Not crazy, sick. Illegal and sick.
The lack of victims' stories online screamed volumes. He was a predator. I bet he preyed on quiet girls who wouldn't speak up against him. And I wouldn't have been surprised if he used more than physical abuse to ensure no one found out. Ellie herself hinted at that.
"Physically and emotionally, I was deceived and wrecked. My body and my character were assaulted... "
I needed no imagination for how emotional harassment worked. Senior star quarterback against a quiet what? Freshman or sophomore? No comparison for who a school gossip mill would believe.
"Bro, this is shit to talk about." Mason shifted on his feet and tipped his chin down. I couldn't blame his discomfort and didn't want to talk about it either. That shit should never happen. "But let's just say he'd stick anything in any hole that wouldn't get a girl pregnant, whether she wanted it or not. And the younger or hotter the girl, the better."
I screeched my bike to a halt. "That's fucking disgusting."
"Yeah," Mason muttered under his breath. "It is."
"And he's still at UC-Davis?" I couldn't believe an asshole like that still walked around with a clean record. How? "Walking around free and clear?"
"He's a junior." Mason's face turned dark as he added, "As far as I know, he'll be pro-bound."
There weren't enough words for how fucked up that was. No one deserved being touched by anyone or anything without their consent. It sounded like he'd gotten off with no repercussions. A mouthful of water wasn't enough to remove the taste of ash on my tongue. "Wow." I shook my head.
I didn't have the headspace to wrap my brain around how a tool like that would walk away clean after he tossed girls aside like trash. Unfair didn't begin to describe when good guys like Mason were injured and forced to stop playing, but evil pieces of shit were untouched. I used the same toss-away end treatment with every girl except Chloe. On the bare minimum standards level, all of them had wanted to be me.
"Physically and emotionally, I was deceived and wrecked. My body and my character were assaulted. And I'll be damned if I will ever let it happen again. So, you can take your apology and ram it up your lying, manipulative ass!"
What stung most about Ellie's words was that she put me anywhere near that level of mistreatment. That wasn't me. I deceived her, but consent was everything; I wouldn't ever force myself on her.
I owe her an apology, not solely with words.
Mason nodded at my bike. "Back to work." I pumped my legs again, then groaned when he maxed the resistance. This time, a resurgence of energy pumped my legs faster. A slow rage built up inside, pumping adrenaline through my veins and rejuvenating my tired muscles. All kinds of horrible images flashed through my mind, related to Ellie's fingers tracing her mouth.
"Back up." Mason laughed. I refused to look at him but felt the heat from his gaze. In my peripheral vision, he counted off on his fingers. "You're self-reflective, bashing your ego, and distracted as fuck. Not a girlfriend, but who is she?"
If only he knew. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. "Promise not to laugh?"
"Nope." He shook his head and frowned. "Knew it was a girl."
"Ellie Harrison."
"Harrison?" Mason's frown deepened, and his eyes burned a hole in the side of my face. "As in... not..."
"Yup."
Ryder was the worst kind of man in existence. Mason insisted Ellie wasn't worth my effort. And Ellie was probably done with me. No matter how much I fucked up, I didn't feel the same way about her...
The kick in the nuts was I liked her more. She called me out on my bullshit and stood up for herself. She protected her vulnerability without bowing down or instigating. She hit me with the truth that she deserved to be treated like she was important. And I was an asshole for giving her any indication that she wasn't. I wasn't thinking about her, not her as a person with feelings.
Feelings that dealt with a lot deeper shit than a football rivalry.
Feelings I don't fully understand but ones that demand respect.
"Harrison at Santa Cruz, huh? So, that's why you're asking about Ryder. If you have any reason to think he was involved with her, then I'm sorry. The stuff he did, he should be locked up for." He shook his head again and grimaced. I didn't have an answer for him, only grunted when amusement flashed in his eyes. "Crushing on Harrison's sister, huh? You must have a death wish."
Why was that the same thing Josh said? "Thanks for the pep talk." I rolled my eyes. "I didn't mean to fall for her."
"Fall for her? Bro." Mason's expression hardened until he clenched his jaw, and the cords in his neck tightened into definition. "Unless you want your nose or ribs broken, you might want to reconsider that one. Especially if she's damaged goods after Ryder, you don't want to unpack that shit. I think you'll be fine in terms of finding other options."
Did he just- "Really?"
He's starting to piss me off. Ellie's not damaged goods.
And, if he knew, why didn't he say anything?
"Yeah." He nodded. "But your dad doesn't pay me enough to tell you how good-looking of a guy you are, so kick it up a notch."
I pedaled, huffed, and puffed like an asthmatic smoker. Anger coiled tighter in my stomach and forced my legs to their max speed. Sweat dribbled down my forehead. Whatever happened to Ellie, it wasn't her fault. Bad shit happened to people all the time and it's how they bounced back from it that mattered. Ellie was stronger than anyone gave her credit for, and she deserved to be happy. Despite a twisted sensation that built up in my chest and nagged me to make right whatever wrong Ryder had put her through, I had to face reality. He was not my fight to fight unless she asked me to get involved. And her words, wrapped up in her anger and pain, were an invisible shove into my chest.
My fingers gripped the handlebars so tight I was surprised I hadn't ripped them off. While Ryder might not have gone all the way with Ellie, he'd done enough that years later it still affected her and that wasn't okay.
"Something bad."
Her fingers trembled when she traced her mouth.
Was that how he violated her? Sick fuck.
I've never met this Ryder tool, but I wouldn't mind smashing my fists in his face.
A clammy sweat broke out over my body, and goosebumps raised the hairs on my forearms. Heat pumped out of every pore as if my body overheated and a pressure value released. "Mason." I put the brakes on my bike one last time. "I've had enough."
"Go." He tipped his head to the locker room. "Bath."
After his knee injury, Mason insisted on conditioning workouts to strengthen the knee ligaments followed by an ice bath to avoid inflammation. Up to my armpits, tiny ice needles pricked into every inch of my submerged body and chilled me from the outside in. Numbness seeped deep into my muscles and bones. How was it supposed to make me feel better?
"Probably not the best idea," I grumbled at the phone shaking in my hand. My teeth vibrated from small chatters six minutes into the ice bath as I tried to call Ellie and got the same recorded message, "The number you have dialed is not available or out of service."
"Huh." I frowned, checked for service, then texted her.
Me: Good morning Ellie.
[ Undeliverable message. ]
What the fuck? After another failed attempt, incoming texts popped up from my teammates that said they were getting ready for the blood drive. She blocked my number again. As the icy water chill settled in, I set down my phone before I dropped it in the bath, then submerged myself to my chin. I sucked in a sharp breath from the icy bite into my arms and shoulders. It wouldn't numb the ache in my chest. Disappointment rose in me until I felt as cold and hollow inside as the ice numbness tingling my skin.
Whatever the reason, Ellie had made her choice. It wasn't me, and while that burned through me like acid, I needed to respect that decision. "I'll see her today, be polite, make sure the guys don't bother her, apologize, and say goodbye."
The words struck me sharper than the icy grip seeping into my bones. It wasn't what I wanted, but it was what she deserved. And I'd do whatever it took to make that happen for her.