Rushed(131)

A girl with long, wavy auburn hair, a heart-shaped face and a voluptuous body is doing tryout exercises with the cheerleading squad. Her whole body moves with a sensuality that I've yet to see. I'm instantly turned on by the sight. Seriously, she's going to make me pop wood in front of all my friends. It's crazy. I've seen a lot of hot girls, but this one takes the crown.

To say she’s beautiful is like saying the sky is blue. You don't argue that shit. You just accept it.

What I can't understand, though, is why I haven't ever seen her before? The other guys are all talking like they know who this girl is, but I'm racking my brains, and I'm drawing a blank.

“Ten bucks says I'll have her sucking my dick by the end of tonight,” boasts Cory.

Russ lets out a rowdy laugh. “Ten bucks? Fuck, dude, a hundred says she'll be riding me after practice!” Russ does a little dance in his seat, moving his arms all around like he's riding a pony. “Gangnam Style!”

All my teammates howl with laughter, but I'm not amused, and a dark, violent anger surges through my chest, surprising me.

“Shut the f*ck up!” I seethe, barely holding back from it becoming a bellow. The words leave my lips before I can stop them. I'm not sure what's gotten into me. I never cared before who they laid claim to. It's all just a game, anyway. But right now, I'm about three seconds from taking the football team's starting tailback and safety and seeing if I can throw them out of the stands off the back side. “None of you dickwads are getting shit!”

My teammates are momentarily stunned into silence by the venom in my voice. They're used to me being aggressive on the field, but never angry. In fact, some of them have never seen me angry, to all of our benefit. I prefer to get my high school diploma through school and not a jailhouse correspondence course.

“Shit, Troy, what crawled up your hairy ass and died?” Cory gets the courage to ask a second later. "Not into K-pop or somethin'?"

“Nothin,” I say, calmer now. “Just that I know none of you have a chance with her is all. Girl like that, she ain't gonna be going home with any of you jackoffs.”

Cory snorts. “Says who?”

“Says me,” I snarl, causing Cory to draw back as if he fears I'm going to punch him in the face. Honestly, I don't know why I'm acting this way. I don't own this chick, don't even know her. And Cory's right. The guys weren't saying anything different from what I'd seen the past four years on the first day of school, and again in April when the track team did the same act.

Russ eyes me suspiciously. He's always been one of the smarter guys on the team, even if he's got a strange sense of humor. He usually makes me laugh, unless he's f*cked off on deep coverage again and gotten beaten deep. “You want her, don't you?”

“No,” I reply nonchalantly. "Just sayin', you two ain't got no chance. I can see it in her face. She's no easy lay."

“Fucking liar. You want her bad, man. Admit it.”

“So what if I do?” I growl menacingly. “What are you going to do about it?”

Russ holds my gaze for a moment and then looks away. “Nothing,” he mutters. "You get all the girls anyway. All I get are the f*cking skanks.”

That's what I thought.

I nod my head. “You're right. But I'm also the one who carries this f*cking team.” As Silver Lake's prized quarterback on offense and inside linebacker on defense, I’m literally the lynchpin of the best chance Silver Lake has had to go to the state championships since Jimmy Carter was President. I’m one of the most popular kids in the school and usually get my way with everything. Girls, grades, preferential treatment by teachers— you name it, I get it.

It goes without saying that I'm an egotistical, conceited bastard. But I'm that way because I earned it, every f*cking bit of it.

But while I can't ask for more of the sweet perks I get at school, it's a total 180 when it comes to my living situation at home. The moment I step off school grounds, I go back into the real world. I'm no longer Troy Wood, Silver Lake High's most prized athlete and biggest campus celebrity.

I'm just some ungrateful shit that should be happy that my dad chose to bang a random chick when he was eighteen and not use a condom. And according to my drunken dad, I wouldn't be shit without him. I owed him for everything—giving me life and for being a star ball player, though he'd done nothing to help me hone my skills. Shit, I owed him just for breathing. In fact, I owed him so much that I had to work an after-school job at a shitty pizza parlor just to help support his sorry ass drinking habit. So I take those easy grades from the teachers, mainly because after practicing until seven four nights a week, I spend another three to four hours slicing vegetables, sausage, and stirring five gallon pots of tomato sauce just to put food in my stomach.

I don't know what he's going to do when I go off to college, I think to myself. Probably become a bum under the bridge. And it'll be all my f*cking fault.

I have big plans for myself after I graduate high school, none of which involve my drunkard father. First, I hope to go to college on a scholarship, because I certainly don't want to be chained to a student loan debt, and then I want to be drafted by the NFL, starting off with a multimillion-dollar contract.

I figure once I get on the college team and start showing off my exceptional abilities, the talent scouts will go crazy and start the bidding wars. First round draft pick, working a couple of endorsement contracts coming right out of school, and I'll be on easy street riding out my rookie contract on that bullshit scaled system the NFL is putting in place. When I hit free agency though, that's when it all goes bananas. Naturally, I'll settle with the highest bidder and make my way to the Hall of Fame and retire with a big mansion, a trophy wife and a quad of kids, set for life.