Page 22 of The Fly-Half

I stabbed my spoon into my bowl with such force it made an audible thunk. “That’s bollocks.”

“Yeah? Well, tell your face that.” He jabbed me sharply with a finger. “You promised not to be a dickhead, remember?”

“I’m not.”

We both knew it was a lie and I couldn’t bring myself to meet Devon’s eyes, the tension between us so thick and cloying it threatened to suffocate me. I could feel West staring at us and I wondered if he’d intervene or just let us get on with it.

I didn’t know what “it” was, though.

Devon was slipping away from me and all I did was push him further every time I opened my damn mouth.

My hand curled into a fist and I felt the spoon bending in my grasp.

But it was better to break the spoon than someone’s face.

CHAPTER NINE

Jonny

The club was dark,smoke pouring off the stage and colourful lights swirling in the gloom as the bass pounded through my body, reverberating up through my trainers and shaking me down to my bones. I couldn’t remember which club it was or how I’d gotten there, but I had the vague feeling I’d been here before.

I knew where the bar was at least because I was leaning against it with a glass in hand. It looked like a short cocktail or something with whisky in. Probably a cocktail because there was a bright red cherry floating in it, bobbing against the enormous ice cube in the middle that seemed to take up most of the bloody glass. Whatever drink I’d paid for wasn’t anything more than half a shot.

But there was another glass on the bar in front of me, this one empty, which suggested I’d already had at least one.

I probably needed it given the amount of fucking alcohol I was paying for versus what I needed to get drunk.

There was a pleasant buzz warming my skin and making my muscles hum, and I felt my head nodding slightly in time withthe racing beat. I’d never been much of a dancer except for when I was with Devon, because he loved dancing and I’d never been able to tell him no. It didn’t matter how bad I looked or how out of time I was—Devon never seemed to care.

He just kept on smiling at me like I’d hung the fucking moon.

Devon…

He should be here.

We never went out without each other, not since he’d moved back anyway.

I turned my head and scanned the crowd, looking across the sea of sweaty, half-naked men taking up the dance floor. We’d ended up in a gay bar then, which wasn’t totally surprising. I’d been to gay clubs with Devon before, especially when we’d just turned eighteen, right before he moved to France. This wasn’t The Court, though, and I didn’t think Lincoln had another gay club. But it must have done because how else would we have ended up here?

My thoughts crumbled away as my eyes landed on two figures pressed together, hands roaming over each other’s bodies as their mouths met in a series of desperate kisses. It was wild and indecent but I couldn’t stop staring as heat curdled in my gut. I knew who they were, even in the haze of the smoke and the flashing lights, and my fingers tightened around the drink in my hand until it squeaked and groaned, the cheap glass threatening to shatter in my hand.

Peaches was wearing a see-through crop top and leather trousers, his body sparkling with a comical amount of body glitter as his fingers grasped Devon’s ass, sliding under the waistband of the tiny shorts and teasing the band of his underwear. Devon was shirtless, his soft, muscled form shining with sweat and glitter he’d clearly picked up from Peaches, and I swallowed because how had I never really noticed how he looked?

Devon was fucking gorgeous—softness over hard muscle, sculpted thighs and perfect calves from hours and hours of training, and a chest I just wanted to squeeze and play with, even though I’d never noticed anyone’s chest before. He wasn’t as big as a lot of the guys on the team, but he didn’t need to be. He was perfect just the way he was.

The heat in my gut felt sour and leaden, resentment building under my skin.

I hated the way Peaches was touching him, hated the way his mouth moved down Devon’s neck, hated the way he ground against Devon, holding his body close.

If anyone was going to do that to Devon, it should be me.

The glass shattered in my hand.

And I sat up in bed with a jolt.

“What the fuck?” I muttered as I screwed up my eyes and blinked slowly, trying to shake the spots dancing behind my eyes. I was drenched in sweat, even though the room was cold, and I could hear my own heartbeat thundering in the darkness.

I flopped back onto the mattress, my head landing between my pillows, making it feel like I’d been completely enveloped as I stared at the ceiling. I was wide awake but could still feel the tug of sleep deep in my bones trying to pull me back under. But I didn’t want to go back to that dream.

---