Page 49 of Unwritten Rules

“Yeah, your mom knows how to tire a man out. I loved tag teaming her with Emily, too.”

Whoops, Oliver didn’t like that too much.

Oliver was the hot headed one. I never liked him much on or off the field. He was uptight and didn’t blend well with the team. Despite being a decent pitcher, the guy didn’t have much else going for him. The team hated his attitude.

“Hey, it’s not worth it,” one of the guys whispered to Oliver as he turned around and stopped in his tracks.

I prepped myself. The anger was already visible in his body movements as he stalked towards me.

“No. Fuck you!” His spit landed in my face.

Well, that was lovely. I needed a shower anyway. “Not into dudes, sorry.”

I ducked a fist coming in my direction; it was sloppy. It was always sloppy when they were emotional. Considering I mentioned his mom and girlfriend in the same sentence, I understood his outburst. I just didn’t care.

We played a cute game of him attempting punches and me dodging them. I really wished he would put up a better fight.

“What the fuck is your problem, Brent?”

I caught his hand and twisted, giving him a cruel smile. “The better question,” I shoved him to the ground. “Is what isn’t my problem?”

Practice was over. Coach blew the whistle, and my punishment was being sequestered away from the guys with astop starting fightsspeech. Since The Dictator was richer than God, nothing happened to me.

Or any of the other rich brats here.

“Can we at least keep the fights to somewhere else? I’m trying to run a fucking baseball team, here.” Coach looked like he was at his wits end with us all.

My face said uninterested. “If they can keep their pussies from crying, sure. I’m not the one prone to these emotional outbursts. If you noticed, I didn’t throw the first punch.”

He clearly wasn’t happy today. The stress lines on his face had gotten deeper. I wagered that being an employee here under constant pressure and threats would age a man faster than milk left on the counter. “Brent...” he sighed.

“Yeah, yeah.” I waved him off. “Don’t fret, coach. I’ll leave. I’m sure I’m due for another earful here soon. You can tell everyone I was kicked out of practice again.”

He didn’t argue.

That’s how things always happened for me. Cops tried not to arrest me despite my scenes being public and sometimes caught on tape. The school let me skirt by with less-than-ideal grades. Fear of the Vaughn name was everywhere.

I flipped my phone out of my bag right on cue.

“Yes, sir?”

“Stop fighting at baseball practice where people have cameras.”

“Yes, sir.”

The irritation at me being a disappointment was loud in his silence. “Report to work later. You have things to do. Try not to need me to bail your ass out.”

Click.

My next move was texting Reaper. He never liked working with the other guys we had on the top cleaning crew.

Here we go to work again,I thought.

And, of course, he just responded with a picture of a cat wielding a knife. He was not normal.

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