Page 36 of Make Me Pretty
“Yo, Baxter, where the fuck’s your head?” Gabe yells as he launches the ball at my chest. I catch it on reflex, my fingers splayed wide over the leather.
“Watch your mouth, Avalos!” Coach Johnson yells from the sidelines. I scoff and roll my eyes as I brush sweat from my brow.
“Sorry, Coach!” Gabe snickers as he moves closer to me. He slams his head against mine, and it rattles my brain around, giving me the pain I need to anchor myself to the here and now—and not to the fucking runt sitting thirty feet away.Ignoring me while still invading my every waking thought.
“Jesus, dude. What the hell is with you?” Gabe asks, dribbling the ball between his legs, his dark, curly hair bouncing from the momentum. I look down at my empty hands and blink. I wish my dick was as empty as them, but no. It’s wedged tight and uncomfortable in my waistband so I don’t sport a fucking boner in front of my entire team.
Damn, I’m off my game.
Literally. Figuratively. In all the ways.
I yank on my hair, frustrated and just pissed the hell off. “I don’t know,” I grumble because, really, I don’t.
My eyes find Abel.Again. His black hood is pulled over his white-blonde hair, blocking most of his face, but even from all the way down here, I swear I can see the silver piercing at the bridge of his nose glinting. Taunting.
I hate it.
“Is it him?” Gabe asks. I don’t have to look to know who he means. I’m still staring at him, for fuck’s sake. I nod once.
“Something’s happened, I take it. Because, dude, the way you’re looking at him…” My eyes dart to his. “Did you fuck him?” Gabe asks bluntly.
I rear back at the insinuation and how deeply—howsickly—I wish it were true. And as if Abel senses we’re talking about him, he looks away from his screen. His eyes latch onto mine like he knew exactly where I was the entire time.
The connection doesn’t last for more than a few seconds before he shatters our metaphysical link to look back down at his laptop, completely and utterly indifferent—like he was only staring at a wall.
I want him to fuckinglook at me,to feel the overwhelming frustration that consumes me. The scream is building inside me. To burn alive with it.
“He exists just to piss me off,” I mutter, hands tightening into fists at my sides, anger rolling off me in gaseous waves. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction, but I can’t deny the appeal of sinking. The carelessness teetering. And he knows it.
So, of course, he’s mocking me. Taking away the one thing that’s always been up for grabs. No longer letting me have it now that I’ve had a taste.
“Peris, did you?—”
“All right! Let’s get back at it!” Coach bellows, pulling all of us back into the game. I growl and grit my teeth, mentally beating my hands against my skull as I shove Gabe’s insinuation down to focus on the ball in my hands, the squeak of shoes against the glossy floors, sweat burning and trickling, throat dry from dehydration.
By the time practice is over, I’m dripping with perspiration, panting from exertion, and fortunately, no longer hard. I glance up on instinct, finding the bleachers empty with Abel nowhere to be seen. My eyes narrow as I scour the gym, expecting to findthe runt humping another dude against the white walls while my teammates file out through the double doors in my peripheral.
With a huff of annoyance, I pull in a deep breath, relishing in the ache in my lungs. That’s when I finally spot him—leaning against the side rails on the far side of the extended bleachers. His tattered bag is slung over his shoulder with his hood halfway on his head, giving me a peek at his overgrown, choppy hair.
He’s probably only twenty feet away now, close enough I can track the vast array of metal in his ears. I mean, seriously, how many fucking ear piercings does one dude need? And that’s not even mentioning the large, stretched holes in his lobes, filled with some big, emerald-green stone or something.
Gabe comes up behind me to say, “He’s just staring at you?” though it’s stated like a question. I tense, shoulders drawing tight, toes curling into my soles.
Because I’m pretty sure the little freak can read minds like some supernatural being.
“Fuck, he’s irritating,” I mumble more for myself before answering Gabe. “Because he’s—Abel,” I answer lamely. Honestly, that explains him perfectly but makes me sound like a jackass.
He’s everything I hate to want—and he fucking knows it.
He still won’t look at me.
“Y’all know the shit he’s willing to do for a few bucks. Fuckin’ nasty. And those fucking shoes,” Corbin snarks as an afterthought. I look down at Abel’s pink Converse. Shoes that were once a brighter pink but have faded from use and sun exposure, stained and ripped, bordering the edge of developing holes.
The same pink sneakers that have flashed through my mind so many times, I can’t even keep track anymore.
Not that I ever was.
My jaw tightens as I glance over my shoulder, finding my closest friends around me while everyone else has left. Thomas and Grady hang back a bit, still bouncing a ball between them.
