Reckless: The Legacy Begins, page 14
“Make me,” she ordered.
Growling, CJ lifted his cousin off her feet, threw her over his shoulder, and ran to Wallace Byrd.
She pounded on CJ’s back. “Put me down, asshole.”
“Gladly,” CJ said, bending so she wouldn’t drop too far then letting her go. His unexpected release caught her off-guard and she teetered. Unable to gain her footing, she plopped on her ass.
Immediately recovering, she got to her feet and balled her fist. The first punch grazed his chin. Before she landed the second one, he caught her wrist.
“Don’t fucking hit me again, Matilda,” he ordered as if she’d listen. She was as hardheaded as his little sister.
“Fuck you,” she retorted, struggling to free herself. “You had no business dropping me. I could’ve hurt myself really bad.” She stomped his foot.
Yelping in pain and releasing his cousin, he gritted his teeth, refusing to hop around like a jackass.
Hands on hips, Mattie rocked on her heels and smiled. “You can’t hit me, so what will you do now?”
“He can’t, Mattie,” Rebel said before CJ answered. “But I can.” She punched Mattie’s jaw and sent her reeling back.
Recovering quickly, she lunged for Rebel.
Fuck these two. They couldn’t scratch and kick and ‘if’ at each other. No, they threw fucking punches like pro boxers. Coach Yancy would hold him responsible for this lack of control.
“Enough!” Harley almost snarled, coming up on them.
Rebel and Mattie broke apart and stared at each other. His sister’s eyes gleamed, though. Before they threw hands again, he stepped forward and grabbed a handful of Rebel’s T-shirt, dragging her back and ignoring her struggles.
Harley hurried to Mattie, crouched next to her, and whispered in her ear before helping her to her feet.
“I resent you asking me to apologize, Harley,” Mattie spat, the moment Harley guided her over.
“I didn’t ask you to do anything,” Harley retorted. “I told you.”
“Oh, shut up,” Mattie said, “whining like a fucking baby because Molly paired with CJ. You should do us all a favor and fuck him already.”
CJ had only a moment to register those words and his body’s response before Harley bristled.
“You’re wrong, Mattie. I want to screw you. UP,” she added viciously. “Don’t make me lose my temper.”
“Miss Banks, Miss Caldwell, and Miss Donovan, leave the field.” Coach Yancy’s voice rose into the silence.
The motherfucker would reappear before the bullshit ended.
“Young ladies, report to the principal’s office first thing in the morning,” Marksum added.
Mattie glared between the two men. “Harley didn’t do anything.”
“Yeah, she broke us up,” Rebel added. “Leave her out of our battles.”
Harley folded her arms and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “We’re in this together. If you two go to the principal’s office, then so do I. We all disrupted practice.”
“Harls, no!” Rebel said. “Uncle Mort and Aunt Bailey would be so upset. You’ve never gotten a disciplinary action.”
Neither had Mattie. She took care with her behavior. While Uncle Mort and Aunt Bailey would be upset over Harley, Uncle Johnnie and Aunt Kendall would be livid.
“Coach, the argument between my sister and our cousins started at home,” CJ said. “Can you give them a little slack and—”
“Enough!” Coach Yancy boomed. “Escort these two away,” he said, pointing to Rebel and Mattie.
Marksum nodded toward the athletic center.
Not backing down, Harley walked away with them, pissing the coach off by leaving after he’d given her a reprieve.
CJ started to protest Rebel and Matilda being marched away like criminals.
“I wouldn’t if I were you, Caldwell,” Coach Yancy warned, then blew his whistle. “Practice is over. Exit the field. Except you and you.” He pointed to Molly and CJ.
Molly sidled closer, pressing her body against his. “What will he do to us?”
“Drop down and give me one hundred pushups and one hundred sit-ups. It was the two of you who created the chaos.”
The tail-end of practice left CJ grimy and sweaty. He’d been wrong to interrupt and adjust his warmups for Molly, but he thought the cheer squad practiced conditioning and strength-training with the football team for guidance. This was the first time, and hopefully the last, he’d ever been paired with Molly, who, unlike Harley, couldn’t keep up.
Not being with Harley annoyed him. Worse, she’d teamed with Willard. Coach Yancy made sure she practiced with CJ as often as possible. When she didn’t, she sure as fuck wasn’t with Willard.
Besides, the thought of her being upset…and the reason for it. She hadn’t been upset she wasn’t with him. It was because Molly was.
He tried not to think about the meaning. His feelings for Harley flipflopped between seeing her as his best bro to noticing her every move.
She didn’t have tits and ass yet, or any curves like Rebel, Matilda, Molly, and many of the other girls he knew. Yet, her boyish body didn’t matter. CJ still thought about her almost every waking moment. He—
“CJ!” Molly whispered. “You really should wear your hearing device. Coach has been talking to you and you haven’t heard anything. You don’t have to be embarrassed you’re audibly challenged.”
Drawing in a breath, CJ scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m not,” he said, still distracted. “I’m just thinking.”
“I do that a lot, too. Normally, not when I’m talking, though. Is it only me or does your brain shut off when you’re in a conversation?”
“What the fuck do you mean? How the hell can you have a conversation if you’re not thinking?”
“Coach Yancy, when you’re talking don’t you stop thinking, too, to focus on the conversation?”
Lifting his thick brows, the coach opened his mouth, then closed it again and squinted. He put a little distance between them and looked at CJ. “Why did you amend my warmup instructions without my permission?”
“I was tired—” he started.
“No, silly, you did it because I said your legs were too long.” Molly rolled her eyes. “Remember? You shouldn’t ever try to talk and think. It messes up your memory.”
CJ sidled a glare at Molly. “Shut up,” he warned, low. “Or Coach’ll make you do the same fucking pushups and sit-ups I’m in for.”
“But—”
“Fuck, Molly,” he whispered. “Don’t say another fucking word. I’m trying to protect you.”
Eyes rounding, she nodded. “How?”
“Are you sure you want to take the fall for her, CJ?” Coach Yancy said with amusement. He’d heard every word of the conversation.
“Yes, sir. It wasn’t Molly’s fault.”
“If she hadn’t complained about your height, you would’ve minced around like you were part of the Nutcracker performance on your own?”
Molly giggled.
“I didn’t shorten my lunges that much, Coach. C’mon,” CJ protested.
“You have a bright future ahead of you,” Coach told him sternly. “If not at the pro level, then in collegiate football. You must stay focused. The girls weren’t due to practice with us for another week. But their substitute coach couldn’t stay after school.”
“Harley keeps up with me.”
Coach sighed. “Miss Banks can do no wrong in your estimation. When you graduate, what will she do then? She will still have two years left. Stop depending on each other! Your lives will go in different directions. By the way, she was the one who asked to be paired with Byrd.”
“The fuck you say!” CJ blurted, so surprised a fucking pin could’ve knocked him over. “She can’t stand that motherfucker.”
“Not from what I saw,” Coach Yancy said kindly.
Impossible. Harley hated Willard.
“Coach, can I stay while CJ exercises?” Molly sounded so sweet, not like a fucking super dummy. “He looks really sad now.”
Coach Yancy grinned at her. “You can do the countdown.” Folding his arms, he studied CJ. “Stay focused, son. You’re failing Language Arts. If that happens, you’re off the team. You don’t want that.”
He didn’t. If he had to attend college to patch into the Death Dwellers, he’d need to involve himself in what he enjoyed. He loved football and was determined to play at the collegiate level while he bided his time. And, yet, he’d walk away in a minute, if his father told him his probationary period in the club would begin.
Lumbly’s…whatever…toward him threatened to derail the plans he’d made for himself to satisfy his parents’ requirement over CJ’s four fucking years in college.
CJ heaved in a breath. “Coach, I don’t know why that little asshole has it in for me so much, but—”
“Three days ago,” Molly interrupted, “I went to the office to talk to the principal about the inaccurate information in our health textbook. It says girls have eggs and I have never hatched an egg in my life. Neither has Momma. Anyway, Lumbly was in there and he’s totally doing the receptionist. Like…yuck. He was telling her how Mr. Caldwell had his cousin Pete Hart fired from a daycare CJ once attended. Lumbly said his cousin was a doctor, so I don’t even know how he could teach at a school. Duh…even I know that. Dr. Teacher Pete Hart disappeared. Lumbly, the dumb ass, believes Mr. Caldwell did it. I think he ran away to be a doctor again.”
Fuuuucccccckkkkkkk.
He wasn’t sure what was worse—the information Molly provided or the fact he understood everything she said. And, fuck, if she’d had a brain in her head, she would’ve understood herself, too.
Pressing his lips together, CJ scrubbed his fingers through his sweaty hair. “Dr. Hart had a Ph.D., Molly,” he snapped, although he hadn’t known it when that asshole was terrorizing him. “And he wasn’t a teacher, he was the principal. It wasn’t a daycare; it was a fucking school.”
“Daycares are schools for babies.” Her eyes widened. “Wait! Are you saying Mr. Caldwell really made him disappear?”
“No!” Fuck. Maybe, she understood more than she let on. Who the fuck was he kidding? Nobody was as fucking stupid as Molly made herself out to be. Her ignorance was a prank, a foil, a fucking show. But why? Exactly what the fuck was her end goal to portray herself as a dumb bitch. Wary, CJ gave her a sharp look. “My father isn’t a killer. What’s wrong with you?”
He knew his dad had Hart removed from the school, but he hadn’t known Hart had been separated from life.
MC life had made his father the man he was today—made his mother the woman she was—and he couldn’t think of better role models. If stupid motherfuckers existed in the world, then oh-fucking-well, they precipitated Dad divorcing them from the land of the living.
“Does Lumbly really have a cousin who’s a teacher but should be a doctor?”
“I don’t know who Lumbly is related to, Molly,” CJ barked.
Lumbly’s attitude finally made sense. The motherfucker did have it in for CJ. Perhaps, justifiably so. Except he hadn’t done a fucking thing and ‘Law only protected him from a mean fuckhead.
Goddamn. CJ was in over his head on this one. He should tell his father. If he did, and stupid assfuck Lumbly disappeared, it might raise suspicions, especially with Molly and her fucking games.
CJ had no choice but to manage the teacher on his own.
Chapter Twelve
Despite Harley’s protests, Mr. Marksum insisted she go to the locker room, while instructing her friends to follow him. She waited a bit, hoping they wouldn’t be far behind. After ten minutes, she gave up because outside practice left Harley sweaty and gross. She took a quick shower, wrapped a towel around herself and her hair, then headed to her locker, where she’d stashed her bookbag and clothes. Summer break was days away, so she’d already cleared her locker. The emptiness allowed her to haphazardly throw her school uniform in earlier. Now, she grabbed the shirt, skirt, and blazer, folding each piece neatly and stuffing the items into her bookbag. Underneath the uniform lay the outfit she intended to wear home. Once she dried herself and applied deodorant, she put on her jeans and crop top before grabbing her sneakers.
Mattie and Reb stomped in, both bruised with various little wounds and dried blood.
Harley glared at them and finished dressing. Once she detangled her hair and fashioned it into one, long braid, she put her earrings and watch on, then applied lip gloss and mascara.
“She started it,” Mattie finally said, pointing at Rebel.
“Did I?” Rebel asked coldly. Like father, like daughter. “How about I finish it?”
Before Rebel moved, Harley inserted herself in her pathway. “What’s up with you two? Don’t let her push your buttons.” She glanced over her shoulder, annoyed at Mattie’s smirk. “And stop being so confrontational with CJ. You know Rebel would beat Jesus down to the ground for him.”
“He can take care of himself, Harley. Rebel doesn’t always have to jump in.”
“You don’t always have to screw with him,” Harley countered.
“To be fair, I haven’t fought Reb in days. And if it was anyone else, she would’ve been on my side. You both know I was right. What stupid asshole tells a stupider asshole there’s thirty-two fucking days in February? The only reason CJ spoke on Molly’s behalf is because he gets a hard cock around her.”
Harley scowled.
“It’s true,” Mattie insisted. “You’re not putting out, so he has to get off somewhere.”
“And all you do is put out,” Rebel retorted.
Once more Lolly’s warning beat in Harley’s head. Not listening meant she could legitimately claim she knew nothing of Mattie’s activities. The burden of confessing to her parents wasn’t hers to bear. Besides, she really didn’t want to think about Mattie having sex. And, yet, if she didn’t tell, she had to make sure Mattie used protection.
Harley sighed. “I hope you’re at least using condoms.”
“I’m not a fucking dummy!” Mattie snapped. “I only started doing it three months ago.” She lowered her lashes, high color rising in her cheeks. “Mostly when I don’t have money for my bud.”
“Mattie…” Harley started.
“Shut up!” she ordered. “If we don’t talk about it, you bare no responsibility.”
“What if you turn up pregnant?” Rebel asked, her annoyance gone. “What then?”
“Don’t tell on me,” Mattie pleaded, ignoring the question. “Maman and Daddy would be so disappointed.”
Rebel’s blue eyes widened in confusion. “Who the fuck is Maman?”
“My mother.”
Sniffing, Rebel folded her arms. “You’re stupid.”
“Because I know French? Fuck off. Maman likes it, so shut up.” Mattie ran her fingers through her red hair. “If she doesn’t have anything to say about it, neither do you.”
“Yep,” Rebel drawled, raising her hands in surrender.
“Anyway, they couldn’t handle my behavior.”
“Uncle Johnnie could, Mattie,” Rebel said with reassurance. “He’d help Aunt Kendall to accept it.”
“They need to know,” Harley insisted. “Especially if you’re paying for marijuana with sex. Your dealer is, uh…” A grown ass man. The knowledge left a sinking feeling in her belly. “Yeah, so, this isn’t—”
“If I promise not to do it again,” Mattie wheedled, “will you agree not to say anything?”
“I didn’t tell about the meeting between Rebel and Diesel but this is different.”
“It isn’t.” Mattie looked at Rebel. “Make her understand what sex is like.”
Rebel narrowed her eyes. “I’m a virgin, dickhead. I’m saving myself for Diesel. Besides, you’re having sex with a pedo—”
“Oh my god!” Mattie and Rebel’s delusions placed Harley in the middle of their stupidity. She was out of patience. Mattie was headed for disaster and an authority figure needed to know. Mattie was twice as reckless as Rebel since Diesel was a good, honorable man. “Enough, both of you. We’re too young to have sex. We’re too young to save ourselves for anyone. Mattie, tell your parents and leave that creep alone. You’re a child. You’re smart, so you know messing with a grown man is dangerous and illegal. Rebel, girl, Diesel won’t ever get with you. He’s your adopted brother. He’s known you since you were in diapers. What kind of snake would he be if he ended up as your lover?”
“My husband,” Rebel corrected.
Harley growled. “He could be your garden gnome. The history you two have is of brother and sister.”
“Not if I can help it,” Rebel declared, then hugged Harley. “Diesel said something similar. Our entire family sees us as siblings. I aim to change that perception.”
Harley gripped Rebel’s shoulders. “Uncle Chris will castrate Diesel if he touches you.”
“Well, yeah, if he did it now. And if he did, frankly, I would be disappointed in him, too. He’s not a pedo.” Rebel frowned. “I thought you had a higher opinion of Diesel.”
“Of course, she does,” Mattie said with certainty, wiggling herself underneath Harley’s arms.
They repositioned themselves to make a real circle.
“Mattie’s right, Rebel,” Harley said. “I love Diesel. He’s so kind and sweet, but he’s a grown ass man.”
“I know,” Rebel said, her easy acceptance of Harley’s words surprising and suspicious.
They leaned in for a group hug, before straightening, although their arms remained linked.
“Can I ask you something, Harley?” Mattie said.
“Sure, girl, what’s up?”
“There were a lot of things you said we were too young for. What about you and CJ? It’s almost like Aunt Meggie and Aunt Bailey birthed you two just so you’d be together.”
“I know, right?” Rebel said with a happy giggle. “You and my brother were made for each other.”
As the months progressed and CJ grew taller and more muscular, Harley awaited her own changes. Except they were happening at a snail’s pace, while CJ was turning into a man before her very eyes.
