“Hot mess express is home,” he says, his bet brimming in the forefront of my mind. “I wonder if she’s down to chill. You know, a good girl like her is probably untouched territory. I could break her in for you.”
Anger bubbles in my chest. It was a shitty practice and I’m fucking exhausted, so I don’t trust myself not to clip my fist across his fucking jaw. He knows this chick is in my head, which was clear enough during practice, and damn it, it pissed me off. She’s no one to me, just some random chick living next door, but watching her eyes widen when she’s near me, watching her cheeks redden when she saw me through my window, and watching the way she gets all worked up makes something stir deep in my gut, and I fucking hate it.
The only thing stopping me from flying across my driveway and beating Riley’s confidence out of him is the fact that he’s dead wrong. Brielle Ashford is not a good girl, despite how she presents herself to the world. Just one look into her eyes and it was clear to me. She thrives on the adrenaline, the thrill of getting caught makes her heart race, makes excitement pulse through her veins. It’s only been one day at Bradford, one night as my new neighbor, and she’s already addicted.
Riley can read me like a fucking book, always has, but that’s a two-way street. I know him just as well as he knows me, which is usually a good thing, except for right fucking now. He sees what I’m refusing to admit out loud, and the fucker will do whatever it takes to force it out of me.
“Lay off it,” I tell him, turning my back so that he can’t see the fire burning through my eyes. Heading for the front door, I glance back over my shoulder. “Get some drinks and I’ll meet ya out back.”
Just as I slip in through the front door, Hudson and the twins show up, more than ready to waste away the rest of the afternoon. We’re all fucking wrecked after that training session. Coach Wyld went hard. He wants the championship again this year, and we’re going to give it to him, which means endless training sessions and nights pushing ourselves at the gym.
No one will come close to us this season. No one will beat us.
Knowing Mom would flip her shit if I were to dump my bag at the door, I race up the stairs two at a time, my muscles burning from practice, before I push through my bedroom door and dump my bag and helmet just inside.
Pulling the door closed, I go to turn back down the hallway when a flash of red pulls me up short and I do a double take toward the back wall of my bedroom.
“What in the ever-loving fuck?”
Pushing the door wide open again, I step through to my bedroom and stare at the wall above my bed, a shit-eating grin stretching across my face.
I knew Killjoy had balls; I just didn’t realize they were this big. She’s a little spitfire and I fucking love it. Fucking with her is going to be better than I imagined. She just made this the most intriguing game I’ve ever played, and she has no fucking idea.
My gaze scans over the bold capital letters on my wall, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say that it almost looks like it was written in blood. Though, the small tube of lip shit on my headboard suggests otherwise.
KEEP IT. IT’LL LOOK BETTER ON A BITCH LIKE YOU.
Only one person has ever gotten away with calling me a bitch, and that was my younger sister. She was wasted and didn’t like that I was dragging her home, but it’s not like I was about to leave her stupid ass at that rager. Who knows what could have happened to her. All I know is Brielle Ashford is going to regret breaking into my room, but she’ll regret her choice of words more.
A feminine laugh cuts through the silence of my room and my brows furrow. Who the fuck was that?
Trudging through my home, I walk to the back of the house and through my sister’s bedroom to the closest window which overlooks the yard and my jaw snaps together finding Riley and my boys over in Channing’s yard chilling with Killjoy, Arizona, and some other chick I don’t know.
Jax is getting handsy with her and I shake my head, watching as this new chick eats up his attention, just as every girl does, but it’s Riley’s lingering stare on Killjoy that grinds on my nerves. The asshole works fast. He saw his opportunity and he took it, didn’t even wait two minutes before jumping the fence and intruding on the girls’ afternoon. I just wish I could understand why it makes me so damn cocky to see that she doesn’t seem to give two shits about Riley’s attention.
Letting out a sigh, I filter through my options. Stay locked up in my room like a fucking loser or go over there and end up looking like a jealous asshole who can’t handle one little fucking bet.
Shit.
On the other hand, if I don’t go over there, I don’t get the rush from watching the fear flash in her eyes or the hunger from when she watches my every move, remembering what she saw through my bedroom window yesterday.
Fuck it. Call me a sucker for punishment. I want to be over there, and I want to see the fear in her eyes. Screw the boys and their opinions. If they want to give me a hard time about it, then so be it. I’ll just have to kick their asses harder on the field. A few stray tackles won’t hurt.
Taking off down the stairs, I all but blast my way through the front door, the anticipation of fucking with her afternoon too good to pass up. The boys would have slipped through the side gate of Channing’s property, but if I’m doing this, I’m making it count.
Striding over the boundary line, I make my way right to the front door and grip the handle before welcoming myself in. I strut through the house I know all too well and a rush of memories of growing up alongside Jensen Channing assault me. Rumor has it that he assaulted some chick at school last year. I never got that vibe from him, and while he never got arrested or charged, there’s no way of knowing if he actually did it. It was her word against his. All I know is that the guy is a fucking loser. Killjoy really hit the jackpot by becoming his new roomie. She’s going to have to watch her back.
Making my way through the kitchen, I scrunch my face at the chick drinks covering the counter. Jax and Riley would be all over that fruity shit, but the rest of us have respect for ourselves. Logan and I prefer bourbon, whereas Hudson gets hard for whiskey.
The bifold doors are wide open and their mindless conversation flows into the house, slowly killing my brain cells one by one. Jax is shamelessly flirting with the chick I don’t know, leaning into her and whispering in her ear while she goes all doe eyed. Logan and Hudson have made themselves comfortable on the end of Arizona’s sun lounger, to her dismay, of course, while Riley sits on the edge of Brielle’s lounger. His positioning forces her to cross her legs to leave enough space for him, but he still takes up all the space he can, making sure that her skin is pressing against his thigh.
I try to ignore it as I reach up and grip the frame around the bifold doors and watch the performance before me. “The fuck are you assholes doing here?”
The boys all look my way, but I keep my eyes on Brielle, watching as her back stiffens and her head whips around, her hair flowing over her shoulder in the process. Her eyes widen just a fraction, and she pauses a moment, almost as if trying to decide how she is going to handle this. Not going to lie, my heart is beating just that little bit faster. Getting this reaction from her is like a drug I’m already becoming addicted to. She fucking hates me and I love it.