Thirteen
Connor
Practice is gruesome. Two guys have knelt in the grass at the sidelines to puke. A few more are sprawled and groaning across the field. Devlin’s got a wicked gleam in his eye from the torture I’m taking out on the guys.
I stand on the center line with my hands on my hips, spitting on the ground. My throat is raw from shouting directions at them for the last forty-five minutes. “Shape the fuck up. This is not the team I know we are.”
Which is true, because I’m taking all my annoyance out on them. For once, I don’t want to be here, but I can’t skip soccer.
All I want to do is get out of here so I can do more digging on Thea. I might be blackmailing her, but I still want to claim those pink lips. We were about to kiss, having a real taste of her was in my grasp. Then Coleman showed the fuck up and ruined it. She flipped a switch so fast, it’s got alarm bells going off in my head.
I’ll hunt down every secret she’s ever hidden so I don’t have any more surprises with her. Then I’ll fucking devour her.
Devlin is in full Devil Boy mode with his own demons, enjoying the show. Damn sadist. He dribbles a soccer ball, flicking it from his toe to bounce off his knees.
“The hell did we even do?” Sean mutters to Trent as he helps him to the bench for their water bottles.
“Beats me,” Trent answers, glaring at me as they pass.
I shake my head, not in the mood for my favorite pastime or my so-called friends. “Can’t keep up? Quit popping your dad’s oxy pills, then maybe you’ll have some stamina. The pros go harder than this.”
Trent lunges at me with a growl. Sean holds him back with a worried look, like he’s afraid of what I’ll spill about him. I grant them both a vicious grin. They back off, exchanging wary glances.
“Fucking psycho,” Sean says in an undertone.
He better watch it, or I will spill his dirty deeds. Porn addiction, that one. Nasty shit, too.
“Another lap, captain?” Devlin asks as he cycles the ball from his toe, to knee, to chest, and over again with perfect control. Showoff. “If these guys can gossip on the field, they haven’t had enough.”
“Nah. Get the fuck out of my face, all of you.” Flapping my hand in dismissal, I head for the showers. I don’t care. “Game against Ridgeview East Valley coming up. Coach can deal with you.”
Devlin follows, lacing his fingers and putting his hands behind his head. “You good?”
“Yeah. Just an intense day.”
He pops my shoulder with the back of his hand. “You need anything?”
“I’m good. I just need to cool off. Unwind.” I’m going to shower, go home, and pack a bowl. That’ll do the trick to kill the edge close to choking me. “It’s chill, bro.”
“All right, cool. I’ll catch you later.” Peeling off from the path to the locker room, Devlin heads for the parking lot without showering.
I head into the locker room and rush through a shower. There’s something else on my agenda when I get home.
Thea is what she seems at first glance. Sweet, kind, and all about a positive outlook. But that’s bullshit.
Only forest creatures in cartoon movies are that pure-hearted.
She’s a liar like everyone else, but despite the lies she gets my dick hard. I want her.
“I’ll find you,” I murmur as I poke through her search history thanks to the backdoor I left on her WiFi network. “Every secret. It’s all mine, little mouse.”
The clack of the keys are as soothing and relaxing as the bowl I smoked when I got home. I tore through two bags of Doritos and rode the high until the buzz wore off. Now I’m hunting for anything that will give me more insight into who I’m dealing with.
As I dig through her social media accounts, I find something new. One that wasn’t in the recent browser history when I looked before. It’s a blog site.
Once it loads, my stomach tightens.
“The fuck?” I mutter, bombarded by post after post of pictures.
She’s younger, her face a little rounder. The newest post has a date stamp of almost two years ago. I’m guessing she’s around fifteen or sixteen in these, but the blog archive goes back three years before that.
“For a girl who goes unnoticed, you sure did want to be seen.”
By a rough count, there are hundreds of posts. Maybe thousands. When it was active, it looks like she was posting at least three times a week.
There’s nothing too wild, but my brows jump up when I see a few that are questionable. Even though we’re the same age, I feel skeevy looking at these. Sickos on the internet would have a field day with the gold mine she’s offering up. It’s not even password protected and private. Public fucking everything for all of her accounts.
My first thought is to lock this, but she could notice if she still accesses the site. It was in her search history, so she looked at it recently.
I was right. She was hiding more secrets. Everyone lies; haven’t I learned that lesson enough times by now?
Somehow, victory doesn’t taste great. A bitter tang fills my mouth as I click on a few of the posts, skimming the comments. It’s a small relief that the blog seems inactive, but if she pulled it up recently, she might be thinking about using it again.
So help me, if she posts any of her pictures to this shit now, I will put her on lockdown and fry her devices so fast.
Ironic, since I’m using her nudes to blackmail her. A snort shakes my shoulders. Whatever, semantics.
My eyes narrow as I scroll through. Most of the comments make me scoff, but some of the creepier ones have my skin crawling. One username catches my eye.
Henry_Your_GoodKnight: Beauty beyond measure princess, but what really gets me is the way you smile. Your intelligent eyes say it all, love. You’re longing for the world to show you all it has to offer.
“Yikes.”
That one has internet predator written on it in neon blinking lights. I’m about to doxx this fucker for being all over her blog, on every post with multiple comments. The law can suck it. I’d be doing them a favor. Thea better not have given this guy the time of day.
Why the fuck would she subject herself to this for so long without blocking these basement-dwelling neckbeards?
I knew her security was lax as hell when I first hacked her computer, but doesn’t she understand how easily this creep or any other on the internet could find her? She didn’t even block her photos from download permissions or hide the metadata, putting her location on blast to any dickhead with half a brain.
Shaking my head, I close out of the window.
This girl is going to get me in a mess of trouble, throwing wrenches into my carefully laid plans. I’m supposed to be biding my time until I can break away from this place. All I needed was a fake girlfriend—one of my choosing—to show up when I needed her.
The plan was never someone seducing me with her curvy body, her addictive scent of fresh baked cookies that clings to her skin and hair, and that bright smile. How has a girl that exudes so much sunshine gone under my radar from so long?
Because it’s all a lie. A girl like Thea is too good to be true.
I set an alert to notify me when she pulls this site up so I can keep an eye on her like a corrupt guardian angel.