Harper's Rules 1 & 2

Chapter 13: Jake

"Brit left, right?"

My eyes lifted up from my steak, rice, and steamed vegetable dinner plate and met the blue eyes of Evan McGrath, my closest friend on the team, a wide receiver, and the football house's biggest player. Evan put my sexcapades to shame and with one, occasionally two, girls in his bed every night. I wasn't sure how the guy wasn't a walking pile of STDs but, like me, his weekly tests always came up clean.

I comfortably admitted that, with his blonde hair, model-like face, muscular body like most of us, and piercing blue eyes, girls melted into his bullshit charms.

And I'd pay good money to see Harper rip him apart.

The most arrogant guy that I'd come across in college football, which said a lot because I had my own days, was Ethan Burke at UCLA. Ethan was a decent enough quarterback that made our hometown rivalry interesting, but the tool ran his mouth constantly before, during, and after our games to anyone who listened.

I'd thought high school rivalries were bad but college-level were definitely worse and fueled by social media shit-talk. Nationally, Notre Dame was our biggest rival but locally the entire Bruins team and UCLA's student body hated us. Within the ninety-plus number of guys on their team, I found only two of them barely tolerable - Josh Allen, a wide receiver and local guy, and Kieran Meade, tight end - because they avoided the trash-talk between us.

Until now but I deserve every bad word Kieran has to say.

I wasn't stupid, I'd seen pictures of him and Brit splashed all over both their social media pages. Kieran and I texted a lot but because of our busy schedules, we only connected whenever we were back in Santa Cruz. He'd introduced me to Brit when they first started dating and I definitely hadn't pursued her since.

When Brit approached me over the summer, she had assured me, repeatedly, that she and Kieran had broken up. I was on a social media break during camp and she failed to mention that wasn't the case until after we'd slept together.

Red flag number one.

Brit also assured me she'd broken up with Kieran before we became 'official.'

Red flag number two.

I raised one eyebrow at Evan and stated the obvious, "She wasn't here. Why?"

"Murderous blue-balls look in your eyes is gone, bro," Griff, who always butted in with nothing of value to add to a conversation, chirped up from the other end of our dining room table.

"Damn, again?" Zach Campbell, one of my tight ends, grinned and jerked his hand in a motion very similar to what I'd used earlier. "Surprised your left arm isn't bigger than your right at this point."

"Fuck off." I glared at him until his hand stopped.

"Did she leave your ass and go back to Kieran?" Evan shot with a smirk, which only earned him a middle finger. "Dug your own grave there, Jake."

He's not wrong.

After Brit's tear-soaked confession that she hadn't wanted Kieran's feelings hurt, I forced her to call him and she spewed the truth. While internally I hoped she went back to Kieran, without a blink she assured me I was 'her choice.' Kieran had heard enough and blocked my number before I explained the truth.

"Bad move, Harrison," Jackson, our physically smallest player and one of my running backs, chirped up. The biggest mouth on the team flashed a mouth of white teeth at me when he added, "Stick with Brit. One girl drama at a time is best."

"You'd know," I retorted in a sharp tone and narrowed my eyes at Jax.

A senior, Jackson was already engaged to his high school girlfriend Nevaeh, ironically heaven spelled backwards given how much hell that girl gave him. The two had this volatile, argue-first, makeup-second relationship dynamic that exhausted me whenever I witnessed it but they always went back to each other.