Chapter 120 CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY
Chapter 120 CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY
AVERY
The chants and shouts from the crowd filled my ears as Blackheight won 3–1.
The match had been genuinely interesting. It was the kind of game that kept dragging people out of their seats even when they pretended they were only there for social reasons.
And through all of it, impossible to ignore no matter how hard I tried, was Asher.
He scored two of the three goals.
As much as I hated admitting it, he was good. Not just popular-boy good. Actually good. The kind of good that made the whole field seem organized around his decisions. I could have watched him play all day if watching him didn’t come with so many complications attached.
But I was not here to play supportive almost-girlfriend in the stands.
I was not here to beam and clap and pretend this was some soft, ordinary crush situation.
Even if he had already caught sight of me.
Even if, both times he scored, his eyes had found mine in the crowd like he’d known exactly where to look and winked.
I would simply not admit that the second wink did anything to my face. At all.
I still wasn’t entirely sure how I had ended up here.
All I really knew was that after what Skyler told me, sitting at home with my thoughts would feel unbearable. So I had convinced her to stay for the match. Leo went home instead, muttering something about an assignment and looking mildly relieved to escape the social battlefield. Skyler had agreed begrudgingly, citing “emotional support” and “not trusting me alone with my own decisions.” Whatever unresolved tension still existed between her and Mason, it had not stopped her gaze from tracking him up and down the sideline all through the game. She could deny it later. I had evidence.
When the final whistle blew, the stands began to empty in messy waves…people climbing over rows, shouting about parties, arguing about fouls that no longer mattered. Blackheight blue scattered through the exits. The team lingered on the field in a loose knot of celebration and exhaustion, jerseys damp, faces flushed, coaches calling things I couldn’t fully hear over the residual noise.
I stood.
My pulse was already too quick.
All day, Skyler’s words had been turning over in my head like something sharp caught in fabric. Jordan expelled. Erica coming forward. Asher involved. Asher fighting for the girl. People saying maybe he had a good side after all.
I could pretend he had done it purely for Erica.
I could almost convince myself of that if I worked hard enough.
But there was no realistic version of events in which Asher Whitlock suddenly developed a passionate interest in last year’s quiet transfer drama unless something had connected it to me. And the only way he could have known enough to make that connection… the only place where Jordan, that night, and all the details I had never spoken out loud existed together was my journal.
He had read it.
Of course he had.
The thought made anger and mortification collide so hard in my chest that for a second I couldn’t breathe properly.
“You good?” Skyler asked beside me, slinging her bag over one shoulder.
“Yeah,” I said. “I just need to talk to someone.”
Her eyes narrowed with immediate interest. “Someone as in—”
“Don’t.”
She followed my gaze toward the field anyway, then let out a low, delighted breath. “Oh, this is about to be messy.”
“Skyler.”
“I’m just saying. If you’re going down there to yell at him, do it where I can still see. For safety. And entertainment.”
I shot her a look and started down the steps before I could lose my nerve.
Asher was near the sideline now, bottle in hand, listening to something Mason was saying without fully looking at him. Sweat darkened the collar of his jersey. His hair was messy from the game, cheeks still faintly flushed from running. He looked infuriatingly alive, like a person who had spent the evening being admired and was now prepared to walk off the field still owning the air around him.
Then he saw me.
Whatever easy expression he’d been wearing shifted into focus.
“We need to talk,” I said the second I reached him, fingers closing around his wrist before he could answer. I didn’t wait for permission. I dragged him off the sideline, past the thinning crowd and the leftover celebration noise, away from Mason’s raised eyebrows and Skyler’s shameless staring, until the field lights no longer sat directly on us and the side of the equipment building put the rest of the world one layer away.
Only then did I let go.
Asher looked down at the place where my hand had been, then back up at me with a slow, infuriating spark of interest.
“Well,” he said. “I didn’t know you had that in you.”
“Don’t.”
His mouth curved. “Dragging me off like that in front of half the team? Very commanding. So what comes next, Avery? Are you going to push me against the wall and punish me for being bad, or do I get a warning first?”
Heat threatened my throat. I crushed it hard.
“I’m not here for your jokes.”
“No?” He tipped his head, still catching his breath a little from the match, jersey damp at the collar, eyes too bright in the dimmer light. “Because that felt a lot like the start of one of my favorite kinds of conversations.”
“Asher.”
“Yes?”
“Why did you do it?”
He blinked once, all false innocence. “What?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“I need you to be specific,” he said smoothly. “I do a lot of things every day. I mean, just last night I had two girls in my—”
“I do not want to hear about your sex life, Asher,” I snapped, cutting him off.
Unfortunately, the image still arrived uninvited. Him being with some other girl doing all sort of things with them. Something ugly and green tightened in my chest before I could stop it. I shoved the feeling down so hard it almost made me dizzy and locked my face into place.
“Why?” I forced out. “What did you do with Jordan?”
“Oh. That asshole.” Asher’s voice cooled, the playfulness thinning without fully disappearing. “I brought him to justice.”
“Why?”
“Because he deserved it.”
I stared at him. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s a true one.”
“It’s a convenient one.” My arms crossed tightly over my chest. “People are saying you helped his ex. That you backed her. That you made sure the school couldn’t bury it this time.”
“People say a lot of things.”
“Are they wrong?”
He didn’t even hesitate. “No.”
The directness of it knocked some of the air from my argument. I had expected denial, or mockery, or one of those slippery answers he used when he wanted me chasing the conversation in circles. Instead he just stood there owning it, like the fallout was already priced in.