Harper's Rules 1 & 2

Chapter 15: Jake

The morning of the UCLA game, I woke up alone, cold, and frustrated. My dick was rock-hard as normal, my brain scattered, and my mood shot to shit.

Irritable was an understatement of how rotten my mood had gotten. I stuffed my food down with tightly clenched silverware, most of my conversation skills involved grunts and swear words. I pushed my muscles past heated fatigue in the weights room, pounded my legs and feet on the turf in practice, and had every defensive play UCLA had used all season memorized

Lack of patience challenged me every day that I only sent Harper one to two text messages, but I held back sending each one. They piled up in my drafts into a string of desperation as almost two weeks had now passed, with zero contact from her.

I called Ellie again, fuck I even called my mom. Both were still beyond livid towards Harper's mom on Harper's behalf and I turned my ears off whenever their Italian tempers flared up.

The worst decision I'd made was when I visited her dorm room at four pm yesterday afternoon. Li met me at the door, her eyes tired and strained full of sympathy. "She's sleeping," she whispered in an apologetic voice that suggested the lump in Harper's bed really wasn't asleep.

Football-wise, I was more than prepared for today's game. Academic-wise, I'd set myself up so that I coasted into my finals. Fuck, two of my professors had let me already take their final exam earlier.

Selfish, but I was also backed up worse than a plumber's nightmare. Sure, I'd tugged myself some shower relief that dulled the edge of my anger but... I was worried.

Fuck, I even miss her insults.

"Jake..." a familiar voice grunted quietly at me.

"What," I mumbled and scrolled through my text messages.

Not a single fucking one from her.

"Jake," another guy called to me as I shot off a quick message to Mom.

me: Do you need to be picked up at LAX?

Mom: I'm good. See you tonight, good luck! ❤️

I pinched the bridge of my nose between my finger and tip of my thumb.

That's... ambiguous.

My thumbs paused over my phone as I internally debated whether I asked my Mom again for an update on a girl who was twenty minutes away who wanted nothing to do with me.

"Jake?" A throat cleared next to me and a hand might have slapped on my shoulder but I ignored both.

Fuck it.

A slight stretch sensation pulled in my upper back as I rounded it and hunched over my screen.

me: U hear from Harper?

Mom: No, sorry. Hang in there.

Before I responded, not that I had a response, a hand clamped over my phone and snatched it out of my grasp. "Jake!"

My eyes lifted and traveled up the hand's tensed wrist, forearm, and bicep until Evan's face came into view. His blue-gray eyes glared at me, with a backdrop of concern, but he still looked completely pissed off.

"Bro," he half-stated, half-grunted out. "Snap out of it."

"Huh?" I blinked at him a few times.

He cleared his throat again, then shifted his eyes around the breakfast table. Ten pairs of eyes stared back at me, each with varying levels on the spectrum between concern and irritation. Griff had even stopped eating for once, although he still held a fork in one hand and spoon in the other.