The Lasso Effect 𝐉𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐞 𝐓𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐭

11

Alicia poked her head into the coach's office. "Anybody know the Wordle?"

"I know it's not 'ethic'." Ted said saltily towards Beard.

"Heheheheheheh."

"Oh, it's hitch. Kay, never mind."

Jaime came in and you could clearly see both of their faces brightening up at least by 12%.

"Hey."

"Hi. Uh, if you wanna talk to these guys, I can step out."

"Nah, it's cool." Jaime turned to his coaches. "Can I talk to you guys real quick?"

"Talk as long as you want!" Ted said. "Although I do have a tendency to doze off around 1 am. What's up?"

Roy came in. He nodded upwards at Alicia and she did it back. Jaime went on.

"I know we're all excited that Zava's here, I get that, but I know a lot of players like him, and they're all just self-absorbed glory hunters that only care about themselves."

He received strange looks from half the people in the room.

"Jaime," started Beard in a slightly condescending tone. "Don't you think that coming from you, it's a little bit ironic?"

"No." He said simply and continued. "Look, the point is, we don't need this guy! I think we've got a good thing going here, and he's already fucking it all up."

"Hey Jaime, I hear what you're saying. But I think we need to give it a game or two and see what happens."

"Yeah yeah, of course, yeah... well, thanks for hearing me out."

Alicia felt a little bad for him.

"Thank you for speaking your mind, please continue to do so."

"Yeah." Jaime went to leave, but paused at the doorway and turned to Beard. "Oh, and I wasn't being ironic, I was being hypocritical."

And then BAM. Alicia got hit by a big ass truck with the word "feelings" in big, pink, funky lettering on the side. Metaphorically.

"Hey, Leece?"

"Hmm?" A deer in headlights that's also screaming was on the inside, and a mostly normal face was on the outside.

"I'll be in the parking lot when you're ready."

"Coo—" her voice cracked high and she cleared her throat. "Cool. Be there soon."

While he left, she got another eyeful of his unreasonably sized ass that could defy the laws of physics if it wanted to.

When Jaime was gone, she tripped backwards even though she wasn't moving. Roy caught her back before it bended in a way that couldn't be fixed and helped her up.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Something just happens inside of me and I physically cannot compute."