Submitting To My Stepbrothers novel Chapter 92

OBSESSED.

Gage Weston has a stellar reputation that extends from the

classroom to the football pitch. West Dale High’s football god, a

knight–in–shining armour to the girls, and everyone’s personal

favourite. But this all fades away in senior year. Family issues

and scrapes with the law waters down everything he’s built and

now he has no option but to be tutored or he’ll get kicked out of the championship game.

One look at Stella McCartney, and his world comes tumbling

down.

She’s beautiful. She’s kind. She’s the quiet, campus genius, and she sets his adrenaline racing. His methods of keeping her to himself are nothing short of extreme. Will he ruin this one last good thing too?

1: Gage.

On the way to my new tutor’s dorm room, I want to punch a hole. in the hallway wall.

It’s like this all the time now. The relentless anger slithers inside of me like oily snakes. I’ve worked myself to the bone on the

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football field in an attempt to exhaust the roiling emotions inside of me, but nothing ever gives. There’s a bowling ball sitting on my chest, pressing down, down, so hard that I can’t breathe sometimes and the only thing that relieves it for even a moment is destruction. Breaking shit. Acting out as my college

counselor calls it.

She can call it whatever she wants–it feels good.

Rebelling is the only thing that helps melt the resentment lately.

On my way past a room of students, they look up from their

phones and gasp.

“Is that Gage

ston?”

Yeah, it’s me, assholes. Take a good look.

During my first three years of school, I would have waved and flashed them a smile that’s going to earn me millions of dollars in endorsement deals one day, when I’ve been drafted to the NFL. But now? I give them the finger and keep walking, the constant roaring in my ears growing louder. I already hate this fucking tutor. Stella McCartney. She’s going to be smug as hell, I bet. She’s the only thing standing between me and the championship game next week. If I don’t pass my Western Civilization test, I don’t play. I’m already skating on thin ice after getting picked up by the cops for being drunk and disorderly in

OBSESSED.

public. Breaking into a few cars, just because I could. Because I needed to distract myself from the pain.

So I’m sure Stella McCartney–what a stupid name–is getting off on a major power trip right now, telling all of her friends that she has Gage Weston by the short and curlies. As long as she helps me pass the history course, she can brag all she wants–l just need to be on the field.

Lately, being on the gridiron has been less about football and

more about the temporary relief I get from the constant anger

when I’m tackled hard. But that’s another story.

I stop in front of her closed dorm room door and wrap my hands. around the jamb. She’s in there, chattering away on the phone, and I have to resist the urge to kick in the door, splinter it right there on the hinges. Just to set the tone. I’m going to let her teach me the shit I need to know to pass the test and play in the championship game, but that’s where it ends. I’m not her

shortcut to popularity or claim to fame. God, I hate her already. I hate everyone.

Especially him. For leaving. For checking out early.

What the hell is the point of this anymore?

Breathing through the wave of emptiness that passes through me, I bang a fist on the door, ready to finally meet this chick.

OBSESSED.

Stella. Apparently she’s the campus genius. Too bad she sounds like a basic idiot from this side of the door.

And when she opens that door and we come face to face, I’m relieved to be right. Already I can’t stand her. She looks like every other fucking cheerleader or co–ed who follows me around campus with dreams of babies and a mansion in their heads. Fuck that. I want nothing to do with any of them, especially

since the funeral. I had hundreds of them during my first three

years at the university and I can’t recall a single face, so what

would be the point, anyway?

My scowl doesn’t stop her from twisting hair around her finger

and giggling. “I can’t believe it. Mr. Gage Weston himself in my

dorm room.”

“Yeah, Stella,” I grit, bitterly, wishing I had a fifth of whiskey in

my hand. “Lucky v

“Oh, I’m not Stella,” she laughs, as if it was a wild assumption. “Stella is my roommate.” She cups a hand around her mouth and whispers, “Poor you.”

Irritated that this girl, who is apparently not the campus genius, has wasted a full minute of my life, I duck beneath the door frame and enter the room, my stride pausing when I see the other occupant. She’s sitting on a twin bed with her head bowed, curtains of messy blonde hair hiding her face. Her green

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cardigan is old and thin, buttoned up to her chin, knees pressed together in her leggings. There’s a Western Civilization book in her lap and she appears to be holding on to it for dear life.

“Stella,” I say, my voice a hell of a lot softer than when I addressed the other chick…and I have no idea why. “Are you

Stella?”

She nods, her knuckles turning white around the textbook. Is she scared of something? I wouldn’t blame her. She looks like

she could be picked up and carried away by a gust of wind.

“I’m Gage Weston.” I duck down a little, trying to see her face,

frowning when she only hides it further. “Obviously your

remember we have a tutoring appointment since you’re holding

the book. Are you…?” I really don’t understand the weird

OBSESSED.

My throat is too dry to swallow. “What else do you need?”

I sound like a complete idiot. My voice is hoarse, I’m practically growling at this girl to give me another mission to complete for

her. What is going on here? Yes, she’s gorgeous–though most

of her beauty is hidden behind hair and oversized clothes. She’s

obviously sweet, too, with an angelic voice. Apparently she’s

smart as a whip. All of those things make her impressive, but

nothing explains my intense reaction to her. No, it’s coming from somewhere deeper. Jesus, it’s coming from my fucking

soul. The soul that is about to leave my body if I don’t touch her.

If I don’t establish that she’s mine.

Suddenly, I’m feverish and aching and burning with that need.

To make her mine.

“Should w–we get started?” Stella asks, her cheeks flushed.

Probably because I’m staring at her like a wolf who has just crossed paths with a lamb.

Hands trembling, she opens the textbook in her lap and blinks at me. “Gage?” She wets her wide mouth and my dick leaps in response. “Do you mind me asking…” She tucks some hair behind her ear, cheeks coloring. “It’s none of my business, but I overheard my roommate saying you got in trouble for v-

vandalism. Among other things. And the dean told me you’ve

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always been a good student, but you’re having trouble now.” Her delicate throat works with a swallow. “Did something happen?”

N

“Yes.” I haven’t spoken to anyone about this. Not the therapists arranged by my coaches. Not my mother or friends. No one. But as soon as this girl asks me to open up, everything spills out of

me like water from a dam. “My father died. He…fell asleep

behind the wheel.” Frustration wells inside of me. “What the

fuck? Why the hell did he do that? A ten–minute drive from the

office to home. I don’t…I don’t get it.”

There’s no pity in her expression. Only quiet understanding.

“You’re mad at him.”

“Yes.”

But that’s when I realize, the anger inside me has gone silent for the first time in months–and I go toward her like a thirsty man goes toward a well.