Page 31 of Red Card


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Bloody arseholes.

“Shut up, Ezra,” Rory says sharply, her lips tightened into a scowl. She places her hands on her hips and looks around the room at each of the guys before focusing her attention back on Ezra. “You’re inmyapartment and you’re going to respect anyone who’s in my home.”

Ezra’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, suddenly looking slightly nervous, and I bite back a laugh.

“Fuck this, I’m out of here,” Brooks says, rising from thearmchair and thrusting the half-empty bowl of fruit into Wren’s arms. The stacked prop just blinks, holding on to the bowl with both arms as he looks back and forth between Brooks, Rory, Ezra, and me.

Rory stomps over to Brooks and pokes his chest, pushing him back down into the chair. He flops onto the cushion with anoof.

“No, you’re going to sit down and shut up, Brooks Thorne,” she says. “Listen up and listen good because I’m only going to say this once. Enough isenough. I get it, you guys are all pissed off that Cillian’s on the team. Your routines are interrupted, and the chemistry with the team is out of sync. I get it, and I understand. We all do. But this whole… icing him out and being an asshole thing has to stop. This isn’t just about Cillian, it’s about you. It’s about the team, and what you’re doing right now is hurting the entire team.”

Ezra opens his mouth to interrupt her, but when Rory shoots him a look, holding up her hand, he promptly shuts his mouth and sits back on the couch, crossing his arms over his chest like a petulant toddler who’s just been scolded by his mum.

Make no mistake, that’s exactly what this is.

She walks to stand in front of the TV, facing all the guys. “It ends here. Tonight. Because after this, you’re not just going to have a problem with Cillian, you’re going to have a problem with me. No one is walking out that door. We’re going to continue our game night as planned, and nobody is going to be an asshole. Nobody is going to say one word. Or…” She trails off, as if she’s contemplating something. “Or I’m going to tell my dad about the time that you all snuck out last year before regionals and got drunk when you were on a strict curfew.”

Gasps ring out in the room along with a few groans, and Rory lifts a brow, an evil little grin flitting to her pink lips.

“Holy shit!” Liam squeaks, his voice a whisper as he stares at Rory with fear in his eyes. He’s just a little pup, a rookie sophomore on the team, and of everyone in the room, he looks the most terrified.

Wren reaches his massive hand into the bowl that he’s still holding and pops some strawberries into his mouth. When he chuckles, the sticky red fruit is stuck to his teeth, showing off his signature toothless grin. “Rory, girl, that is cold as fuck.”

“Yeah, well, desperate times, desperate measures. And you know what? Not only will I be ratting you dickheads out, I will never everevermake another batch of snickerdoodle cookies ever again.”

“That’s it.” Fitz jumps up from the couch in an outrage. “That is crazy talk, Rory. Come on. Not the snickerdoodle cookies. You know how much those mean to us! What the hell.”

“Yeah, what he said! You wouldn’t do that to us,” Wren adds around a mouthful of strawberries.

Rory just shakes her head, her long dark ponytail swaying with the motion when she places her hands back on her hips. “Try me. Seriously guys, you know there is no one outside of my dad and Coach Matthews that cares about this team more than me. You are my guys, and we’ve been with each other for almost three years now. This is disappointing to me, and I don’t want to be disappointed.”

Damn. I was not expecting this pep talk, but I’m impressed.

She just played the shit out of this lot, and they haven’t a clue.

“Now, does anyone have any objections or can we please resume game night?”

I follow her gaze around the room, pausing on the two whoseem to have the biggest issue with me. Ezra rolls his eyes and looks away, and Brooks just shakes his head but says nothing.

“Perfect.” She smiles, the cheerful tone returning to her voice. “You’re going to love the game I got for tonight.”

“You got fuckingTwisterfor a bunch of guys to play together, Ror. Why do you love torturing us so much?” Fitz groans with his face entirely too close to Wren’s balls.

“Seems to be her favorite pastime,” I mutter, earning a snicker out of both Fitz and Wren.

“Yeah, well, jokes on you, Ror, because I happen tolovehaving Fitz’s mouth by my balls. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be tonight. So, what now, huh?” Wren says, although his face is turning a bright shade of crimson from hanging upside down for this long, the vein in his thick neck bulging.

We might have a lot of stamina as rugby players, but shit, this is not the place to test it.

Right now I’m too busy trying to hold my hands on red and bloody green and not face-plant into the back of Liam’s head.

Fuck, St. James has lost her mind.

When she said game night, I had no idea it would involve acquainting ourselves with each other’s balls so intimately. I’m starting to come to the realization that she’s got a thing for balls, and not in the kind of way that will benefit me.

I look up, peering over Fitz to see Rory perched on a chair with the spinner in her lap, a shit-eating grin on her plush, rosy lips.

She’s enjoying every second of this. Watching a bunch of grown-asscollege rugby players playing Twister in her living room while she controls the strings. I swear she’s not even spinning the damn thing; she’s just telling us to place our limbs in the absolute worst positions imaginable.