Chapter 6. |Splits And Smashes|

At the end of the school day, I had finally come to one conclusion; if I thought Blake Johnson hated me in the morning, I was wrong. So very wrong.

Blake didn't hate me, he despised me and it all started with a few splits by the bleachers after school. Here in this little town in the heart of Texas, football was everything, if you didn't like or appreciate the sport, you had just dug yourself a literal shallow grave with your own hands.

And that's why if you were a student here that didn't like football, you were instantly unpopular. Girls, namely like me joined the cheerleaders to support the boys because if we didn't, a drastic ostracization would take place. If being yelled at by Amanda every day after school during practice was the price for popularity, we all gladly took it.

"Look sharp, girls," Amanda snapped, placing her right hand on her hip and stretching the left arm towards her right foot in a fluid motion that made it seem like what she was doing was actually pretty easy. "You're slouching, Melanie."

Poor, tiny Melanie gave a tiny nod and a pitiful whimper before trying to get back into the correct practice position. We were currently trying out a squad position and I was secretly glad when Amanda had assigned me as one of the three supposed to just stay at the front and split with wide smiles.

Split. Look sexy. Smile.

We were in the middle of that and I could hear most of the girls at the back of the formation groan in pain. I couldn't blame them though, Amanda had put us to this for close to two hours now, under the influence of the low burn of the Texas heat on the football field and we were exhausted.

Relief came in form of the big, burly guys that were headed our way, the reasons we were out here. Our boys, the football players. Amanda wiped the sweat off her brows and tied up her honey, blonde hair into a loose ponytail.

She waved heartily at the guys while I noticed how they all shot her perverted looks at how hot she looked in the short jean shorts and blue, spandex top. Her boyfriend, Darren, our football captain, typically, was still dressed in his full football gear making him look bigger than the rest of the guys.

He removed his helmet to show his low cut, curly hair and coffee brown skin which always seemed to glow and I swooned. Darren was so hot, he deserved to have a highly flammable warning around his neck.

"Babe," he greeted Amanda, placing a large arm on her shoulder and hugging her, the other guys had scattered to start flirting with the cheerleaders while I was left still pondering on the mystery of why jocks and cheerleaders must always go together.

"You're dismissed, girls," Amanda called out, reaching up to touch her boyfriend's beautiful hair and completely ignoring us all. Those two were so in love that it sometimes made us all sick to watch them.

I sounded bitter, thinking about it, I probably was. I had my own fair share of guys but never what I wanted. To be fair, what I wanted was currently owned by Amanda.

"Ruby! Ruby! Ruby!" Molly kept calling as we crossed the field and walked to the locker room, I was still mad at her for being the reason for my stupid move earlier today and I hadn't had the time to let her know how pissed I was yet. 

"What do you want, Molls?"

She caught up with me and was now pulling off her pink tank top to reveal a black bra top underneath, it was all probably to call the attention of the jocks.

Molly did stupid stuff like that all the time.

"Remember that new guy you spilled all that hot coffee on just this morning?" She was practically bouncing off the heels of her sneakers in excitement.

"It was your fault." I paused my walk to glare at her. "Have you got dung for brains or you're just stupid?"

Her face fell, her almond eyes showing how visibly hurt she was by the insult and I felt instantly terrible but you couldn't blame me, my life literally depended on my success on this task. What she had done this morning hadn't helped one bit.

"I'm sorry, I don't know why I just said that," I apologized, placing a hand to my clammy forehead. "I'm probably so tired and stressed."

"I'm sorry--" She was saying then her eyes spotted something and narrowed immediately. "When did you get that tattoo?" She reached out for my hand and stared at the tiny 31 open admiration.

"It's not a tattoo, I wrote it there," I tried shrugging it off casually and felt my head start to burn up, today had been a very stressful school day for me despite the fact that I had gone over all of today's activities before. "What were you saying about Blake?"

She seemed to remember why she was so excited and I was grateful for the topic change. "He's in most of my classes and can you believe he just moved here with his mom from New York? Isn't he so hot, like he has that beautiful city accent."

"I noticed." This was old news actually, Blake and his mom moved here from New York to this small town for reasons best known to them, reasons I didn't care about until now.

"I think I like him, Ruby," she gushed, wiping her sweat with the pink tank top and bouncing on the balls of her feet. "He has appeal, like really appealing."

"I get it." Molly had told me all of these before and I was starting to get impatient, I could feel the sweat sticking disgustingly to my back and making my black tee feel gross.

I was walking away at this point when she finally spoke her first useful words. "He hasn't gone home yet though, I saw him walk past when Darren and the guys came up to us."

He was still here? At this time?

I murmured a few incoherent apologies to Molly then took off across the field as fast as my weary legs would go. On and on I ran until I reached the now practically empty school lot. The only cars left there were an expensive black SUV belonging to Darren which the whole football team was probably going to carpool later and an old, Ford truck that looked like it had seen better days and needed an expensive paint job.

The boy I wanted to see was in the truck, and to my surprise was quietly strumming on a brown, bass guitar with his eyes closed and head bent. Blake plays, who knew? I went over to the window side and tapped on the side of the truck. He jerked up in sudden surprise that quickly turned to annoyance when his blue eyes fell on my face.

"You again," he groaned, closing his eyes and reaching over to the dashboard to pull on his glasses. He glared at me crossly.

"Yes, me," I smiled uneasily.

"What do you want, weirdo?" He snapped, opening the door getting out of the truck to come face to face with me. He had changed into a black shirt that hugged his lean muscles snugly. He smelt nice and clean, unlike my sweat self and I found myself wondering how hugging him would feel like.

"I don't think we go off on the right foot-"

"You think?" He was leaning against the truck, his curls softly falling across his head. I had never been attracted to curly haired guys but this one struck me oddly. 

"So, I'm Ruby, Ruby Davies." I stretched my hand out nicely, happy at the little progress I was making.

"And I don't care." He pointedly ignored my outstretched hand. "Please leave me alone now."

"Oh, don't be silly, you're new around here. You'll need someone to show you the ropes." 

"Oh, it certainly won't be you." I couldn't help but notice how different his accent was from ours, it was the same but his had a bit of city to it.

"Be nice, Blake," I told him, reaching towards the truck door and getting it before he could attempt to stop me. "I need a ride home, drop me off?"

"No," he said in disbelief, like he couldn't believe I was actually here, disturbing his peace. "I don't even know you, weirdo!"

"You do now, and it's Ruby." Then I spotted a long, brown stick under the seat and I picked it up excitedly. "You play baseball?"

I mirrored swinging movements as he got into the car with me, I had never held a baseball bat before and this new activity pleased me.

"Drop that-" he was saying when it happened so fast I could barely react. In one swift motion, the bat had struck the truck's windscreen and the shattering sound of glass came after, I had completely smashed his truck's windscreen.