Love, Ally by Hannah Gray
one
Cole
“It’s so fucking hot out here,” Knox, my teammate and one of my best friends, complains. Sounding like a little bitch. Taking his water bottle, he squirts it over his face. “I’m sweating like a hookah in church,” he says. His Maine accent missing the er sound in hooker.
“At least you’re sweating all the liquor from last night out of your system, you big lush,” I joke, shaking my head. “That’ll teach you not to drink the night before an early practice.”
He’s not really a lush. But he certainly hit it a little too hard last night. I think he forgot how shitty these practices can be when you show up hungover.
“For real.” Weston grins at him. “You were a fucking mess.”
There’s a group of us “new guys” on the football team here at Brooks University. The three of us freshman—Knox Carter, Weston Wade, and myself—have already become close friends.
“What are you two, my motha?” Knox’s accent drawls again. “Also, if my memory serves me right, you both were drinkin’ too, dicks.”
“I had two beers.” Lifting my shirt up, I wipe the sweat from my face and then point to him. “You were shooting whiskey like it was spring fucking break in Cabo and you were about to watch a wet T-shirt contest or some shit.”
“Yeah, and I had three and called it a night,” Weston says, walking backward onto the field. “You were so hammered that you actually tried to fight some of the frat guys.” He shakes his head before turning and jogging farther away from us.
Knox frowns, and then he turns toward me and shrugs. “Yeah, well, it’s still fucking hot out.” He pauses. “And those frat guys were being complete douche bags.”
Throwing my helmet back on, I laugh. “We’re in Georgia, dipshit. And it’s the end of August. The fuck you think it’s going to be, cold out?”
A stupid-ass grin spreads across his face as he points at me. “Hey, that would be fucking sweet. At least then I wouldn’t have swamp ass. My fucking nuts are roasting.” He chuckles. “Get it? Roasted nuts?”
“Dude, first off, I don’t need to know your fucking ass is sweating or about your nuts. Ever. Second, remember when you first came here, all you talked about was how happy you were to not deal with New England winters? You really want to go back to freezing your sack off?”
Literally, all he talked about the first week we met each other was how cold Maine was in the winter and how he loved the heat in the South.
Tapping the side of his helmet, he grins. “Guess you have a point there, Storm.”
“That’s what I thought,” I say, slapping him on the back. “Let’s get the fuck back to work.”
“Yo, Storm, Knox,” Weston yells from the center of the field, cupping his hands around his mouth. “You two going to fuck off all day, or are we going to get this practice finished up?”
Flipping him off, I make my way onto the field.
Storm is a nickname I have had since I was younger. Not sure if you can consider it a true nickname since my last name is Storms. But the nickname has been with me for quite some time. Seventh grade, to be exact. I didn’t know it would follow me all the way to freshman year at Brooks University, yet here I am, and all of my teammates on the football team call me it too.
For as long as I can remember, all I’ve ever wanted to do is play ball. It’s how I got my aggression out as a kid, and even now, it still is. Only now, I have more control of my anger when I’m on the field. Everything I do is calculated and well thought out. Usually.
Football is also one of the very few things in life that I truly love. It’s the one thing that has never left me, and I pray it never will. People change. This game? Well, she’s one loyal bitch.
I learned at a young age that if I wanted something, I was going to have to do the work. Nobody was ever going to hand me my dreams on a silver platter—that’s for damn sure. So, once I was old enough to hold a ball, that was what I did. I worked my ass off and dedicated all of my spare time to this sport. I wanted to see just how far it would take me. And honestly, I knew I’d ride with it until the damn wheels fell off.
There’s only one other thing in this life that I’ve loved, and she went and did what everyone else had done to me. She left. And now … well, now, she’s just another reason why I need this game to distract me from all the other shit in my life.
A series of unfortunate events. That’s how I’d sum up these past eighteen years.
But for a while, I got to hold her, my angel. And for that short time, she was all mine, looking at me like I’d hung the moon. I got comfortable—too comfortable. I let my guard down, left myself open to being hurt. And that was what that bitch did. She fucking eviscerated me, disposed of me like I was nothing. I’m used to the feeling. I just never thought that feeling would be inflicted by her. My addictive, mouth-of-a-pirate, dark-haired Ally Lee James.
Now, she’s gone, and all I have left inside of me is this rage. That rage fuels this fire for me to be faster, stronger, better than all of the other players. I will make it to where I want to be, and nobody will stand in my way. Not even myself.