Chapter 8: Our Hero Begins to Come Undone

Coach Hendrix postponed the official start of practices until Monday, giving everyone a chance to rest up and for the bruising on my hip to go away. Shifters heal faster than humans, but not instantaneously.

He announced to the team that once a week we would be having a closed practice and then depending on how the season went we could wind up having closed practices every day. When I looked at Matt for clarification he mouthed, “Ellery.”

I couldn’t escape her, despite barely seeing her during the day at school. Her scent was everywhere and it made me want to claw my skin and shift at least a dozen times a day. My grades started slipping because I couldn’t focus to save my life. At least at practices I got to see her which helped calm me down enough that I could play and follow directions.

However, I also got a few extra laps for letting my focus wander, and a couple reps of push-ups at least once when I got smacked in the side of the face by the ball when Ellery did the spine stretching thing after she’d been doing paperwork in the office for half an hour.

Closed practice days were agony since Ellery led us in drills to improve our footwork, and this meant that she got up close and personal with everyone at some point. She taught us how to run while clipping the heels of the person we were guarding and tried to teach us how to really run backwards.

She also devised an obstacle course just for footwork amongst other sadistic practices. The worst was when she made us bounce around the court on the balls of our feet to peppy music until we collapsed, made us stretch out our glutes, quads, and calf muscles, and then do it all over again.

If that wasn’t bad enough, whenever I had the opportunity to talk to her I either said something stupid or said something worse. I couldn’t seem to help myself. Whenever I opened my mouth around her it was a race to see if the idiot or the pervert would be in control of my vocal chords and brain.

Gods help me, more often than not, it was the pervert. Everything from “I’d love to find out just how flexible you are” to “makes me wonder how many pairs of boxers you’ve ruined in your lifetime” had come out of my mouth. It was embarrassing. No one had ever gotten under my skin like she had, and I didn’t like it.

Her responses to what I said didn’t help either. She answered everything with a flirtatious and clever comment that frequently left me and the guys who overheard standing with our mouths open. I was still berating myself and replaying my latest foot in mouth moment as I headed to practice the Monday before Thanksgiving.

It had been the absolute worst because the fool and the pervert joined forces to make me say “your name is so beautiful it makes me hard when I think about it” when all I had wanted to say was “your name is almost as beautiful as you.”

That she’d responded with ‘are you sure it’s the thought of my name that makes you hard, Alexander?’ made me want to stick my head in a freezer.

It wasn’t that I was lacking female companionship, or rather that I didn’t have females who were interested in providing me with companionship, but they weren’t who or what I wanted. I wanted Ellery. I wanted her so bad I could taste it.

I’d taken to shifting late at night and running around the woods behind my house for an hour or so every night just so I could clear my mind and exhaust myself to the point I could fall asleep.

Otherwise I had to resort to masturbation and frankly, I was getting sore. I hoped that by the time games started that the competition would help me work out whatever was clawing at my system.

I cursed myself for being eager to see her. When I walked into the gym that day she was stretching in workout clothes, something she only wore on closed practice days.

“What fresh hell does your dad have planned for us?” I asked Matt as I eyed her with suspicion.

“Oh, she’s not doing anything with us. I’m surprised she’s even here.”

“Why’s that?” I furrowed my brow in confusion and alarm. I certainly didn’t want her to not be at practice, even if I was in a state of perpetual irritation because of her.

Matt shrugged. “Usually she’s off doing recon with Coach Murphy for the upcoming games at this point, and she was looking a little rough in class today.”

“Good. She’s driving me crazy, I’m glad something’s bothering her too.” It was petty of me to feel that way, but damn it, I was losing my mind.

Matt laughed. “We’ve noticed.”

I rolled my eyes at him.

“She drives everybody crazy, man, let it go.” Nick was also laughing.

“Shut up, Nick.” I was being a prick but I didn’t care. I scowled at her while she stretched.

“What’s gotten into you?” asked Nick in annoyance.

I groaned. “Nothing. Sorry. Leave it.”

“I think it’s more of who he hasn’t gotten into that’s the problem.”

My temper started to rise. “Fuck you, Lee.”

He laughed in my face. “You are so dumb, dude. I can’t even.” He walked away chuckling and I snapped, running after him and shoving him in the back. I really was losing it if I thought picking a fight with a bear Shifter was the right thing to do. Lee whipped around and growled at me.

“You are pissed at the wrong person, Xander. You want her, do something about it, but don’t take your case of blue balls out on us.”

I was spared from responding by Coach Hendrix demanding “what the hell is going on here?”

“Nothing, Coach,” said Lee. “Xander just needed some advice.”

Coach Hendrix took one look at me and didn’t like what he saw. “Xander, go give me five stair laps. Maybe that will help get you back into a team frame of mind.”

Stair laps at this school were a special kind of torture. Not only was the gym three courts wide when the bleachers weren’t out, but with the bleachers folded up it meant that you had to use the staircases to the crow’s nest sections of bleachers that ran the length of a court.

The stairs were split into two sections because of how high you had to go to reach the top and were concrete. Five sets of stair laps were effectively going to give me a punishing mile run before practice.

I started off at a jog, muttering to myself. “Great, fucking brilliant.”