My focus this year is the game, not that it hadn’t been before, but now I was being scouted seriously and I had made up my mind that this is what I wanted to do.
I had a lot of opportunities before me. As the son of one of the leading studio heads in Hollywood, there wasn’t much I couldn’t set my sights on.
But I never knew what it was I really wanted to do until now. And now with the new wide receiver who has taken the nation by storm coming to join us, I had no doubt that we would do great things on the field this year.
Mom fell asleep five minutes later and I headed downstairs to toss the ball with my dog Jasper.
My mind wasn’t on anything in particular. I’d just turned seventeen and was looking forward to my last couple years of high school. I was doing pretty good in all my classes, so I was looking forward to cruising it.
Dad got me the new Phantom Drophead Coupe for my birthday in the summer, and I was itching to take it out and put it through its paces, but that was about it. Pretty lame when you think about it, but I’d grown pretty jaded.
My school wasn’t your normal high school by any standards. There were starlets and new up and coming leading men attending, not to mention the off spring of some of Hollywood’s elite.
With dad being who he is, I’d grown accustomed to being brown nosed since I was able to walk, that too had grown old. I had been feeling restless for the past year or so; that had added to the fuel that led to the breakup.
Mandy and girls like her were starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth. And since all the others pretty much tried to emulate her in one way or the other, I was pretty much out of luck.
I guess I’d just have to go cruising for some new skins since I hated going without pussy for more than a couple weeks at least.
I was already coming up on two months and something was about to blow. That’s another thing, I broke up with Mandy during summer break so no one really knew we were through.
It would be the first time since I was fifteen that I didn’t have a steady girlfriend. I can’t go out like that, it’s part of the whole high school experience after all.
“Thanks for taking care of your mother for me son.” I pulled my throw and looked over my shoulder.
“Dad you’re back.”
“Yeah I cut my trip short, couldn’t leave my best girl here to die.” He rolled his eyes and we shared a laugh.
Mom was always dying, if she stubbed her toe it was a national emergency; but this time she had really been sick.
“She’s really sick this time dad, I almost took her to the hospital.”
“Yeah well I’m here now son so take a load off. Sorry you had to miss your first day back, I’ll make it up to you.”
“Nah, it’s nothing. So how did everything go?”
“It went good, only had to knock a few heads together, nothing new there. You sure you don’t want to follow in the family’s footsteps?”
“I’ll think about it when I’m thirty five and ready to retire.”
“It’ll keep.” He grinned and went back inside. Dad was third generation Hollywood. My great grandfather had started the studio back in the day with silent movies.
Now we owned the leading movie studio in Hollywood. That’s where dad met mom. She was a young starlet looking to get her name up there in bright lights.
Dad took one look at her and decided he had a better role for her to play. She did a few movies before she got pregnant with me and they got married. She was all of eighteen at the time and dad was twenty-five.
He hadn’t taken over the reins from grandpa as yet, that came five years later.
He’s the youngest studio head and according to him, not many held out hope for the continued success of the family business, but twelve years later he was still going strong.
I knew the day would come when I would have to step into his shoes, but unlike him, I wouldn’t have to do that as early as he had.
Grandpa had died much too young of a heart attack in his office one day, and that’s why dad had had to step in so young.
If not for that, he’d still be looking at at least another five or ten years before he had to make the move.
Some of grandpa’s old cronies were still heading their houses to the disgust of their off spring who were chomping at the bit to get their hands in.
It was their kids that I went to school with mostly, theirs and the children of the men and women who worked for them. Leading men and women.
I was very aware that most of my peers didn’t have the same upbringing I did, and I had gained a few true-life friends by sticking to the tenets mom and dad set down. But there were still the other ninety-five percent that were assholes.
If Mandy was the leading female, then I am the top dog. Not that I worked for it, I wasn’t really interested in the title.
But it came with the territory. The men and women whose kids went to school with me weren’t above using the school halls to network.
I usually sniffed out the kids who were trying to pull themselves up by my coattails and ditched them.
Again Mandy comes to mind, I’d really fucked up there. It was the one time I’d been sucked in by pussy, too bad for her I like my snatch attached to a warm body.
I headed back inside to see what Marisa had going for lunch. She was another staple in my life. She’s been with the family since before I was born, another one who ran my life.
“Hey beautiful what you got going over there?” she was baking something that smelled amazing. Thank heavens for the home gym or her little delicacies would have me packing on the pounds.
I don’t remember a day since kindergarten that there wasn’t some kind of treat waiting for me after school, and I always partook of whatever she had on offer, no matter what coach said about nutrition.
No way I was going to hurt one of my favorite people by refusing something I knew she’d made especially for me.
“It’s your favorite, I had planned to make them for your first day back, remember how you always liked them?”
“White chocolate macadamia nut?” I picked her up and twirled her around the kitchen making her laugh.
“Put me down senor Jace, I’ll get you some milk, they’re nice and hot have a few.”
“Ummm, marry me, we’ll run away together and live on a beach in Cabo.”
“You like my hometown yes.”
“Yes I do.” We’d been there like five times since I was a kid. “I think these are the best you’ve ever made, better hide some up in my room before dad gets ahold of ‘em.”
Just then I felt a slap across the back of my head. “Too late, hand them over hog.”
“Damn,” I watched as he pawed a couple and wolfed them down. “You know you shouldn’t be having those, mom said your cholesterol is off the charts.”
“Your mom’s asleep, what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her, and if you snitch I’ll kick your ass.”
“Tough talk old man.”
“You boys play nice. Mr. Chad just two for you.” She took the plate away from him and took it over to the counter out of reach while he pouted like a two year old.
“You’re just sad dad.” I shook my head and prepared to rub his face in it as I took a big chunk out of my fourth, but he snatched it out of my hand.
“Who’s sad now sucker?” He checked his watch the thief and brushed the crumbs off his face. “Hey, wouldn’t coach let you join practice even though you missed class?”
“Good idea dad I’m sure he will since he knew why I had to bail.” I got up from the table and headed up to my room to get my gear.
Coach is a hard ass he doesn’t play around. He’d once coached in the pros but something happened there and he left to come here. He wasn’t influenced by the purse strings of his team’s parents and so we didn’t get away with shit.
If we weren’t keeping up with our schoolwork as well as he thought we should, he’d bench us in a heartbeat.
So missing class and then showing up for practice would’ve been a no-no in any other situation. But since I’d seen him earlier and told him what was going on I was sure he’d let me on the field.
I could already feel by blood pumping in my veins, I love this dam game. Sometimes it’s the only thing that gives me pleasure, the only thing I have to look forward to.
And since I was now sans a significant other, looked like I was going to be spending more time with the pigskin.
Chapter 5
SIAN
There goes my car again. I know it hadn’t been there this afternoon when I’d gone outside with Belle to call her friend, but now here it was again.
I wondered what kind of teacher could afford a car like that. Granted it was a private school and I’m sure the faculty here made more than at the average high school. Still, that car was like a half a million dollars easy.
I grinned when I remembered telling dad that that’s what I wanted as payment for him disrupting my life.
I was on my way to the field for tryouts. After this afternoon’s little run-in with the squad I wasn’t sure of my reception, but I wasn’t about to let that deter me.
Ms. Simmons, the coach was very personable when we spoke earlier, and she seemed pretty impressed with my stats.
The school had never been part of the nationals, whereas my old school had won twice in the last three years. I was a shoo-in and since I seem to have gotten over whatever was bugging me earlier, I really wasn’t too interested in what Mandy and her crew thought.