Page 29 of The Score We Never Settled

Briggs’s father has always been a sensitive topic. There is no way he’s not going to swing at him if Cruz keeps running his flabby lips.

“C’mon,” I pipe in. “Let’s go get you a beer.”

Cruz reaches for me then, as if I was talking to him when he knows damn well I wasn’t, just as Briggs starts for him. Since I’ve been in this scenario more times than I’m willing to count, Briggs ends up bumping into me instead, which slows down his momentum of mass destruction because I step right into the path of all his Rocky Balboa dreams.

“Wrong way,” I lightly chide, steering Briggs backward a little with a push to his forearm. “Let’s go.”

“Grab me one, too,” Cruz makes sure to get out because the man just can’t help himself from taunting Briggs every chance he gets. “I appreciate you, honey.”

With another push—well, this time it’s a shove because I don’t trust Briggs enough to not let that go—I’m able to somewhat break it up.

But that only means I got myself into a situation with Briggs that I’ve been trying to avoid since running into him this morning.

This town is too small.

My emotions are too big.

And this man is going to be the absolute demise of me.

7

BRIGGS

Eleven years ago…

“She’s prettierthan the girl on the gas station energy drink poster. I’m gonna marry that girl one day, and she ain’t gonna know a lick about who I’m fuckin’ when I ain’t home.”

“Who the hell are you talkin’ about now?” I hear Walker say, the sound of his sneakers hitting the lockers, because he has zero damn sense about how he can change his clothes without having to toss all his shit around. “You were just talkin’ about Zoe Ridgeway the other day and how you were wantin’ to take her out.”

“She’s with Tad now,” Cruz drones. “And that can only mean she’s borin’ as hell.”

“Layla goes to church.”

My spine stands straight up at the mere mention of my girl’s name before my boy, Walker, speaks what’s already in my brain.

“You’re lookin’ to die, aren’t ya, Cruz?”

“What for?” he asks, as if he already doesn’t know. As if I haven’t made myself perfectly clear before.

“That’s Briggs’s girl.”

I hear him scoff as I turn on my heels to send him a withering glare.

I hate that this prick is on my team. That I have to see him every single day in my midst because Cruz has always been simply an asshole. He’s always tryin’ to piss people off on a daily basis. It’s in his DNA. There isn’t anything he isn’t willing to do to get a reaction out of someone.

And he just got mine.

Cruz spares me a glance, and that’s only because he’s scared I’m going to jump him without warning.

I’m not above that.

I never have been when it comes to him.

“You ain’t still hung up on her, right? You haven’t made a move.”

I haven’t made a move because her Uncle Ben hates me, and I’m not going to get her in trouble when she already attempts to see me sometimes out of his scope of vision.

It’s a work in progress, and I’m patient.