Page 31 of What Rough Beast

Football practice on Monday is pure hell. Coach has never been easy on us, and with most of the starting lineup jittery as fuck, there’s more footballs slipping through fingers, missed plays, and flat-out terrible passes than when we were in junior high.

“What the fuck?!” Coach screams, coming onto the field, his face as red as the press box. “Did you guys all wake up with no dicks, or what?”

That’s not the case, but most of the starting lineup did wake up terrified that they’d be charged with a felony sooner rather than later, and that has put a dent in our athletic performance.

“Letting them all know is the right thing to do,” Ethan said when we regrouped on Sunday at his place after church. I had a hard time not telling him that maybe we should have considered what the right thing to do was way back in the summer, when Murphy came up with the whole idea. But we’re here now, and like Dad says, Looking back just means that you are your own ass-gazer.

Ass-gazing is part of what got us into this in the first place. Asses and tits, and whatever else girls have that we’re interested in seeing. Murphy decided that he was interested in seeing all of them and figured that between a group of four seniors, we could probably put together a class portrait with more skin than they’d allow in the yearbook.

Like Ethan said, Quentin insisting that his sister stay out of it was naive, at best. Hailey not only didn’t care if Ethan shared her nudes but offered up some fresh ones because—as she put it—she’s a giver. Murphy and I had some of our own—Meredith Jarvel, Jade Partlow, Carrie Hollern—so we ponied up. I felt a twinge of guilt when I shared Meredith’s pics on the group chat, but she hadn’t asked me to delete them when we broke up. So . . . I didn’t. And I definitely didn’t have her permission to share them, but I’d been catching some shit for not contributing. I was cruising on three beers and an Ambien, so when the guys piled on, I shut them up with about ten different shots.

That’s when things got competitive, and a week later Murphy had a spreadsheet titled “Jerkoff Dropbox” set up with all the senior girls’ names and had assigned points to the ones considered more difficult to bag. There was a leaderboard and everything, and I found myself checking the scores—and the photo repository—every time I got an alert on my phone. Between the four of us we’d cleared our class pretty quick, except for a few untouchables no one was ever going to crack, and that’s when shit got weird.

Murph tossed out a pic of Cassie from when they were dating and was immediately called out for not sticking to seniors, to which he said, All titties are good titties. None of us could really disagree with that, and Jerkoff Dropbox got an expansion pack. I don’t think a single one of us ever considered the fact that once we slipped below seniors, we were in minor territory. Not until Ethan pushed Emily Vaught—a freshman with a high point value—a little too hard. She coughed up a pic but then went to Ava.

It was enough to stop us in our tracks. Hailey went after Ava and Emily hard, well aware there was more at stake here than gossip and reputations. Murphy’s baseball career, Blake’s influencer status, Ethan’s ability to get a liquor permit and continue his father’s business, not to mention college applications and the ever present, lingering cloud of How would it look? if the sheriff’s son had a felony conviction? Again, all things we should’ve thought about back in the summer, but titties are titties.

I’m thinking about the fact that none of us ever admitted to feeling bad about what we did to the girls—we were only worried about our own skins, after spending so much time on theirs—when Ethan pulls up next to me on our third mile run for the day, in full pads.

“I talked to Hailey.”

“And what?”

“This is punishment, not a circle jerk, dickheads,” Coach yells when he sees us talking.

Ethan grunts and pulls ahead of me. We sit through twenty minutes of Coach calling us dickless pansy assholes before we’re allowed to go home. Ethan gets pulled aside for an extra reaming, doubtless about the Icy Hot he smeared on a freshman’s jock strap before practice started. I’m halfway home when my phone rings, Ethan’s name lighting up the screen.

“Hey, what’s up?” I ask.

“Listen . . .” There’s a pause, and I hear his truck door shut, his voice dropping. “There’s a chance that’s not what he meant.”

“Not what who meant?” I ask.

“Quentin with the pics. That might not be what he’s talking about.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“He never said shit to Hailey about it. If he’s that worried about her sharing, he’d warn her off.”

“Would he?” I counter. “Do brothers talk to their sisters about nudes?”

“I don’t—” Ethan sighs, and I can hear the low hum of the machines as he walks into the brewery. “Look, there’s something else it could be, okay?”

“Like what?” I ask.

“I can’t say right now. Dad needs my help, and I’ve got to put my phone away or catch shit about it. Can you text the guys, tell them not to worry, false alarm?”

“False alarm?” I repeat, a little pressure in my chest releasing. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah, pretty sure,” Ethan says. “We need steady hands for Friday’s game. Plus—not gonna lie—I don’t know if I can take another practice like today’s. Fucking running, man.”

“Maybe you should stop vaping,” I tell him.

“Maybe you should stop drinking,” he says.

“You’re the one in a brewery,” I shoot back.

“Gotta go,” Ethan says, just as I hear his dad’s voice in the background.