Flopping down on my unmade bed, I curled up in my Daryl King scented sheets and dragged my phone out of my pocket.

Zero missed calls.

Zero messages.

Zero social media notifications.

Like the glutton for punishment I was, I clicked onto Daryl's Instagram profile. He was a senior in high school and had 9.4k followers. Over nine freaking thousand people followed this guy online compared to my measly 163 followers.

Deciding to make myself feel predominately worse, I scrolled through his posts, the majority of which I'd already seen. Most of his posts were sports based. Quotes from his favorite athletes. Snaps of his team. Pictures of him playing football. Semi-naked images of Daryl and Rourke surfing at the beach, chilling at a team barbecue. And then, because I really hated myself, I clicked into the pictures he was tagged in.

Girl after beautiful girl draped around him.

Party after countless party with him surrounded by admirers.

Tits and ass and my QB1.

Jesus.

What the hell was I thinking?

No wonder he hadn't contacted me.

Of course he regretted last night.

His absence at school and silence all today was a sure sign of that.

What did you expect?

He's QB1, dummy!

There's no place for you in his world.

It was a pity fuck.

Nothing more.

4 Daryl

After my altercation with Nick Peterson, I couldn't face school, the guys, or coach.

I couldn't face her.

So, instead, I did something that I had never done in the history of my existence; I skipped a weekday practice.

Too depressed to face the world, I lay on the flat of my back, staring up at my bedroom ceiling and mulling over my tumultuous thoughts.

Nick Peterson's words of warning were all I could think about.

All I could feel as the weight of the world settled heavily on my shoulders.

Battling with the devil on my shoulder, the one that told me to run far away from Molly and never look back, I tried to gather my thoughts.

I tried to figure out where to go from here.

Her father was right.

As much as I hated to admit it, falling back in with his daughter was a disaster waiting to happen.

My conscience was a ticking time bomb that would surely detonate if I spent more time with her, and going back to how it was before was out of the question.

I got that I couldn't have her, but I couldn't walk away, either.

Fuck!

I knew what I had to do and I hated myself for it.

I seriously fucking hated myself in this moment.

A soft knock filled my ears moments before my bedroom swung inwards. "What are you doing in bed, Daryl?"

Like you give a shit. "Thinking."

"Don't you have practice?"

Again, like you give a shit.

"Not today, Mama."

Mom stepped further into my room, armed with a basket of clean laundry. His laundry. "What's wrong?"

"Not a damn thing."

"Are you sick?"