53 Rourke

Well, shit.

That's pretty much all I could think as I watched my best friend lose what little was left of his sanity.

Fully kitted out in his pads and jersey, cleats and all, Daryl ran around the Petersons house, shouting and hollering his girlfriend's name at the top of his lungs.

"No one's home, D," I called out from the driver's seat of my Range Rover. "She told Six they'll be back in a few weeks."

"Molly!" Daryl continued to roar, ignoring me entirely, as he continued to hammer his fists, his much-needed fists, against the panel of the front door. "Molly!"

"We've gotta go, man," I called out the window. "If we don’t leave now, we're gonna be late, D."

That was the understatement of the century.

Today was the most important day of our high school football careers.

It was the day we would play against the top team in our division for the state championship, and instead of being in the locker room where the rest of our team was right now, we were chasing after a girl who didn’t have the decency to tell her boyfriend that she was skipping town.

"Maybe you should go out there and get him before he breaks his hands," Six said from the passenger seat, worrying her lip. "He really looks like he's about to lose it, Rourke."

"Yeah?" I huffed, unfastening my seatbelt and shoving the door open. Daryl had shown up on my doorstep in the middle of the night, looking like hell, and needing a couch. "And whose fault is that, I wonder?"

"Hey – don’t even think about blaming Molly for this," Six was quick to defend, narrowing her grey eyes at me. "She's the victim in all of this. If your boy over there had been honest with her from the beginning, then she wouldn’t have had to skip town in the middle of the night."

"Well, fair warning, babe, when your friend gets back from wherever the fuck she is, I'm gonna be having words with her."

"You say one word to Molly when she comes back, and I'll cut your dick off."

"Daryl is my best friend," I spat, furious for him. "It's bad enough that his family treats him like he's the goddamn spawn of Satan, and turn their backs on him. But then his so-called girlfriend pulls this shit on the most important day of his life."

"And Molly is my best friend," Six shot back, equally as fiery. "What you're worrying about is just a stupid football game. Molly's entire life has been thrown upside down, Rourke! Put yourself in her shoes for a minute and think how she must be feeling right now."

"Six. You don’t even know the whole story."

"And neither do you," she growled. "But I'm telling you now if I was Molly, and I had found out everything that she did about her life last night, then the very last place I would want to be is Ocean Bay."