Page 25 of Game Misconduct

“You okay, man?” Henry asks. “You look down.”

“Why d’you care?” I mutter, the bitterness nearly overtaking me.

He already has the girl of my dreams, is in the prime of his career, and has a huge family that seems to genuinely like each other. He already has everything I want.

Why is he good enough for her, and I’m not? What do I have to do to be worthy of her?

“Hell, I don’t know.” He shrugs, slinging his arm around Bex’s shoulders and hauling her into his side. She beams up at him, her hand on his chest.

My heart twists into a knotted pretzel, and I rub at my shirt over the offending organ, like that will make the ache go away. It doesn’t, though. Nothing will, not while this dipshit has my dream girl.

“Fuck off.” The words spew from my lips, poisonous and foul-tasting. I’m not this person. I don’t want to be this person. But I can’t help it around him.

Henry rolls his eyes. “You want to be miserable, go right ahead. Don’t let me stop you from a good time.”

Why can’t he just leave me the fuck alone?

I don’t have very many vices. After my mother died of complications during a liver transplant, while donating hers to my alcoholic father, no less, I don’t let myself indulge in alcohol very often.

Good bourbon. Expensive bourbon. It’s a rare indulgence, and I don’t let myself drown in it when I’m in a shitty mood. I never want to be like him. I refuse to allow it.

But fuck it. Fuck this. Fuck everything.

I lift the glass to my lips, downing the alcohol. Liquid fire burns through me, and I turn and make eye contact with Bex, who sneers at me.

“I’ve been traded. To Boston.”