DECEIT (B723) by Hazel Grace (ebook reader for surface pro .TXT) 📕

She’s also the heartbeat.

Emmy is the girl who brings you soup when you’re not feeling too hot and never forgets your birthday.

Once upon a time, I got to participate in it. I looked forward to getting off the clock and spending every spare moment I had with her.

Her smile drew me in every fucking time. Her body was something I could never get full from, and I might be a complete fuckhead for letting her go, but I keep telling myself it was for the best—for the both of us.

“You’ve always been a piece of shit,” Marty complains. “But she did nothing to deserve it.”

I mean…depends who you ask.

“Look who’s acting arrogant,” I muse off a smirk. “I believe I was the one who taught you this gig. Who took you under his wing. Don’t start to play all high and mighty on me now, Shelton.”

“Again, get fucked.”

My lips heave higher. “I did.”

Marty’s fist flies into my face before I can blink, impeding another fight where he starts it, and I sometimes end it.

Normally it finishes up at a stalemate, though.

However, instead of hitting Marty back, I slam my own fist into Mills’s nose for always throwing his two cents in.

He’s the annoying sidekick that has to chime in but never meets the consequences for it.

Mills stumbles backward, giving me room to respond to Marty with my five knuckles. He’s ready for it, takes it like he always does, then bends over to ram his broad shoulder into my stomach.

I barely stagger, digging my heels into the dirt and shoving him to regain my space.

This exchange sounds familiar. The last time we fought was over his blonde, and now we’re throwing blows over another. I told him to release his now wife, after he kept her hostage for weeks.

And speaking of messed up, Marty grabbed the wrong girl, found out she was innocent, and still retained her because he couldn’t let her go.

Kyson suddenly steps in between Marty and I before I sucker-punch him in the ribs, getting back at him for ratting me out to everyone and blurting out my shit like a fucking child.

My best friend doesn’t retaliate, hitting me with dark cautionary not to touch him again. His brows are knitted so tightly that I wished he’d hit me. He and I have a lot of unfinished business when it comes to hiding things from each other while we’re both guilty of it.

“Move,” Marty rages, shoving him aside to come at me again.

I like Marty.

I really do, even though he and I are the two that argue the most. He’s loyal as hell, and if you’re within his realm of people he likes, you’re set for life with a friend that’ll go to the ends of the Earth for you.

We just like to talk a lot with our fists along with our words.

My jaw rattles as Marty hammers his weight into his next throw. Using my height to my advantage, I grip the shoulders of his shirt and fling him to the side, tripping him to get him on the ground and out of my way.

He wants to make me feel small when it comes to Emmy, but he doesn’t need to.

I already do.

Mills stands there without Marty as his shield, and I think I see him mutter the word shit as I reach for him, just to pop him in the same spot Marty just had me.

Kyson shoves me from the side, ordering me to stop, but I’m far from done.

I might be the bad guy in a lot of circumstances, but I’m not with Emmy. The things I say to her are to get her to back the hell off, which she has a hard time doing. She doesn’t need to try and coddle me like she does the rest of the guys because I’ve had a sample with a bad aftertaste.

“Three against one, brother,” Kyson recites. “Chill out.”

My lips curl into a menacing smile. “I’ve been waiting to beat all your asses for years.”

Marty tsks. “That’s pretty embarrassing that you haven’t yet.”

I gesture with my hand for him to stand in front of me. “Step right up, I’ll turn my friendly shit off and show you what I can really do with no filter.” Marty’s already on his feet before Kyson stands in his way.

“Alright, that’s enough,” he orders, extending his arms between us. “You’re both getting hard dicks from this, and it’s grossing me out.”

“I don’t know,” Mills replies, rubbing the side of his face where I hit him. “Y’all don’t do it for me.”

“Do you even know how to fight?” I snap. “You just stand there and take it like a bitch.”

He hits me with an unamused look. “I’d tell you to step the fuck up, but I don’t need you anymore upset than you already are.”

“From what?”

“From me kicking your entire ass.”

I move forward. “Then let me step the hell up and—“ Mills does the same, and when he’s close enough…he slaps me right across the face. “What the fuck?!”

He laughs, like full gut-wrenching laughter, and I cock my elbow back when a large hand grips my wrist and holds it there.

It’s fucking Marty, always somewhere where he shouldn’t be, and stepping in to save Mills from my wrath.

Jerking it out of his fingers, I shove it backward, connecting with, I think, the column of Marty’s neck, and I rush Mills.

He and I both fall, him hitting the hard ground as I pin him with both knees on either side.

Then he surprises me.

He reaches up and wraps both arms around my back, pulling me downward. Then takes a hand, coils around my shoulder before thrusting with his hips forward, flipping us both to the side where he gets the upper hand on me because now I’m underneath him.

Some Jujitsu shit that he learned back in the day. 

It would’ve been helpful for me to remember that before I called him out on his lack of fighting me.

He rains down one punch to my