HIS FAVORITE GINGER ✓

THIRTY-SEVEN.

...You're the one in my heart, in my bones and in my soul..

¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶

Grayson

"Move, you sluggards!" I cringed at Coach Terror's crabby southern accent and its volume like that of a banshee seeking mates. We were basically standing in front of him but his worm brain doesn't seem to register that.

I stood at my rightful place as captain before springing into action at the sound of the whistle.

As usual, the nippy post-winter breeze penetrated my sweat pores and became one with my blood, making me as light as a feather while I zoomed like a professional ice skater. The jade terrace was my ice rink, my spiky boots were my skates, and of course, my muscles were my grace; in the case of plunking every opponent in sight like I was playing rugby.

Today's practice was tenuous and Terror thought it was right to put more stress on us because the finals were fast approaching, we could see it right in front of us. He's not wrong though, the Warlocks have been garbage lately. It was like they needed a kind of divine saliva from the gods to lubricate their failure and another divine slap(s)-or my grandma's-to set their brains right.

And I feel like it's all my fault. If it hasn't been for my inconsistency and not showing up for practice, then maybe my teammates would be more motivated. How are they going to even make it to the playoffs like this?

I shook my head in frustration, my hands angled into an akimbo as Gerard tripped on absolutely nothing, he'd always been such a miserable klutz.

"Jackson!"

"Sir?!"

"You guys remind me of Simon and you're supposed to be Warlocks! Magnus Bane isn't useless and pathetic, Simon is." I blinked thrice, my mouth agape.

"Wow, you watch Shadowhunters?! I love Shadowhunters! Shadowhunters is life. Who else watches Shadowhunters? Shadowhunters is now on Netflix." I turned to see a dirty-blonde sophomore beaming and blathering in glee.

Will somebody sew this midget's hole before I implode and explode at the same time? And please remind him his coach's name is Terror for fuck sake?!

"Oh and who might you be?" Terror forced a smile, displaying his amber dents; ew.

"Tony, sir."

"Well, Tony. Congratulations! You're out of the team!"

Gasps and giggles rose from the rest while I managed to stifle the laughter bubbling in me.

"B-but, I barely just joined."

"And, you're surely now out."

"This is unfair!" Tony removed his helmet and threw it to his feet with a childish pout on his face.

Terror's face was the synonym of Terror now when his eyes twitched like he was containing an aggravated bottle of sprite within him. "Oh, now I'm the unfair one. I'm always up and down all day and night struggling for you guys. I skip lunch break, breakfast break, dinner break to get y'all into the finals. I-"

"Coach, check your hands." Quentin gestured to the three huge bagels dangling around Terror's fat left fingers and a gigantic milkshake in the right.

"Shut up. How dare you interrupt me? You're out of the team!" He bloats like Mrs. Puff, his face as pink as Patrick, and his eyes bulging out like Mr. Krabs. Quentin took the countenance of a scared Spongebob.

He reminds me of my mom. She's always ranting like she had done what nobody had done in the world on me and she's the most perfect being while she's barely doing something at all and even if she did, she's having a breakdown just because I'm the worst child anybody could ever ask for.

"Damn." Damien drawled, lifting his eyebrows dramatically.

"You're out!"

Now Terror mustn't have meant that, Damien is the star quarterback of our school. No Damien, no trophy. As simple as A-level calculus.

We practiced for a while after Terror finished terrorizing us poor warlocks. Everyone was being themselves; trash, except me though I'm awesome.

That feeling of someone's eyes on you eventually became too unbearable and I just had to turn towards that direction. For the first time since the beginning of practice, I was just noticing Alejandro and his friends on the bleachers.

Alejandro was glaring at a taco-okay?, Kara was on a fierce phone conversation that she started to yell and bite at her phone-that girl is psycho-while the homophobe had his headphones on with his red iPad basically on his face-dude needs glasses. And above them was Tatum, wait is that Tatum sucking the face of Maddox. . . Maddox? Slut Maddox? Ew.

They are all psychos! Al is hanging out with psychos.

I smiled at myself. My heart suddenly felt warm. He promised to come and cheer me during practice for the big game. I never expected him to, in fact, even bring his friends.

My eyes landed on Al again who I caught staring. He instantly diverted his gaze and started to survey everywhere but my face. And he looked. . .nervous? Alejandro Bale is nervous?

All of a sudden, a large hand grabbed my ass, causing me to yelp aloud and I turned, ready to suckerpunch a sucker but I was met with Montgomery's goofy, adorable grin.

"Oh, Monty." I shook my head, chuckling and hiding my blush at the same time. But my laughter came to halt when I saw Alejandro with fire burning through his eyes and at the brunet behind me. The taco had burst from his overwhelming grip, spilling its contents all over him while Nolan patted the ginger sympathetically.

What was that all about?

Monty and I jogged towards the team where they gathered and paid rapt attention to Coach. He was either saying something very important or they were just scared he might explode again.

He paid no attention to Monty and I though as he spoke, with a serious look on his face. "I expect you all to have everything prepared for next week. We are travelling out of Seattle for the finals, you know. I still can't believe you wimps made it to this stage and you can't even pick a common. . ."

Since he was going to go on another rant about how we're losers, my eyes urged for entertainment elsewhere but they couldn't find Alejandro and his friends.

"Do you think we have a chance in California?" Damien sighed as he scratched his head sadly.

We were under a tree now, ejecting tiredness, draining water bottles and removing shirts.

"No." Gerard said firmly. "We are woeful."

"You were the one who tripped on an invisible stone." Monty snapped at him.

"It was my shoelace!"

"That makes you even more pathetic."

A hard pinch on my biceps pulled back into reality. "Ow, what the hell man?"

"Good, your astral projection has been terminated."

I rolled my eyes at Gerard who cachinnated at some awfully dry dad joke he said. Now that I think of it, I realized why they are called dad jokes. Taylor is just so funny.

I followed Damien's perplexed gaze to my wrist. "Where did you get that?"

Two days ago was my mom's funeral. During my shameless public and private breakdown, I was given by an angel. The jade bracelet was a symbol of eternal companionship. And of course, it tamed me. I was overwhelmed and even cried the more.

"It's sparkly, can I touch it?" I harshly swatted Gerard's hand away from my gem and as if he hasn't gotten the message, I firmly uttered a big no.

They were startled at my reaction. I didn't care as I spun the beads around my wrist lovingly with a melancholic simper on my lips and wasn't even alarmed at Montgomery's suspicious, weird countenance.

"Who gave you?" He asked.

"Alejandro."

°•°•°°•°•°°•°•°°•°°•°•°•°°•°