Page 12 of A Wreck, You Make Me (Bad Boys of Bardstown #3)

Chapter Three

THE WRECKING THORN

My name is Shepard Thorne, and I have three brothers and a sister.

Our father was a drunk and abusive asshole, who struggled to hold a job. And our mother was loving but perpetually tired from always having to provide for us. He abandoned us when I was around ten and she died a few years later from a brutal illness.

It affected all my siblings in a different way.

Conrad, the oldest, had to give up his rising career in the pros to take care of us.

It wasn’t really a stretch, given he’d always been an authority figure for us.

He’d always been emotionally controlled and iron-willed and all the tragedies in our life only made him worse.

Stellan, my twin, was the most similar to Conrad and so it was only natural for him to become Con’s right-hand man.

Although he struggled with his own private issues that forced him to keep all of us at a distance, including me.

Especially me. Ledger, our youngest brother, struggled with anger issues, and for the longest time was the family’s hothead who’d get into fights and get suspended.

Callie, our baby sister, became the good girl, who listened to her brothers and tried to keep the peace in a broken home.

Despite all the issues, we always had one thing in common: the drive to be there for each other. To take care of each other. Especially the younger siblings, Ledger and Callie.

Which is why I gave myself a self-appointed role: to not be like my siblings.

As in, someone with issues. Someone who got so affected by what life threw at me that I became crippled by it, developed anger issues like Ledger or hid secrets like Stellan.

I didn’t want to be a control freak like Conrad, who lost it when something wouldn’t go his way.

Or be so good, like Callie, that I finished my homework a week in advance.

No, I wanted to be someone no one had to worry about.

Someone my siblings thought didn’t need any extra attention or energy.

Someone they thought was cruising through life despite all the ups and downs and tragedies.

Because no one had any extra attention or energy to give after everything we’d been through.

No one had any space for another Thorne sibling with an issue.

So I decided to be that, the easy one. The one no one had to take seriously.

Although ironically, it wasn’t easy to do.

It wasn’t easy to become the easy-going brother.

I had to do a lot of burying. Of emotions, of events and incidents that could’ve affected me but I made sure didn’t.

I had to practice a lot of not-thinking, not-analyzing.

Most importantly, I had to become really good at using distractions.

School, homework, girls, parties. Soccer.

Anything and everything that would help me stay the course and stay unbothered.

Anything that would help me bury things and move on.

And so far, I’ve been good at that. Good at moving on. Getting over things and living my life.

Except now. Except her.

I can’t remember the first thing I noticed about her except to think she was hot.

Pretty shallow, I know. But I’m a guy; we’re not deep enough to wax poetic about a girl’s eyes or her personality.

Not at first sight at least. That came later.

Not the poetic part—I’m not a fucking poet—but the part where I thought her eyes were pretty and that her personality didn’t suck.

In fact, her personality was interesting, and to be honest, I was a little surprised by that.

To find that I could talk to her. That she didn’t bore me to death like all the other girls that came before.

But that’s my own fault, being bored to death by other girls.

I didn’t hook up with them for their conversation skills, just the distraction they could provide in the bedroom.

But she was different.

She wasn’t intimidated by my looks or my fame.

She didn’t need to hook up with me to check off an item on her bucket list, or so she could brag to her friends or leak the size of my dick—which is substantial—to the media.

It’s happened once; the team’s publicist had the article taken down and I was given a slap on the wrist, along with clear instructions to have them sign NDAs.

She wasn’t trying to fix me because she thought I was broken from my childhood.

And she wasn’t trying to tame me and my bad boy ways.

She was easy and I thought we were a perfect match.

Until she told me she was in love with someone else.

My twin brother.

I’m not gonna lie, I was shocked. I didn’t believe it.

I couldn’t . My twin isn’t the kind of guy girls fall in love with.

He’s cold as ice. He’s unemotional. He’s got a chip on his shoulder and a stick up his ass.

He has reasons, but still. Turns out, though, the girl who could melt my twin brother’s ice is the same girl I wanted for myself, Isadora Holmes.

Never thought I’d see the day—Stellan in love—but here it is.

In fact, I’m seeing it right now. Stellan standing with his girlfriend on the other side of the glass partition, fucking gazing into her eyes, looking like he’s completely lost in her.

She looks lost in him too, her lips tipped up in a smile.

Pretty soon they’re going to need a room.

In fact, I think they fucking need it right now.

Something shifts in my chest, in my gut, something sour, but I ignore it.

I try to bury it. But it doesn’t go away.

The more I ignore this bitter churn in my stomach, the stronger it becomes.

Until I want to do something about it. Something like smashing my fist through that glass and tearing them apart.

Guilt immediately follows but I can’t deny the bitterness in my veins. The poison.

“Shep, what the fuck?” someone snaps, bringing me out of my furious thoughts.

And suddenly I remember where I am. The sun beating at my back, my running legs.

Sweat streaming down my face, my heaving breaths.

And that glass partition overlooking the stands.

I’m at practice and I’m supposed to be passing the ball, but judging by the angry looks from one of my strikers, Riot Rivera, I missed it.

Making it my second missed pass today and eight in total in the last two weeks.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck .

I fist my hands at my sides, watching the guys on offense celebrating the goal.

Well, celebrating and surreptitiously watching me, their captain.

I wonder how many of them think that I’m really losing my touch.

That the Wrecking Thorn is officially ‘wrecked.’ Wasn’t that what the headline said?

That not only have I been ‘heart-wrecked’—a fabulous term they invented just for me—but as a result of that, my game seems to have been screwed up too.

They can’t imagine me being in top form this season after what happened.

But then again, I should be given a pass, seeing how the guy who stole my girl isn’t only my twin brother, but also my coach.

And getting beaten up by your twin brother slash coach over a girl before the championship game isn’t something most people come back from.

Especially when I insisted Stellan shouldn’t be fired over it.

That he should come back and coach the upcoming season.

It took a lot of management meetings and a lot of arguments, negotiations and whatnot.

But in the end the team felt it would be best to show unity to the world.

That the problem between brothers had been solved.

Not to mention, the girl who got between us is the team owner’s daughter so they simply wanted the matter buried.

Not that the media let anything stay buried but it was a good thought and it worked so my twin didn’t lose his job.

Which was the last thing I wanted for him.

Riot jogs over to me, but before I can see the doubt in his eyes or he can say anything to that effect, I speak. “I’m fine.”

“You sure about that?” he asks.

And I swear to God, I want to punch him.

I want to grab his collar and smash his face into the field until he passes out.

And then I want to beat every single motherfucker on the team who thinks I can’t do it.

Who doubts my skill, my game. I’m the fucking Wrecking Thorn.

I’m better than most of this team combined and I’ve got more experience than them too. How fucking dare they question me?

How dare they think I’m unfit for the season?

“I’d know, wouldn’t I?” I say with a bite in my voice.

Just then someone else jogs to where we’re standing, my brother Ledger, and I can barely suppress a growl. “Hey, you okay?”

Before I can reply Riot jumps in for me. “He says he’s fine.”

Ledger glances at Riot for a beat, something passing between them that annoys the shit out of me, before coming back to me. “We could take a break and?—”

“You call for a break,” I say, cutting him off, “and I’ll fucking break your nose.”

For a few seconds, all Ledger does is stare at me, and I notice Riot going alert in the periphery.

While I’m not one to shy away from a fist fight—In fact, I’m usually the one who provokes it; fighting makes for a good distraction too—I don’t do it with my youngest brother.

Mostly because he’s got anger issues, the kind that you need a therapist for.

But I don’t give a fuck. In fact, I want him to fight me.

I want someone to fight me so I can get this fucking aggression out of my blood, this storm that’s been brewing for the past few months.

I wonder if this is how my little brother feels all the time, his chest tight, his stomach churning.

His entire body shaking with restlessness.