Page 249 of Satan's Spawn

“Don’t listen to them, Crayton, you know they get hard-ons pissing you off.”

He inhales a long drag, holding the smoke in his lungs as he says, “Asshole’s lucky it wasn’t his dick.”

Levi’s voice bellows out from the football field, telling Archer to even out teams in a quick game of two-hand touch.

Which is really code for tackle.

“No thanks, I prefer to keep this gorgeous mug in tact!” Archer yells back.

“C’mon Beaumont! Stop being a pussy. Do you really want to miss the chance to drive Riggs to the ground?”

Archer seems to be thinking about it a moment before he shrugs. “Shit…say less.” He stands, dusting off his jeans and removing his hoodie over his head, exposing a surprising amount of muscle under his white tee.

Archer tosses the hoodie at Hendrix, where she haphazardly catches it, and he begins skipping down the bleachers toward the guys.

“Oh, I need a front row seat to this shitshow.” Hendrix doesn’t even look back as she jumps up, following behind Archer.

Crayton’s nose is caressing my hair as he wraps a hand around my midsection, squeezing both my shirt and my stomach.

Placing my hand over his I tell him, “I have something I wanna show you.”

He scoots deeper next to me, taking another pull before blowing the smoke to the side. “Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

“Something I found.”

Crayton watches as I pull the folded paper out of my pocket. I haven’t had the opportunity of bringing his poem up to him because he’s had tunnel vision the entire week with finding the damn knife he lost.

He’s less irritable today, so I figure fuck it, time for some answers.

“This was in the back of my English folder.”

Crayton tosses the cigarette before snatching the paper, unfolding it with a couple flicks of his wrist.

“How’d you get this?” He releases me, and I take note of his slight annoyance, even if he’s trying to contain it.

“No idea. Like I said, it was in the back of my folder.”

He crinkles the paper, shoving it in his jean pocket. “You weren’t supposed to see this.”

I turn awkwardly to face him. “I’m so happy I did, though. It’s beautiful.”

He shifts in his seat. “They’re just words, Rebecca. Don’t think too much into it.”

I look down at my hands. “Well, that stings. Especially if they were about me.”

He blows out a breath. “I didn’t mean it like that, Little Ghost. I’m just sayin’ don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“So, the poemisabout me?”

He suppresses a chuckle. “Who the fuck else would it be about?”

“I didn’t realize you felt that way, then. You were so cold to me.”

He lifts one of my legs over the bleacher, making me straddle it too. Squeezing both arms around my waist again, he pulls me tighter to hug my waist. “C’mon, Rebecca. You already know why I was a dick. Let’s not rehash that shit.”

“I’m not trying to, It’s just hard to believe you had feelings for me from the beginning.”

“I’m not sure if I would call it feelings…more like compulsion. And I tried to fight it the entire time.”