Page 7 of Save Me (Maxton Hall #1)

James

The mood in the changing room is tense, the air crackling with adrenaline.

These few moments before our pep talk from the coach and finally getting onto the field are the best and the worst at the same time.

In these few minutes, everything seems possible: victory and defeat, pride and shame, joyful triumph and unbearable frustration.

This is the time when the team spirit is at its peak and we’re at our most motivated.

From outside, I can hear the cheering spectators—our schoolmates and the opposing fans alike.

It’s hard to believe that six years ago, nobody at Maxton Hall gave a fuck about lacrosse.

In those days, it was a loser sport, a dumping ground for those who were shit at rugby or football, and as a result, the team was shit too.

A mishmash of adolescent beanpoles with spotty faces and gangly limbs that weren’t fully under control.

I thought it would be a laugh to sign up.

I was mainly hoping to seriously annoy my dad.

I never expected to actually enjoy it. Or that within a week or two, I’d have ambitions to make something of the team.

I convinced my mates to join in, told Lexie to hire a better coach or feel my dad’s wrath, and got our top designer to work on our uniforms.

It was the first time in my life that I’d felt passionate about anything. And it paid off. Now, six years later, after many hours of training several nights a week, after all the blood, sweat, tears, and a few broken bones, we’ve won three championships and we’re the school’s poster team.

We’ve worked our arses off to get where we are now. And every time I look into the determined faces of my team before a match, I feel the same pride.

Like I do now.

But there’s another emotion mixed in there today. Something so dark and painful that for the first time ever, I find it hard to pull the shoulder pads over my head.

This is the first game of my last year at the school.

After this season, I’m done. Lacrosse will have been nothing more than part of a slow, gruesome countdown that I can’t stop. However hard I try.

“You all right?” Wren asks, bumping me with his shoulder.

I shove the thought back down. We’re not at that point yet—I’ve got a whole year to do whatever I want. My grin is only half fake as I turn to him. “We’ll show those Eastview wankers.”

“McCormack is mine,” Alistair chimes in, as if he’d been waiting for his cue. “I’ve got a score to settle with him.”

“Alistair,” Kesh says from my left. He rubs his nose, where it was broken last year. “Drop it, OK.” His tone and the expressive way he looks at Alistair tell me this isn’t the first time they’ve had this conversation.

But the only reply he gets is “No.”

Last time we played them, McCormack—whose first name I sadly share—waited for Kesh to take his helmet off and then intentionally whacked him in the face with his stick.

The memory of the shock as Kesh was knocked to the ground is very vivid.

The blood spraying from his nose onto his top.

The moment when he lay there, unconscious.

McCormack was suspended for the next three matches, but the memory of Kesh’s battered face brings the rage to a boil again—and Alistair clearly feels the same, as he’s still staring Kesh down.

“Just don’t do anything stupid,” Kesh says, pulling on his blue shirt. Then he ties his hair back in a low, messy man-bun and shuts his locker.

“You know what he’s like,” mutters Wren, leaning on the locker, a wry grin on his face.

“I don’t care if I’m out for the rest of the season. McCormack’s going to pay.” Alistair claps Kesh on the shoulder. “Be grateful I’m there to fight for you and your honor.”

Before he can pull his hand away, Kesh grabs it and holds it there. He glances over his shoulder. “I mean it.”

Alistair narrows his amber-colored eyes to slits. “So do I.”

The two of them stare at each other a moment, and if the mood was tense earlier, now you could cut the air with a knife.

“Save your aggro for the game,” I say, in a voice that makes it clear I’m speaking as their captain, not their friend. Two pairs of angry eyes are fixed on me, and I clap my hands before anyone can reply.

The team gathers in the center of the room.

As I walk, I pull on my shirt with the number seventeen.

It’s so familiar, it’s like the fabric is part of me.

The dark feeling tries to force its way up again, but I fight it down with all my strength and focus instead on Mr. Freeman, our coach, who is now walking over to us from his office.

He’s a tall, rangy man, with such long limbs you’d take him for a distance runner or an athlete.

He pulls his blue cap over his hair, which has thinned and lightened over the years, straightens the peak, and puts his arms around me and Cyril, his co-captains.

He gazes around the room. “This might be your first season, or your last. Our aim is to win the title,” he growls. “Anything else is failure. So get out there and beat the bastards.”

The coach is a man of few words, but he doesn’t need them. Those few sentences are enough to rouse up a rumble of agreement.

“We have to make this the best season Maxton Hall has ever seen,” I add, a touch louder than the coach. “OK?”

The lads roar again, but it’s not enough for Cyril. He holds his hand to his ear. “OK?”

This time, the yell is so loud, my ears ring—which was the desired effect.

Then we pull on our helmets and grab our sticks. As I walk out of the changing room and down the narrow tunnel, it feels like I’m underwater—the sounds from outside are muffled, like there’s pressure on my ears. I hold tighter to my stick and lead my team out onto the field.

The stands are packed. Everyone cheers as we run out onto the field; the cheerleaders are dancing. Music blares from the loudspeakers, setting the ground shaking beneath my feet. Fresh air floods my lungs, and I feel more alive than I have for weeks.

The subs and coach head for the side of the field, while we walk out into the center and position ourselves opposite the other team, who all look just as motivated as us.

“This is going to be a great game,” Cyril mutters beside me, which is just what I was thinking.

As we wait for the referee, I let my eyes roam over the stands.

From here, about the only person I can make out is Lydia, who always sits right at the top with her friends, acting like she couldn’t care less about the entire performance.

I glance over to the edge of the field and check out the other team’s subs, then their coach, who is wandering over to say hello to Freeman.

At this point, someone’s brown hair catches my attention. A girl has gone over to them. She exchanges a few words and points to something in her hand. As the wind blows her hair off her face, I recognize her.

I seriously can’t afford to be seen with you.

The memory of her words feels like a punch in the guts. Nobody has ever said anything like that to me before.

Generally, the opposite is the case. People are desperate to be seen with me.

From the moment I started at this school, I’ve had people latching on to me, trying to get my attention.

It goes with the name. Since my mother’s family founded Beaufort’s, the gentlemen’s outfitters, a hundred and fifty years ago, building it up into a multibillion-pound empire, everyone in the country knows who we are.

The name “Beaufort” means money. Influence.

Power. And there are loads of people at Maxton Hall who think I could get them those things—or even a fraction of them—if they just butter me up enough.

I’d need more than the fingers of both hands to count how often I’ve partied all night with someone and then they’ve tried to slip me a design for a suit.

How often people have got chatting to me just so they can ask for my parents’ contact details.

How often people have tried to worm their way into my group of friends just so they can get gossip on Lydia and me and sell it to the press.

The picture of me doing a line of coke at Wren’s sixteenth two years ago is just one example.

And that’s not counting everything Lydia’s had to go through.

That’s why I pick my friends very carefully. Wren, Alistair, Cyril, and Kesh have no interest in my money—they’ve got more than enough of their own. Alistair and Cyril are from seriously posh families, Wren’s parents are filthy rich city traders, and Kesh’s dad is a famous film director.

People want us to notice them.

Everyone but…

My eyes are fixed on Ruby. Her dark hair shines in the sunlight, tousled by the wind.

She’s battling against her fringe, smoothing it down with one hand, but it’s pointless—two seconds later, it’s blowing everywhere again.

I’m pretty sure I’d never set eyes on her before the business with Lydia. Now I wonder how that was possible.

I seriously can’t afford to be seen with you.

Everything about her raises my suspicions—especially her piercing green eyes. I want to walk over to her, to see if she looks at other people the way she looked at me, with fire and scorn.

That girl saw my sister making out with a teacher. What is she planning? Is she just biding her time? It wouldn’t be the first time my family have hit the headlines.

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Dad had dinner with a colleague, and the media turned it into an affair; my parents had a row, and suddenly my mum was massively depressed; and they made me into a junkie on the brink of overdose, in need of rescue. God knows what the hacks would write if they heard about Lydia and Sutton.