A cool breeze made it's way through the crowd of cheering people. It would have been a relief on any normal night, but now it was colder than usual; a jack would have really come in handy right about now.

Noticing my shiver, Jase wrapped his muscular arms around me and a warmth surrounded my body. He looked down at me and then kissed my forehead.

"How's your eye?" He randomly asked, carefully brushing his thumb over my bruise. Due to my makeup skills it was almost unnoticeable, but I wasn't an expert, leaving it somewhat exposed. 

"It's seen better days," I said, not looking at him, but rather the game he made me pay for us to go into.

Counting up the money he owed me became tiring so I just gave up. Now it almost felt like I was paying for everything. Of course I had to give him the money to look like he was the gentleman and paying for the both of us, even though he wasn't.

I could feel Jason's lips against my ear as he whispered, "My house tonight?" It sounded like a question, but I knew it wasn't.

"Just let me tell the parents that I'll be staying at Ronni's tonight." I sent him a wink before pulling my phone out and informing my parents I wouldn't be coming home tonight. 

We didn't even have to worry about Jase's parents, because he didn't have any. He lived with his foster parents ever since freshman year for inappropriate living conditions, at least that's what Jase always called it. Talking about his parents wasn't something he was big on. The first time I brought them up he gave me a bloody nose.

He wasn't a bad guy, he just had . . . issues.

Anyway, his foster parents weren't model guardians either, they usually were gone all weekend doing God knows what. I never had the nerve to ask ever since he reacted so badly to personal questions. Usually if I had any type of question about living conditions, I left it in my head, in hope for answers. There were never any answer, though. Only more quarrels.

"They said it was fine as long as i go to my physical in time tomorrow." Noticing his nervous expression as he looked at my bruise, I added, "I won't say anything."

He cleared his throat and said, "What if they ask?"

"I hit my head while practicing a dive," I reply.

A smirk made it's way on Jason's face. "That's my girl." He pulled me closer to him, sending more comforting warmth through me.

I've known for a while that going to the doctor with this bruise would be risky, but I wasn't going to give up swimming just because I got a bruise. They'd believe my lie, I was a great liar. This was mostly because of my innocent look; my big blue puppy eyes practically screamed of innocence.

My eyes caught Veronica cheering for a moment. Her little jumps assisted by her pom poms made her that much more adorable. Her brown hair was shorter than mine, locks of brown cascading just above her breast line. She was a bit taller than the other cheerleaders, standing at about five eight. Noticing I was looking at her, she waved in my direction and send me an air kiss.

This moment of course was ruined when Jase "caught" her kiss and threw it to the side, shaking his head and pointing at me while mouthing the word "mine". Ronni stuck her tongue out at him in return and then continued with her cheering.

"Lighten up," I told him. "She's not your competition."

"I can't help it," said Jase. "I'm protective over you."

"Possessive is more the word you were looking for."

He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Hey mister," I complained, goosebumps were already starting to reappear over my arms. "You're supposed to be warming me up."

"I'll be doing more than that later." He winked as he looked at my body, his eyes turning a darker shade of blue from lust.

I let out a small laugh. "You're ridiculous."

He scoffed. "Ridiculously amazing.

After the game was over, everyone was a little deflated over our loss, but next week we had another chance to redeem ourselves at the finals. Our school took Lacrosse really seriously, so I was sure the coach would go a lot harder on the team at practice this week. This made me feel sorry for Nick and Jaden who were on the team. Especially Jaden, since he was the goalie and if he let goals in, naturally they could blame the loss on him.

Jase and I weren't into Lacrosse or cheerleading. Both of us were swimmer than that was actually how we noticed each other. both of us got top three in our divisions and the top six swimmers of the school were represented in state. For quite a while, we were just friends. Then a few months ago Jase asked me to randomly start going on outings with just the two of us and by date number three we were already making out before the end of the night. The day after that was when he finally asked me to be his girlfriend and I couldn't be happier.

I curled myself tighter into Jason's arms as we waited for our friends to come out of the locker rooms.

Camilla was the first one to spot us. Like me, Cam wasn't into cheerleading; unlike me, she wasn't into sports at all. If something had to do with exercise, Camilla would decide to ignore it's existence. She wasn't fat, but she was heavier set than most of the girls at school. That was probably the thing I loved most about her, she knew she wasn't as skinny as all the other girls, but she was comfortable with who she was anyway.

That's always a quality to admire. I wish I had felt as confident as she did when I wasn't a size three, but a seven instead.

"Hey guys," Camilla said as she approached us. "How long does it take to take a damn shower?"

I let out a giggle and shrugged.

"I want some fro yo, I've been craving it all day." She threw her head back in impatience and looked back at us. You guys are coming, right?"

When I replied with a yes, and Jase with a no, we looked at each other questioningly.

"But we go every week," I pouted.

"Yeah." I suddenly heard Veronica's voice behind us. "We got together after every game."

Jase grabbed my arm and pulled me closer to him. "I thought it would just be you and me tonight." His grip was a little tighter than comfortable, getting tighter the longer it took for me to reply.

"But Jase, we can't just ditch them," I complained. "We could just be there for a little-"

His glare silenced me as his eyes grew darker, this time not from lust, but from anger. My skin crawled as a cold shiver creeped up my spine. Sighing I turned back to Ronni and Came, who didn't look too happy that I was picking Jase over time with them.

"Sorry guys." I sighed and tried to read Jason's body language as I spoke, hoping he wasn't too upset that I had talked back to him. "Tell Nick and Jaden we'll see them on Monday."

Even though my friends were upset with my decision, they knew I just didn't want to start a with with my boyfriend, although I already knew one was going to come up. I gave them both a goodbye hug and left hand in hand with Jason. His grip was still more intense than I would have liked, but I tried not to show my discomfort.

The car ride to his house was silent besides the radio quietly playing in the background. I could feel the tension in the car and I just wished that he would let out his anger by yelling at me already, because then I knew it would be the end of it =. He didn't yell though, he didn't say a word. Just drove.

It was obvious he was trying to hold in his anger and not let it control him, but I knew him better than he knew himself, because I knew holding in his anger was just going to make him snap.

Once we rolled into his driveway, that uneasy feeling made its way into the pit of my stomach. We sat quietly with the car off, in silence for what felt like forever before Jase unbuckled himself and slammed the door behind him as he walked towards his house. Not wanting to piss him off even more, I followed him almost immediately.

I closed the door behind me after entering the house. Soon after he knew nothing could be seen or heard from anyone, the sharp sting that I've felt quite a few times before, revisited my senses.

Silence followed his actions as the both of us were at the a stand still for a few seconds. Then he spoke. "Never talk back to me like that in public again, understand? I don't need you to tell me how to live my life."

The hot sting was now turning into more of a deep throbbing and I couldn't help but let a single tear fall.

"Come on." Jase tugged on my arm -more lightly this time- leading me into the kitchen. He grabbed an ice pack from the freezer, wrapped it in a paper towel, then handed it to me.

I pressed it against my cheek, still burning from the slap." I'm sorry," I apologized, my words coming out in a whimper.

A shaky exhale came from Jase's mouth before he said anything. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. I lost my temper for a stupid reason."

"It's okay," I assured him. I knew what he did wasn't okay. Hitting someone was never okay, but Jase was just a troubled guy. It wasn't his fault that he had anger problems, or that he couldn't control himself at time. All I knew was that I needed to be patient for him.

When the ice made contact with my cheek, the ache from just the slightest touch made me grit my teeth.

After the pain started to subside we went upstairs to his room. Even after being up there alone with him so many times, it still made me nervous to be alone with him. He just had that intimidating vibe about him.

I laid down on his bed on my back and he followed, climbing on top of me, giving me a quick peck before glancing down at my bruise that was now shielding the other one. "It's actually not that bad." He traced it carefully with his fingers, bringing soreness over where he made contact.

I grabbed his wrist and pushed his arm away. "It still hurts."

A groan escaped from his lips as he laid beside me on the bed. It was queen sized, so we didn't have much trouble with room. There was a hint of irritation on his features, but it was obvious he was going to let me sudden action slide.

"You do know that I don't like hurting you, right?" He whispered, grabbing my hand. I laced my fingers with his and nodded. "I'm not sadistic. It hurts me just as much as it hurts you. Maybe more, even."

I doubted that, but I wasn't going to be brave enough to deny his words. "I know you don't like hurting me." That part I did believe.

Jase smiled before curling his muscular arms around me. I always felt so safe around him that it was almost hard to believe that he's the one who's hurt me the most. Right now, I didn't care though, because who would if they were snuggled up against a hot guy on their bed?

Turning to face him, a whiff of his cologne was still on his shirt and I savored the familiar scent. It was actually the cologne I picked out for him for our one month to celebrate. Since he found out that I hated flowers with my dear life, he got me a big bear that was holding a heart that said "One Month" in cursive. It was cheesy and cheap compared to what I got him, but I thought it was too cute to even care.

Lifting my head towards his, I kissed him passionately and it all escalated from there.

Waking up the next morning, strong arms were holding me to as chest, reminding me where I was. Carefully, I unwrapped myself from his grip and slid from under the covers. The cool breeze from the open window made me shiver slightly. I wasn't wearing much, just Jase's shirt from the night before.

If my parents knew I was here instead of at Veronica's like I said I was, I'd probably be dead. Like really dead. My parents were those kind of parents where you had to be a perfect little angel for them to like you, which explained their distaste for my older brother Kyle.

Kyle is twenty and still lives at home, and my parents were already believing he'd mooch off of them for the rest of his life. They didn't bother him much while he was in his room, and he wasn't one to come down unless he was grabbing food from the fridge or leaving with his friends.

A grumble came from behind me after an adorable yawning sound. "You just wake up?" Jase's voice sounded incredibly sexy when he just woke up. He was definitely a morning person, because he was always the sweetest person ever in the mornings.

I nodded and found myself back in his arms within the moment. Wrapping my arms around his neck, we both tried to avoid each other's morning breath while pulling ourselves closer to one another.

"Hungry?" He said, finally breaking the comfortable silence.

I smiled. "Yeah, pancakes?"

"Would you expect any less from me?" He smiled back and kissed my forehead before rolling out of bed in just his boxers.

Looking over at his abs I was reminded just what a great sport swimming was. Swimming worked pretty much every muscle in the human body, making it a very muscle building sport.

Walking over to his drawer, Jase took out a pair of his boxers. "Here." He handed them to me and watched as I slid them over my bottom half. "I don't know if I'd be able to control myself if you didn't have anything on besides my shirt.

I smirked and walked passed him and down the stairs.

While Jase was mixing the pancakes, I made some bacon so that he wouldn't get mad that I wasn't doing anything. We both preferred turkey bacon to regular since there was less fat, and we were all about healthy, but when it came to pancakes, we knew there was no other way to eat them other than drown them in syrup. Of course, we had to put something healthy with it, so we put bananas in the mix.

After we were done eating we snuggled on his couch until he had to take me home. It was quiet when I got back because my parents were out, probably volunteering at some homeless shelter. Kyle was home, though. I could hear the bass coming from the basement.

Even though my brother and my parents had a rough relationship, we still talked, just not as much as I'd like.

"Hey!" I yelled as I barged into his room. "Hey, psycho!"

He didn't stop playing, just turned his amp up louder as he noticed I was trying to talk to him. Obviously, he was having one of his off days or else he wouldn't be a complete jackass.

Without saying another word -knowing it wouldn't make a difference- I stomped to the outlet and pulled the plug. "What the hell!"

"Why are you being such a dick?" I crossed my arms over my chest, scowling at my older brother.

"Well from how Rachelle and Thomas talk about me, you should know by now," Kyle said, addressing our parents by their first names, then walking back to plug in his amp. "I'm selfish and a disgrace to the Kane family because I've been in too many fights, or my grades were never any good, or the fact that I still haven't gone to college yet, even though I only got out of school two years ago and-" He stopped mid sentence when he squinted at me through the darkness of his room.

He pulled me to the part of the room where a lamp lit up a small corner. "What happened?"

"What? Now you suddenly care?" I spat. "I have to go to my doctor's appointment now."

"Har," he called after me, I stopped in my tracks at the sound of his voice. "Who did that to you?"

"No one." My life wasn't very convincing, but I didn't leave any time for Kyle to stop me.

Leaving the room, I heard a grunt from a frustrated Kyle, and then the amps crackling from being re-plugged in. Then the sound of a bass grew louder and louder, until I was out the door.