The Little Things [Book 1]

Chapter Ten: Winger

"So, apparently Mark used to have a thing with Jack Cooper," Rachel started as she sat down with her friends during lunch. All four of her friends rolled their eyes, their features distorted by exasperation. She had interrupted them from a heated conversation about the following match next week.

"Rach, we don't really care," Dean told her, but she waved him off.

"No, you need to hear this. Mark started having a thing with Hal's brother last year. You remember Jack, right? He is one year older than us..."

"Yeah, we remember Jack, Rachel. We met him during our matches once," Thomas assured her.

"Well, Mark and he had a thing –"

"You've said that three times by now!" Bryan interrupted her, throwing a perfectly fine fry at her.

"The Coopers are Catholic. Like crazy, the-Pope-is-our-savior, kind of Catholic. When Jack came out, hell broke loose. Those nut-jobs tried to fix him. They tried to stop it and when they tried to send Jack to one of those prayer camps, he ran away. No one has seen him since then. Apparently, Hal thinks it's all Mark's fault and when a rumor came out that Mark is still in touch with Jack, Hal tried to get it out from Mark by attacking him".

The boys had remained silent and when that didn't change after Rachel finished, she slammed her hands against the table. Everyone turned to blink at her, even people from the tables nearby.

"That's terrible," she exclaimed.

"Well, yeah, but what do you us to do about it?" Blake asked her, stretching both arms upward.

"For one, you could react. You guys barely batted your eyes..."

"Mark's not our friend. Neither is Jack. Yes, we are friendly with Hal, but I wouldn't consider us friends. It's really not our business," Dean said with a shrug. The girl was left with her jaw hanging and her big blue eyes bugged.

"How did you even find this out?" Thomas said, drawing his friends' attention to himself.

He had tried to stay out of it, mainly because he had been frozen in his seat. He could clearly hear his own heartbeat, a thing that terrified him. The need to add something to the conversation had been so great that he had spoken up, but the crack in his voice had left him almost shaking.

"I have my sources," Rachel said and flicked her hair over her shoulder.

"You shouldn't believe rumors," Bryan said under his breath, playing with his food.

"It's not a rumor. Beca told me!" Rachel replied. At that Dean raised one eyebrow at her.

"So, we need to hear that a guy we're friendly with hit another guy we know, because our 'friend' is homophobic, but you can casually exchange gossip with Hal's girl?" Dean asked her, sarcasm dripping from his lips with each word. At that, Rachel pouted.

"First of all, she's not his girl, they just occasionally hook up. And secondly, it's not as if I told you to go and kill Hal. I only told you he –"

"You wanted to tell us gossip about your crush, Rach. And, honestly, none of us care about Mark McGregor," Dean cut her off.

"It didn't look like that back when couldn't stop talking about him breaking people's jaws," she snapped back at him.

"Guys, fucking stop," Bryan exclaimed with a groan and looked heavenward, annoyed by the conversation.

"Even Beca doesn't know the whole story. You can't be sure that's all that happened..." Dean muttered to himself. Bryan glared at him and without a second word, he stood up and walked off. They followed him with their eyes, but none of them said anything.