The bell rings signaling the end of the school day. I sigh and grab all of my school work from my desk. My day today was pretty boring to be honest. George missed like half the day so I didn't get the chance to mess with him all morning, which is kind of what I do for fun around here. I mean I was happy he wasn't here to annoy me and all but I don't know for some reason I found myself looking for him.

Just to mess with him though, that's it.

As I head to my locker I put everything away and grab my gym bag which has all my football gear in it. Surprisingly this bag actually stops my whole locker from smelling like dirty gym clothes. It's from Nike and my dad got it for me for Christmas. One of my favourite gifts, it's so easy to carry too.

This sounds like an ad.

It's not I assure you.

I close my locker and walk towards the locker rooms. Classes end at 2:30 and practice starts at 3:00 so it gives us around thirty minutes to get ready.

"Clay!" Will yells when he spots me round the corner and the rest of the boys start banging on the lockers barking and screaming. This is a normal thing that happens when the captain enters the locker room, I have no idea why but It's a tradition that would happen even back when George was captain. I love the attention.

I smile and wave them off, acting as if this doesn't feed my ego and go to get changed. Everything is normal and it's just like another day before practice. It hits three and we all go down to the field together. Coach likes when we all arrive at the same time so we look more professional, so if one of us is late then all of us are.

We make it outside getting a few looks from teachers since we were causing so much noise in the halls, which they should be used to by now. As we finally get on the field a few of the boys start taking out the balls and get in pairs just throwing the ball to each other, we usually do this before coach comes out to tell us to start doing our warmup laps.

He approaches the field, but he's not alone. He has his arm wrapped around a boy I would notice anywhere.

George.

And he's not just walking with him, he has his jersey and football gear on. What the fuck is going on? I continue staring and suddenly get a football to the face. "Ow!" I yell rubbing the side of my head. Nick laughs in response.

"It's not my fault you weren't paying attention" he shrugs walking towards me. I don't respond and he turns his attention to what I have been looking at.

"No way, George is back?" he asks seeming shocked.

"I have no idea" I feel the anger rise to my face, why the fuck is he back and why wouldn't coach tell me? I always find everything out first since I'm captain and it's pissing me off that he wouldn't tell me this.

"Boys! Huddle up!" Coach yells and we all jog over. People start whispering about George being there. He looks me straight in the eyes wearing the smuggest look on his face and waves in the sassiest way, while only using his fingers. My hand balls up in a fist at the sight of it.

"Alright I know you are probably all confused right now, but don't get your hopes up, Davidson isn't officially on the team yet he's just here so I can test him"

"And if he passes?" Karl asks.

"Then he'll be back on the team." He states. Everyone starts cheering and tapping George on the back, feeding his fucking ego. I just stand there narrowing my eyes in his direction.

"Will he be captain again?" Alex asks. My attention being pulled away from George and now focusing on my coach.

"No, I like the way Robinson handles things, he is the perfect captain and he's our QB." He replies and gives me a nod, I nod back.

It feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I look back at George and he looks hurt by the words. You know what, I actually don't mind if he comes back now, the fact that I will remain captain even if he's on the team just proves that I am now superior than him in more ways then one. I don't know how I would of been able to have him bark orders at me like old times, that would have been hell.

But now, it's the other way around and I get this weird feeling in my stomach thinking of ways to boss him around, picturing him having to listen to what I say.

"Robinson can I speak to you for a second?" He waves me over and I make my way to him.

"What's up coach?" I ask curiously.

"Well, you see Davidson over here hasn't played in awhile" he puts his arm around George and looks down at him. "So I want you to keep him on his toes, challenge him, do whatever you want and if he can't keep up I'll be sure to take note of that. Got it?"

I don't think I could have grinned any wider. "Of course coach, Davidson and I will have a fun time won't we?" I look down at George and he rolls his eyes, his confidence seeming to have disappeared. Did he really think it would be that easy and he would just waltz back onto the team and take my captain band?

I'll be honest, he was one of the most athletic people I know, so challenging him won't be easy.

"Enough standing around and start your laps boys, Clay will lead" coach finally says and walks over to the benches. I turn my attention to the team.

"Alright everyone we will do five laps today and then a dynamic warmup like usual, we run in a line of twos so partner up, Davidson you're with me in the front." I call out to my teammates and they all do exactly as I asked.

Well, except George. He lazily walks over to the front with his arms crossed.

"Hurry up Davidson. Or do you want me to tell coach about your unwillingness to cooperate" I threaten and he jogs over to the front of the line. He scoffs and we start jogging setting a steady pace. The boys behind us fall into conversation.

"I hate you and I hate this." He mumbles from beside me.

"Oh yeah? Talk to me like that again and I'll make you do five extra laps." I look down at him and he runs so effortlessly like he hasn't been out of season for the past year or so.

"Clay shut up you can't tell me what to do, you are only captain because I got injured, so stop acting all high and mighty" he continues arguing with me.

"On the contrary Davidson, I can tell you what to do and guess what?" I chuckle lowly bending down a bit and speaking close to his ear. "You have to listen" I smirk. His face flushes a light shade of pink. "Oh and you could have used that argument before, but now? Coach just called me the 'perfect' captain" I pick up the pace since we just finished the first lap, every lap we go a bit quicker.

"Fuck you" he spits out.

"Okay, that's one extra lap for you" I reply. I'm loving this right now.

"No it's not" he continues saying through gritted teeth.

"That's two now"

"I hate you!" he screams out in frustration knowing I've won.

"That's three, keep going George let it out" I laugh clearly amused by the whole interaction.

I'm finally met with silence.

"You done?" I ask lifting one of my eyebrows. He stays quiet. "Wow number four, should we round up to five?" I continue sarcastically.

"Yes I'm done!" He replies sounding defeated.

"You're gonna listen now?" I egg him on knowing how much of a prideful person he is, so watching him struggle to admit defeat is intoxicating.

"Yes" he mumbles under his breath.

"Say 'I'll listen to captain Clay'" I start laughing at my own joke, he does not find it as funny. I mean this will probably be the only opportunity I'll ever get to have George do what I say.

"What? I'm not saying that" he answers sternly.

"Five do I hear a lap five anyone?" I pause, "Going once, going twi-"

"Okay! I'll... I'll listen to you" he huffs.

"To who? I didn't quite catch that"

"Captain... Clay" he says quietly making direct eye contact with the ground.

"See that wasn't so hard to admit now was it?" I laugh and pat his back, he immediately pushes me off of him. I start laughing even harder now and he looks anywhere but my direction.

The group and I finish our laps and George does his extra four. Some of the boys start laughing at him but he plays it off well by acting like he needs to prove himself and he wanted to do this.

The rest of the practice goes by well. I continuously give George difficult tasks to do and he seems to nail them perfectly which kind of gets on my nerves, but he's very entertaining to watch play. I made him do a couple of runs and gave him some pretty hard throws to catch but he ended up impressing everyone. Coach Dave of course ended up welcoming George to the team and he seemed very happy about it. I mean I do somewhat feel happy about it as well, this just means I'll have even more time to screw with him and he is a very good player, I could really use him as one of my receivers.

It'll make me look better too.

We all head to the change rooms and the boys start cheering welcoming George back on the team. I even pitch in and start clapping which surprises a few of them. All the boys get changed and start heading out, as captain I'm always last to leave because I'm in charge of the key and I have to lock the room.

"Wanna play Minecraft tonight?" Nick asks me on his way out.

"Obviously" I answer and we fist bump.

"Alright talk to you later then!" He leaves the room leaving me and one other person I hear around the corner. I sign and get up walking towards the noise. "Whoever that is hurry the fuck up, I'm trying to leave and you're tak-" I pause mid sentence looking over at him. He's in the middle of changing his shirt and there are bruises all over his torso. I don't know what to do. When he manages to put it on he looks at me and acts like nothing happened.

"Jeez you pervert" he jokes and starts hurrying, pushing past me. I grab his wrist.

"George, who did that?" Concern filling my voice as I stare into his eyes searching for some type of answer. Who the fuck did that to him? Everything aside no one should ever have to go through something like this. Anger starts seeping through me as I try to act like I don't care for him right now but I can't just sit around if someone is getting hurt like this.

Especially if it's George.

"Who did what?" his voice laced with fake innocence and he pulls away from my grasp. "I got to go Clay, talk to you tomorrow" he quickly exists the room and I stand there frozen.

My blood starts to boil at the mere thought of George being hurt. Those spots looked extremely painful. Why would anyone want to hurt him? He hides it all so well, he acts all confident and never seems to break around anyone, putting up this front that his life is perfect and that he can handle anything.

Why do I care about him right now. I don't understand. I hate the guy with all my guts I really do. But I also feel like I want to protect him with everything in my body. I can't even picture George having to deal with this on his own and it's gonna be hard to confront him because he puts up these walls to hid his true feelings.

Whoever did this to him has another thing coming.