Wicked Stepbrother (Book Three)

by Lila Price

  “Our party,” he whispers. “Our rules.”

  “It’s rude.”

  “It’s fine.”

  He kisses me again, sweeping me off my feet, and I wrap my arms around his neck, my fingers buried in his hair.

  “Tristan,” I murmur against his lips, “God, my Tristan.”

  He undoes the first button on my dress, and as I look up and into his eyes, I see a man who really has healed, even if the odds were against it. I see my soul mate, my destiny.

  Our love, our rules, I think as he undoes another button. And as I melt into him, I know that we’re always going to beat the odds together.

  Forever.

  THE END

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  SPIKED

  (A Sports Romance)

  SPIKED (A Sports Romance) by Harper James

  1

  Atlanta was full of new things.

  Strange things.

  Confusing things, even.

  I’d never, for example, seen so many clubs proudly flying rainbow flags (which delighted me) or so many one-way streets (which horrified me). I’d never experienced traffic as bad as the connector at rush hour, and I’d definitely never had so many dining options at two o’clock in the morning (including a place where apparently one could order both egg rolls and nachos, delivered, which was the trifecta or strange, confusing, and new).

  But traffic aside, it was a thrilling place to be— not just Atlanta—but being enrolled at Harton University. Finally, finally, finally, I was out of my tiny town of Tifton and getting my actual life started.

  Even as I stood in the middle of Harton University’s beautiful campus, I was blown away by the fact that I was actually there.

  Everything felt fresh and new and vibrant. I could smell the grass and see the gorgeous buildings, and it was like a dream I didn’t want to end.

  A cheery girl on the school’s north campus handed me a thick folder. “Here you go— Copeland, Sasha, right?” She flashed a smile at me and continued talking. “This is your welcome packet. There’s a campus map, a social calendar for upcoming freshmen, and your housing information. Looks like you’re in Wells. Which…wait. That can’t be right,” the girl said, frowning and pulling the folder back.

  “No, Wells is right— that’s the one that was on the letter they sent to my house,” I said.

  “But Wells is the upperclassmen suites. You’re registered as a freshman,” the girl said. “You should be in Parks.”

  I smiled, though I could tell the expression was more than a little tight. “I’m a freshman, but I’m nineteen and didn’t really want to do all the freshman stuff with the eighteen year olds. So they put me in Wells.”

  “Oh! Ok,” the girl said, looking a little baffled. “Are you sure, though? The freshman mixers are a great way to meet people.”

  “I’m not really interested in mixers. I’m just trying to get my education,” I replied in my best polite, yet final, voice.

  “Sure,” the girl said. She shrugged and surrendered the folder. “If you change your mind, talk to your RA. She can probably get you on the freshman calendars even though you aren’t in Parks.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I tucked the folder under my arm and walked away— or at least, I tried to walk away. I was more or less stopped dead in my tracks by a row of cheerleaders who broke into cries of “Go Rams!” as I started down the path. At the end of the path, should I survive the cheerleader gauntlet, was the school’s costumed Ram mascot and a photographer.

  “No, thanks!” I called to them, and tried to walk the other direction.

  “Come on! You’re joining the herd. You’ll regret not getting a picture to commemorate it,” the nearest cheerleader said. She had a kind face with bright red lipstick and a Rams logo fake tattoo on one cheek.

  Cheerleaders and the sports they were attached to weren’t really my thing— but I didn’t hate them either. Everyone needed to find their tribe, after all; the cheerleaders’ tribe was for people who possessed amazing hair and unheard of flexibility; mine was with those who called the library home.

  “Come on,” the cheerleader pleaded. “One quick photo with Ramses! We’re supposed to get one with everyone who picks up their registration. They’re doing a big collage in the football program, the sort where they use everyone’s photo to make a giant ram? You won’t want to be left out.”

  I really wanted to get to my suite, so I could chart my schedule. But hey, I had come all the way to Atlanta to attend school— why not mark the occasion with a photo? It’d definitely look a lot nicer than one of my infamous scheduling charts in a scrapbook, someday.

  “Sure,” I said, finally. The girl slipped her slim arm through mine and led me down the path, cheerleaders on both sides hooting as we went. I was deposited by the Ram mascot’s— er, Ramses’— side, and a photographer knelt down to snap a picture.

  “Say, beat the hornets!” the photographer shouted.

  “Beat the hornets!” I said cheerfully. “Whoever they are.”

  The photographer lowered the camera, looking stunned. “What? Are you serious?”

  I realized that the cheerleaders had gone quiet. “Oh. Um. I just don’t really do the sports thing. Sorry.”

  The cheerleaders glanced at one another; the photographer looked at the ground. I turned to Ramses, like his giant cartoon eyes might offer some sort of solace; instead, the light hit the costume eyes in such a way that I could see through them, to the disappointed eyes of whomever was wearing the costume.

  “But I hope…we beat the hornets all the same?” I offered.

  “Honey, you’re gonna have to do a lot better than that here at Harton,” the photographer said, smiling pityingly, and before I could resume a smile, snapped a picture.

  Wells was toward the center of campus, in a fairly new building (unlike the freshman dorm, Parks, with its lack of air conditioning and concrete walls). I spun the keycard around my fingers and thought yet again about how hard I’d worked to get here.

  How many hours I’d slaved away at Tifton’s only fancy restaurant— the golf course clubhouse—where in-between tee-times, wealthy patrons could pop in for fried chicken and mint juleps and really get the full Southern dining experience.

  It’d taken more than a year of working every available shift at the clubhouse for me to save up enough for Harton. The realization that I was actually, truly in college now, hit me full force as I went up the steps, waved my keycard in front of my suite’s lock. It beeped, lit up green, then whirred open. I turned the handle and stepped into my new home.

  Which smelled like hair products.

  “Hello?” I called, stepping inside. The front door had opened into a common area, which looked very lived-in, especially given that today was move-in day. I frowned and called out again. “Anyone? Hello?”

  A stunning girl with thick auburn hair poked her head through one of the bedroom doors and smiled. Her teeth were so straight that she looked like she belonged in a mouthwash commercial. “Hey! Are you our new Lily?” she asked.

  I had no idea what she meant, but decided to play along.

  “I guess?” I said, stepping inside and letting the door swing shut behind me. I dropped my two shoulder bags down beside my rolling suitcase, and my arms thanked me for the relief.

  The auburn-haired girl stepped into the living area, a towel pulled around her body. I couldn’t help but blush a little— I couldn’t think of a time when anyone had seen me in just a towel. Tifton, like most small towns, was too modest for that.

  “I’m Piper,” the girl said, extending a hand, trying to hold the towel up with the other.

  “Sasha,” I said, smiling.

  “Is that the new Lily
?” another voice called.

  “Yep,” Piper yelled back. The other second girl emerged from her bedroom in a sundress with so many cutouts, it was a feat of engineering that it held together. She introduced herself as Kiersten, taking care to enunciate the name in a way that told me she was tired of being called “Curr-sten”, “Kristen”, and “Cry-sten.”

  “Look at you. You’re adorable!” Kiersten said, shaking my hand.

  “Thanks,” I said, unsure when I’d last been called adorable. Elementary school? “What’s a Lily?” I added.

  “She was our old suite mate. She isn’t coming back this year, so they filled her room with you,” Piper explained.

  “What happened to her?” I asked.

  “Flunked out. She was a party girl. The party girl, actually,” Kiersten said, looking a little too delighted at her suite mate’s demise. “We moved into Wells right after spring semester, but she was out before July. Not that we aren’t glad to meet you, but we are a little sad that we won’t get to keep using the spare room as a closet. We were going to do it up Kardashian style,” she finished wistfully.

  “Oh! So you’ve been here all summer?” I asked. That explained why the place looked so lived-in; the pictures on the walls, the array of empty liquor bottles decorating the top of the fridge, the un-vacuumed floor. It was tidy enough, but definitely didn’t have that new-apartment feel or fresh-paint smell.

  “Trust me, New Lily. Once you’re at Harton, you don’t want to go home, not even for a few months,” Piper said wryly. “Everyone basically stays over the summer. Everyone worth knowing anyway. Come on, I’ll show you your room.”

  Piper and Kiersten lead me to the back corner room. It was furnished with all the stock Harton stuff— a twin bed, a dresser, a desk and a nightstand, all of which were covered in lint and makeup dust.

  “Is the rest of your stuff in your car? We can get some of the guys to help carry it up,” Piper said. She was still wearing a towel, but was doing so with such confidence that if she’d told me it was a new style of dress, I’d have believed it.

  “Uh, no. This is all my stuff,” I said, motioning to the suitcase and my shoulder bag. “And I don’t have a car.”

  Piper and Kiersten looked at each other, wide eyes. “That’s it? That’s literally all you brought?” Piper asked.

  I tried to laugh their surprise off. “I mean, I have more stuff at home. But I had to take a bus up here, so it’s not like I could bring everything.”

  “You took a bus?” Kiersten asked.

  “Yeah. I don’t have a car.”

  “You don’t have a car?” Piper asked.

  I did my best not to show my annoyance with this line of questioning.

  “Nope. No car.” And even if I had one, I could never have paid for a parking pass on campus, I thought.

  “Everyone in Atlanta has a car,” Piper said. “You’re going to have to hitch rides if you want to go anywhere off campus.”

  “I guess…I’ll just try to stick to the campus,” I said, shrugging.

  “Oh, honey. Where are you from, again?” Piper asked sweetly.

  “Tifton. It’s near Boone.”

  “And where is Boone?”

  “Sort of near Valdosta.”

  “Oh,” Piper said, finally recognizing a city. “Well, Sasha, you’re in Atlanta now, and more importantly, you’re at Harton. Stick with us, okay? We’re basically experts at this place. Plus, guys are going to be all about this homegrown look,” she paused to motion at my body, “and we can tell you which ones are worth the trouble.”

  I laughed a little. “That sounds great. Thanks.”

  “So,” Kiersten said, “what are your lottery dates?”

  “I…don’t…know what you’re talking about,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “The football lottery tickets? Oh my god, you haven’t registered yet?” Kiersten said, looking horrified. “That’s okay, it’ll be okay, don’t worry. You’re a sophomore, so you’ll be third tier for dibs. It’s not great, but it’s better than being a freshman. They get shit tickets, and that’s why they always end up selling them— it’s more fun to just tailgate than watch from the nosebleeds. Where’d you transfer from, anyway?”

  “I didn’t transfer, actually,” I said. “I’m a freshman. I just took a year off after high school.”

  “Oh! So you took like a gap year! Like the British take,” Piper said.

  “Sure. Exactly,” I said. Technically, a gap year was more for fun and travel and relaxing, not smiling at smug corporate types who slapped my ass as I walked away from tables. But I had to admit, imagining that time as a gap year sounded a lot more pleasant, so I’d take it.

  “Right. Ok. Well, we’re going to get you registered for the ticket lottery, New Lily,” Piper said, shaking her head. “And you’re going out with us tonight.”

  “Tonight? I sort of have plans. But that’s really nice of you,” I said.

  “Cancel them. What are they?” Kiersten asked.

  “I was going to do a walk through of all my classes? I don’t know where the buildings are. Other than on the map,” I said.

  Kiersten looked beyond horrified now. “Jesus Christ, no. No, no, no. You’re our suite mate, so what you do reflects on us. You’re coming to Football House,” Kiersten said, shaking her head.

  I chewed my lip.

  Kiersten sighed dramatically. “Ok, fine. Football House is near the Arts and Sciences building. We’ll take you by it on the way, as long as you promise not to tell anyone about…uh…anything. Let us do the talking, okay? Trust me, New Lily, you’ve totally lucked out getting in our suite. We’re going to show you how to Harton like a pro.”

  2

  I had never thought of myself as a small town girl, even though in a sort of academic sense, I knew that’s what I was. But everyone from Tifton was a small town boy or girl— most people in my graduating class were working at the canning factory, or on a farm, or maybe, if they were really fancy, the Wal-Mart.

  Those that went to college didn’t look back, save the cursory visit at Christmas, which had made my “gap year” all the more humiliating. I was the valedictorian, after all— yet without a detailed explanation, when people saw me waitressing at the clubhouse they’d always assumed I was just another small town, go-nowhere type of girl, soon to be barefoot and pregnant.

  But still— there was a difference between a girl from a small town and a “small town girl”, and I wanted to make sure everyone at Harton understood I was the former. That’s why I agreed to this football house party thing.

  Academics are the priority, I reminded myself (as if I needed reminding). But hey, hadn’t I read somewhere that people with strong social connections and community ties were more likely to succeed? As long as I kept my eye on the prize— the degree— what could a little revelry hurt?

  “Why’s it called the football house?” I asked as we cut through the campus. True to their word, they’d taken me by the Arts and Sciences building, pointed out the library, and even shown me a picnic area where “people who like to study hang out when the weather is nice”.

  “Not the football house. Just Football House,” Piper explained, looking over her shoulder at me. They’d dressed me in one of Piper’s dresses, a number so small I didn’t know if I should pull it down or tug it up, and Kiersten’s shoes, which were the highest heels I’d ever walked in. I had insisted on doing my own makeup— I actually liked makeup, I just didn’t like quite as much of it as Piper and Kiersten did.

  “Ok. Why is it called Football House?” I corrected.

  “It’s where the football players hang out,” Kiersten said. “They can’t live there, since that’s considered a gift, so it’s sort of a…club? I guess? You’ll see. One of the alumni bought it. It’s amazing.”

  “Really? Some guy just gave a really nice house to the football players?” I asked.

  “Told you: Football is a way of life here. You know, it’s sort of a big deal tha
t you’re even getting to come. Freshmen usually aren’t invited. But you’re with us, and you’re New Lily, so you’ve got an in,” Piper said, nudging Sasha. Piper then jutted her chin forward. “That’s it up ahead.”

  My eyes widened.

  I’d been expecting something really nice, but not something that belonged in a magazine. It was an enormous house, framed by tall buildings on either side— clearly a relic from when this part of Atlanta was more neighborhood than city. It sat high behind a brick wall, which gave it the appearance of a castle, and there were wraparound decks on each level. There didn’t appear to be any sort of driveway or garage— a fact which made me certain it had to have been built sometime around the 1920s— but there were tall wooden doors in the brick wall, which were nearly obscured by the white jasmine climbing alongside and over the entryway. The entire place glowed gold and white and thumped with music, but it didn’t have the drunken, dirty sort of feel that I had to admit I’d been expecting. A sign out front, surrounded by ornate landscaping, labeled it the McMillan Alumni Hall.

  We walked across the street and up to the gates. This close, the jasmine smelled heady and thick, and the bass from the music boomed deep in my chest. Piper knocked on the door a few times; finally, someone swung it open.

  “Hey, Tyler,” Piper said sweetly.

  The big, six foot something guy gave her a friendly nod. “Hey Piper,” he said, grinning. His eyes fell on me, and he looked uneasy. “Who’s the new girl?”

  “The New Lily. She’s with us,” Kiersten said.

  “Um…let me check with the captains,” Tyler said, glancing over his shoulder.

  “Come on. It’s one girl. And she’s adorable, isn’t she? Plus she’s new to Atlanta so she doesn’t know anything. It’s hella charming,” Piper said, stepping forward to twine her fingers around Tyler’s.

  Tyler pressed his lips together, then glanced up the wide stone staircase behind him, which lead to the expansive front porch. “Okay. Yeah, it’ll be fine. New Lily, lay low, okay?”