by Elle Thorpe
Though there were some problems even Willa couldn’t help me with. And some I wouldn’t tell her, solely for the fact I loved her like a mother, and I didn’t want her worrying about me. So, instead, I laughed a little too loudly and made my posture as casual as possible. “Everything is great. Football training is about to start up in earnest, though. Reckon you can tell Coach to go easy on us this year?”
She elbowed me. “Like he’d listen. You’ll thank him when you make the playoffs this year, though. Last chance before you go off to play college ball.”
The smile slid off my face, and I turned away, pulling open the refrigerator door so she wouldn’t notice. “You got anything to eat?” I asked, avoiding her comments about college. “I’m starving.”
She pushed me out of the way and closed the door. “Rafe and Colt already cleaned me out. They’re upstairs in his room. If you’re quick, they might not have devoured the lot.”
I bent and kissed her cheek, then loped toward the stairs and thundered up them. Music poured out from Colt’s bedroom in the attic, but a different noise caught my attention. I frowned and detoured to my left, knocking quietly on the door. The noise from within stopped abruptly.
“Aria?” I asked, without opening the door. “You okay?”
There was a moment of silence, then, “Go away, Banjo.”
Nope. That wasn’t going to do. I clapped a hand over my eyes and turned the door handle, letting myself inside. “If you’re not decent, get a robe on or something because you’ve got ten seconds before I move my hand. Ten…nine…
Something hard bounced off my head. I moved my hand to rub what was probably going to be a bruise. “Shit, Ari. That hurt!” I complained.
Aria, Colt’s younger sister, glared at me. “Good! It was supposed to. Get out of my room.”
“Not until you tell me why you’re crying.”
“I wasn’t!”
Tearstains streaked her cheeks, her eyes bloodshot.
“I call bullshit.”
“I mean it, Banjo. Leave me alone. It’s none of your business.”
“Boy drama?”
She rolled her eyes. “Do you really think I’d be crying over a boy?”
I shrugged. “Isn’t that what girls do?”
“Only the dumb ones,” she muttered.
“Wow. Harsh. We boys mean so little, huh?”
She softened. “I’d cry over you, B. You know, if you got a raging case of gonorrhea and died or something. I’d miss my brother’s annoying best friend barging into my room whenever he feels like it.”
I winced at the thought of my headstone saying I’d died from an out-of-control STD. Was that even possible? My hands subconsciously drifted to cover my junk.
Ari’s mouth lifted at the corners.
A relief settled over me. She wasn’t just Colt’s younger sister. I’d always thought of her as mine, too, and even though we liked to give each other a hard time, I knew she’d been crying and I hated it.
But I also knew all about not wanting to share your secrets with the world. And I wasn’t going to try to pry Ari’s from her if she wasn’t ready to share them on her own. I pulled the door closed a little, but at the last moment, before she disappeared from sight, I added, “I’m right next door whenever you want to talk about it. Okay?”
Her smile turned sad, but she nodded. “My brother is probably waiting for you. And judging by the music he’s been blasting since he got home from school, he’s in a mood. Good luck with that.”
Yeah. Great. I closed the door and took the final set of stairs to Colt’s bedroom. The music grew louder with every step and then hit me square in the face when I let myself in. Rafe sat by an open window, blowing smoke out of it, while Colt thrashed an electric guitar, playing a song I didn’t recognize. Rafe lifted his joint in greeting and held it out to me, but I shook my head and instead flopped down on Colt’s bed, kicking off my shoes and making myself comfortable on his pillows.
The room was large, which was why Willa had let Colt have it. It had space for my drum kit, which lived here permanently so Colt and I could practice together. My brother had claimed the attic in our house, running his business from it. Our bedrooms on the second level, like Aria’s, were small and cramped. Definitely not big enough for two guys and the mess of thrift shop instruments they’d taught themselves how to play over the years.
Colt didn’t even look up from his guitar. He had his eyes closed, his fingers all over the fret, pulling sounds from the guitar that I’d never been capable of. Eventually, when he showed no signs of stopping, I went over to my drums and took up a beat.
The stress left me as I played. Every hit of my sticks against the top head released a little more of the pent-up frustration I constantly carried.
“That’s hot,” Rafe yelled from his perch by the window. “I hope you can remember whatever you two are playing. That could be something.”
Colt slammed his open palm over the strings, an off-key screech filling the room. I winced and stopped playing, too. Colt glared at Rafe.
“What?” Rafe asked.
“You killed my flow.”
Rafe rolled his eyes. “You obviously weren’t really in it if you even heard what I said. So shut up.”
Colt glared at him.
Rafe didn’t back down.
I sighed. “Seriously, knock it off, both of you. Colt, you want to tell us what’s up your ass today?”
He shoved his guitar, none too gently, into its stand. Then sank down on his bed. “Nothing. I’m fine. Move on.”
I eyed him warily. “Man, you need to call Gillian to come suck your dick or something.”
“She’s exactly what I don’t need right now.”
I shot a glance at Rafe. He shrugged.
I turned back to Colt. “Don’t tell me Mommy and Daddy are on the rocks?”
Colt shrugged. “No, we’re fine. I’m just not in the mood for her shit this afternoon, and she’s been blowing up my phone. I can’t deal, and I don’t want to fucking talk about it. Change the subject.”
“Fine. Let’s talk about the new girl. I call dibs.” I gave them both a shit-eating grin. “You know that girl I was telling you about from my gig in Providence last night? It’s her.”
“What?” Rafe and Colt said in unison.
I nodded. “Yeah, small fucking world, huh? She lives in that big-ass mansion, and then she turns up at Saint View. Crazy.”
Rafe was shaking his head. “Great story, but you ain’t calling dibs. She’s fine. And my dad actually seems to like her.”
I scoffed. “You want to date her because your dad approves?”
Rafe reached over and shoved me in the arm, sending my stool sliding on its wheels. “No, I want to date her because I can’t stop thinking about how hot her legs looked in that skirt.”
I grinned to show him I didn’t mean anything by the teasing. We all knew Rafe’s dad was a dick and made his life impossible at every opportunity. But that didn’t mean I was letting Rafe have a crack at Lacey. Not when I’d spent all night thinking about her, trying to work out how I could get her phone number. She’d rushed off with the police, leaving me standing by her front door, wondering what the hell had happened. One minute we’d been going upstairs, her soft hand wrapped around mine and her citrus scent making me wild. Then next minute I was staring at her front door and she was gone. If my lips hadn’t still tingled from the tiniest of kisses we’d shared, I would have thought I’d imagined her.
“Can you both fucking shut up about her? Neither of you are doing anything with her.”
I raised an eyebrow in Colt’s direction, ready to make a crack about Gillian not being enough for him, and that if he wanted Lacey, too, he’d have to get in line. But the laughter fell from my lips when my gaze met his.
“You’re serious?”
“As a fucking heart attack. Leave her alone.”
Rafe frowned. “I know your dark and mysterious thing works on girls, but I’ve known you
since kindergarten. So you’re gonna have to give me more than that.”
Colt shook his head. “She isn’t going to be around for long. You saw her today. She doesn’t belong here. And I’m going to make sure she goes back where she came from.”
“What exactly did she do that’s got your panties in a bunch?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“So you’ve just decided to hate her and run her out of school for sport?” Rafe seemed confused. “You’re a prick, but not normally to this degree.”
None of this made any fucking sense.
“I’m going to do whatever I have to do. And you two are as well.”
I held up my hands. “Nah, Colt. I’m not. Whatever you’ve got against her, you’re going to have to get over. I like her.”
Colt scoffed. “You like her tits.”
“True,” I admitted. “But she didn’t talk to me like I was beneath her at the funeral. There’s something between us. And I know she was feeling it, too. I’m not playing when I say I want to get to know her.”
Colt paused for a moment, but then a flash of pain twisted his features. He got it under control quick, but I’d seen it. And judging by the expression on Rafe’s face, he’d seen it, too. He crossed the room and sat next to Colt on his bed. “We aren’t just going to run a girl out of school for no reason. You gotta give us something.”
When Colt lifted his head, his eyes were glassy. I recoiled. I’d known Colt since just before our tenth birthdays. And the only time I’d ever seen him cry was when he’d told us his dad was dying from cancer.
“Fuck,” I swore under my breath. I abandoned the drums and sat on the floor in front of the other two. “What the fuck happened? Who is this girl to get you like this?”
Colt shook his head. “It’s not my place to say. I swear, if I could tell you, I would.”
“Since when do we have secrets from each other?” I asked, a little hurt. “We’re brothers.”
Colt swallowed hard and met both our gazes before he said anything. “I’ve never asked you guys for anything, have I? I’ve been there for you, keeping your secrets about your brother—” he looked at me, and a flush crawled up the back of my neck. He turned to Rafe. “And about your dad?”
We both nodded.
His gaze hardened. “Lacey needs to go back where she came from. For all of our sakes.”
8
Lacey
Jagger chatted happily all the way to school the next morning, but I was too in my head to hear any of it. I was still replaying yesterday afternoon in my mind. Making an enemy of Colt was stupid. I’d tossed and turned last night, unable to sleep over it.
I couldn’t change it. And I wasn’t going to apologize. But we’d obviously gotten off on the wrong foot, and maybe I could do something to steer us back in the right direction. I didn’t know what but hoped an opportunity might present itself.
Jagger and I parted ways in the main hall when the first bell rang, and the morning was nothing out of the ordinary. I had all the same subjects as yesterday, and I disguised myself in each classroom, sinking into seats in back rows and corners wherever possible, and paying next to no attention to the teacher.
My education really was going to suffer, but that was a problem I could deal with once I’d done what I came here to do.
When the bell rang for lunch, I hurried from math, down the crowded hall toward the cafeteria where I was supposed to meet Jagger. I’d somehow managed to not bump into her all day. Also noticeably missing were Banjo, Rafe, and Colt. Rafe was in my math class, so I guessed he was absent today. Or maybe he just hadn’t bothered showing up and was getting stoned behind the gym again.
A gleam of gold in my peripheral vision had me putting on the brakes before I got to the cafeteria doors. I hadn’t come down this far yesterday, after my lunch break got swallowed up by the guidance counselor. If I had, there’s no way I would have missed the gigantic glassed-in trophy cabinet. The thing was huge, standing floor to ceiling and several feet wide. Every shelf was filled with sporting memorabilia. Trophies, banners, certificates, awards, photos…it was a mishmash, completely unappealing to the eye, most things obviously just shoved in haphazardly, but I was a little surprised by how much there was. This school might not have been up there in the academic stakes, but judging by the sheer number of trophies, sports was where they excelled. Football, cheerleading, lacrosse, basketball… I let my gaze flick over each one until my eye snagged on a familiar photo.
Last year’s football team. The same photo from the website. But this copy had the entire team’s names printed beneath it in tiny white writing, on a maroon-colored background. Bingo. Exactly what I needed so Meredith and I could get our stalk on. I pulled my phone out and through the grubby glass, snapped a photo. I tapped the screen to enlarge it. “Yep, that’ll do,” I murmured after ensuring I could read the writing. Someone really needed to clean that glass more often, though. Gross.
“What are you doing?” Jagger asked, coming up behind me.
I hit the home button on my phone, making the photo disappear, but I obviously wasn’t quick enough.
She side-eyed me. “Don’t tell me you have a thing for jocks?”
“Oh.” I shoved the phone in the pocket of my jeans. Designer jeans, but I hoped most of the kids wouldn’t notice that. “Um, yeah.” I tried to think quick. I really didn’t have a thing for jocks. I’d always gone for musicians in the past, but how else could I explain taking photos of the football team? I smiled at her and shrugged, like I was a bit embarrassed about being busted checking them out. “I guess I kind of do.”
Jagger gave an exaggerated sigh. Her crimson hair had streaks of purple in it today, which matched the violet liner she’d liberally applied around her eyes. “I can admit that there are some hotties on the team. But most of them date the cheerleaders.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Please tell me you aren’t a cheerleader. I don’t know if we can still be friends if you are.”
I shook my head. “God, no. We didn’t even have a cheerleading squad at my old school.”
“Really?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Providence School for Girls wasn’t big on sports like football.”
“You didn’t have a girls’ team?”
I tried to imagine Meredith or any of my other old friends wanting to play football…and just couldn’t. Even getting them to their mandatory gym class had been met with complaints about broken nails and running makeup. There’d even been a petition, at one point, to cancel gym altogether and half the alumni had signed it, putting pressure on my uncle. Eventually, he’d worked with the gym teachers, and gym had changed from running laps, rope climbs, and shooting hoops, to yoga, Pilates, and yogalates…whatever the hell that was. That had pacified the masses.
“No, definitely not. We went to watch Edgely play a few times, though.”
Jagger wrinkled her nose. “Edgely Academy?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Why do you say that like it tastes bad?”
“Because they probably do?” She snorted at her own joke. “They’re notorious for cheating and playing dirty. I just assume they’re nasty all round. But maybe you’d know for sure?”
I shrugged.
“Ooooh, there’s a story there! Come on, tell me over lunch.”
I let myself be pulled along and contemplated exactly how much to tell Jagger about my life. I didn’t want to lie. I’d dated a few guys from Edgely. Made out with a couple, even. But it had never gone further than that. The interest just hadn’t been there on my behalf.
But it had been with Banjo. Would I have slept with him if we hadn’t been interrupted? I didn’t know. All I knew was I’d wanted to throw caution to the wind and just live in the moment. I didn’t know if that was because of him or if I would have felt the same with any guy who had been available that day.
It was probably better we hadn’t. I could only imagine how awkward that would have made school. It was awkward enough, just after sharing that o
ne, sort-of-almost kiss. Plus, he was on the football team, which made him one of my suspects. No. Definitely better that we’d been interrupted.
“Have you seen Banjo today?” I asked as we pushed through the swinging doors. A weird aroma wrinkled my nose. Probably the slop that was being served up on plates. Great. Not only was I going to end up with a half-baked education, but I was probably going to end up with food poisoning, too. I vowed to bring a packed lunch tomorrow.
I scanned the room, my gaze coming to rest on one familiar face. Banjo’s lazy gaze rolled over my body, a slow grin pulling at the corners of his mouth. My heart fluttered. He sat at a table in the center of the crowded room, entirely by himself, looking completely at ease about it.
“I guess I don’t need to answer that question, then?” Jagger said, tugging me toward the food line. “Come on, quit making eyes at that boy and let’s get some food.”
I followed her along, but it was hard to keep my attention on the lumpy brown stew that landed on my tray when I could literally feel Banjo’s gaze on me. A flush crawled up the back of my neck as we moved along the line, waiting to get our drinks.
“So, you going to tell him yes?” Jagger asked.
“Tell who yes?”
“Banjo asked you out yesterday. Quit dodging the topic. Judging by the way you two were just eye-fucking, you want to say yes.”
Shit. In all the Colt drama, then the Meredith distraction when I’d gotten home, I’d completely forgotten that Banjo had asked me out. Again. That was twice now.
But somebody had killed my uncle and started a fire to cover it up. A fire that had nearly killed me before I’d been carried out. They could have left me for dead. Hell, they should have. I was now potentially somebody who could identify them. Would Banjo honestly ask me out if he’d been the one to do it? I doubted it. Being the starting quarterback probably meant he knew the guys on the team well. He was exactly what I needed. Somebody to spill all the inside details.
