The Game Series (26 page)

I’m fucked. And it’s all my own fault.

I had to do it, didn’t I? I had to go over to her and say what I did. I didn’t expect her to do it – I never thought she’d actually come upstairs, but she did. And shit; it felt so wrong but so right at the same time.

She’s so dangerous. She’s the one in this whole damn college, hell, in the whole damn state, that could strip away my devil-may-care attitude and put me on my sorry ass. She’s the only girl that could make me feel again. She could take everything I’ve tried for so long to stick back together and shatter it into more pieces than it was in in the first place.

I should have stayed the fuck away from her, but I didn’t. And now I know the sweet taste of her mouth as she kissed me. I know the softness of her lips as they moved across mine, and I know the feel of her hands gripping my hair.

I also know what it’s like to be so close but so far away. ‘Cause damn it all to hell, she had to stop and walk away, didn’t she? She had to fucking go and leave me there, as hard as a rock, staring after her like a lost little sheep.

Shit. Even though it was just a kiss, it’s gonna take nothing short of a goddamn miracle to get me to stay away from her now.

I grab my cell from the side and scroll to her name.

I’m pretty sure I showed Old Maid up last night. Bet the old girl can’t kiss the way I can. I press send, remembering the conversation in Vegas, and my lips curve.

Learn some tricks from the big boys in Vegas, did you?
She retorts. I’d bet anything she’s smiling that smile that lights up her whole face. The smile that makes her looks so damn beautiful she’d put every girl in the country to shame.

You tell me, babe. I grin wider.

I roll over in bed and hit the empty side – the empty side she lay on last night before she left while I was sleeping. My eyes find the calendar on the bedside table, and I shove it off the top to avoid looking at the date. But I know it.

I always know it. It’s impossible to ignore – it creeps up on me silently then hits me with a big fucking bang. It’s always the hardest this time of year. This week, the one that shaped my life, is the one I love and hate. It changed me for the better but forever destroyed my Gramps.

One person’s blessing is another person’s curse.

I jump out of bed, get dressed, and grab my car keys. It’s earlier than usual and Gramps will probably whack me with his stick for turning up before lunch, but I have no desire to sit here in my room and wallow in my own bullshit self-pity.

I slip out of the front door before anyone stops me and climb into my car, quickly pulling away from the large house. It can become stifling all too quickly, and it’s easy to get buried under the weight of your own feelings. It’s not too far to Gramps’ house, his insistence on moving us away from San Francisco but not out of Northern California the reason I’m at college in Berkeley and not there. San Francisco holds too many memories. Too much shit to ever go back to.

I pull up outside his house, the sun crawling over the front yard an indication I’ll spend my day working in his back yard doing what he can’t. The rich smell of smoke wafting from his cigar hits me as soon as I open the door, and my face wrinkles up like it does every Sunday.

I hate it, but it’s safe – and there’s comfort in safety.

“I wish you’d stop smokin’ those damn things, Gramps.”

His low, raspy chuckle reaches me through the house. “You say that e’ry week, boy, and I’ll keep on saying the same thing back – I wish you’d stop goin’ on about me smoking these ‘damn things’.”

I grin and make my way into the front room, letting the front door swing shut behind me. The old, wrinkled man I call my Gramps is sitting in his usual spot in front of the window. The floral chair is as old and weathered as he is, but there’s definitely more life left in Gramps than in his ratty chair.

“I know. It’s worth the shot, though, right?” I shrug, dropping onto the sofa across from him.

He smiles as he turns his face toward me, his dark gray eyes crinkling a little in the corners.  “If you say so, boy. What are you doin’ here early, bugging me?”

I look out of the window. “Got nothin’ better to do on a Sunday.”

He chuckles. “Never know, do I? Probably did what you had to do last night.”

“Gramps. Someone your age shouldn’t be making comments like that.”

“Why? Because I’m wrinkled? Find me a nice bit of stuff on a Friday at the Bingo, and I’ll put you to shame. Ha!” He puffs one last time on his cigar and stubs it out in the ashtray on the table next to him.

“So many things wrong with that damn sentence.” I shake my head.

“So, who’d you annoy this time?”

“Who says I annoyed someone?”

“You’re here at half ten in the mornin’, boy! Something is up. You never get your sorry ass out of bed earlier than twelve on a Sunday.”

“I didn’t annoy anyone. Besides, I knew you’d want my ‘sorry ass’ in your yard today.”

Gramps’ knowing gray eyes settle on me. He taps his fingers on the arm on his chair, each knock of his fingers grating on me. Time stretches as he searches my face, coming to his conclusion. I swallow and shake my head.

“I know what you’re gonna say, and you’re wrong,” I say firmly.

He starts softly. “You’ve never spoken about her.”

“I don’t want to speak about her. I have
nothing
to say about her.”

“I think you do. I think you just pretend you don’t.”

I shake my head and look away. “And I think you’re shittin’ me, Gramps. I get it, alright? You miss her and you wanna talk about her, but I don’t. I can’t relate to the Mom you knew. She was never, and I mean
never,
that person to me.”

“You can’t live in hate forever, boy.”

“It’s not hate, Gramps. It’s pity, pure and simple. I pity her and I pity the life she forced me to lead until she died – until you took me in.”

“For all your schoolin’, for everything I taught you, you never learned to forgive and forget?” he says in a softer voice, his tone coaxing my eyes back to his.

“Forgiving and forgetting are two very different things, Gramps. You can forgive, you can forget, but rarely are they done together. I can’t forget my childhood and I can’t erase the scars. I can’t change the things it’s taught me or burn those images or memories from my mind. They mean I’ll never forget, and because I can’t forget, I can’t forgive. It’s that simple.”

His gray eyes darken slightly with disappointment and sadness. The usual pang of guilt hits me – guilt for hating the person he loves. Guilt for relief in his despair.

“Gramps-”

“No.” He drags his gaze back to the window, his focus on the yard outside. “I understand. I just wish I understood you, boy.”

“Nothin’ to understand,” I reply. “I’m just getting on with it, Gramps. I can’t let myself live in the crap of my past. Not now, not ever.”

“There’s some weedin’ that needs doing in the far corner, by my vegetable garden. When that’s done, I need some holes diggin’ for some bushes I’m getting this week.”

I take the subject change – and the escape. Both of us, we’re always running away from what we want to say. What we need to say.

“Bushes?”

“For your Nan. Hydrangea. Always Hydrangea,” he mutters to himself. “For devotion and understanding. We all need a little of that.”

I nod although he’s not looking at me. His way of remembering her. I wonder if he’s glad that Nan never saw what happened to her only daughter. I wonder if he’s glad that for all the pain she suffered, she never had to watch her baby destroy herself and die.

I wonder what she would think of me now, if she’d look at me and be happy I’m her grandson, or find comfort in my plans for the future. I wonder what she’d say about the way I cope and how I act.

I grab the trowel from the shed, crouching by the vegetable garden, and the truth smacks me full in the face.

Nan would probably be disgusted by me.

God knows there isn’t much to be fucking proud of.

My eyes scan the room, and I sigh in relief when I see I’ve beaten both Aston and Braden to class. Every part of me wishes it was a day where we didn’t share a class, but it just doesn’t work that way. This is real life, and as my Nanna always says, real life likes to kick you when you’re down.

I sit down at my desk and remember who sits with me. Shit. I drop my head, resting it on the table.

“Crap,” I mutter.

The chair next to me squeaks. “If you’re trying to hide, babe, then you’re doing a shit job. I can see you.” Aston’s words curve around me, wrapping me in a smooth caress, and my throat goes dry.

“Why would I be hiding?” I sit up and forward, determined not to meet his eyes.

He shrugs a shoulder carelessly, grabbing his pen and twirling it between his fingers. God – I hate it when he does that. I catch his every movement from the corner of my eye. His eyes are burning in the side of my head, begging me to turn, begging to look at him.

“Because you want me so badly you can’t even look at me,” he says in a dramatic tone, arrogance weaving through each word.

My back straightens. “Clearly someone’s been feeding your damn ego again. I remember being the one who walked away – and I don’t remember ever telling you I want you.”

He leans forward and his bicep brushes mine, the heat from the fleeting touch sinking through the sleeve of my sweater. “Is that so?” he asks, his voice low and barely perceptible.

I fight the urge to drop my eyes to the desk. “Damn right it is.”

He trails his fingertip down the back of my arm, the tickling feeling leaving me tingling and fighting a shiver. “I think you’re wrong,” he whispers. “You might have walked away, Megan Harper, but you were also the one that walked toward me.” His eyes flick to my lips. “And it was a damn nice walk, don’t you think?”

My head snaps round, leaving our faces inches apart. His lips are curled in a slightly smug smile, and I curse myself for that being the first place my eyes fell. I drag them away from his mouth and across the sharp planes of his face until they meet his smoky eyes.

And I remember why I didn’t want to look at him. His eyes have the power to entrance me, to hold me captive in his gaze, and they are. The silvery hint at the edge of his irises is pulling me in and trapping my eyes in a silent battle with his. Like this, when I’m unable to focus on anything but the swirling mass of gray in front of me, I remember why nothing could have stopped me following him and kissing him on Saturday night.

“Is he being an asshole again?”

My eyes shift from gray to blue as Braden’s voice cuts through the fog Aston put me in. “That’s a stupid question, Bray. He’s always an asshole.”

Braden grins and jabs Aston in the arm. “Get your slimy mitts away from her, dude. I told you in Vegas, she’s got more fucking class than your usual lot.”

“I know that,” Aston replies, moving his gaze across my face.

I tear my eyes away, trying not to laugh at the irony of Braden’s statement. I might have more class than his usual weekenders, but that doesn’t mean I’m not one of them. I just won’t go and beg for more.

“Coffee?” Maddie mouths across the room, catching my eye. I nod – I want to know how the weekend went for them. Braden’s mom can be a little … eccentric sometimes.

“I take it he doesn’t know?” Aston nudges my foot with his.

I jolt, glancing back to him as Braden sits next to Maddie. “Um, no. Aside from the fact that’s the first time I’ve seen him, I can’t just drop it into a conversation, can I? That would be fun.”

“I guess not.” He rubs his thumb over his mouth. “Besides–”

“Let me guess,” I deadpan. “Your face is too good to be messed up by the fist that would inevitably meet it?”

He pauses for a second and smirks. “I wasn’t gonna say that, but I’m glad you think so.”

“You know, Aston, Braden isn’t the only one capable of messing up your pretty face.”

“I like a girl feisty.”

“And you also like to discard them after a quick and meaningless fuck, never mind a mere kiss against a wall, so it doesn’t really matter, does it?” I raise an eyebrow, feeling the pang of my own harsh words.

He stops, and I turn away. My own words have stung me more than I thought they could. No matter how many times I tell myself I don’t care, I do. I care more than I want to. No one wants to be tossed aside like a ragdoll by the person they want to care.

“I never said you were a mere kiss, Megs, neither would be a quick and meaningless fuck. Don’t put words in my fucking mouth,” he whispers as the lesson starts. He leans forward, still twirling his pen between his fingers. “I’m many things and not all of them are good, but I’m not a liar. I’d be lying if I said that kiss was nothing.”

A lump rises in my throat, full of hope and wanting … And reality. It’s full of emotions that have no place in this conversation. I swallow the words forming in my mouth, the ones full of truth that have no place in a time of doubt, and I swallow the question I don’t want to hear the answer to.

All I want to do right now is ignore him and focus on class, but it’s nearly impossible. I can feel every inch of him beside me, I can see each movement of his body and I can sense every flicker of his eyes to me.

Aston stretches his leg out under the table and knocks his foot into mine. I tuck my feet under my chair and sweep my hair to one side so it falls into a curtain between us. I need something to block us – I’m too aware of him and the way he makes me feel.

A tug on my hair pulls me from my forced state of concentration, and my neck almost snaps with the force of my head turning.

“What?” I hiss.

“Are you avoiding me?”

“I’m sitting right next to you. How the hell can I be avoiding you?”

“Well would you be sitting here if you didn’t have to?”

“No. But the same applies to every time I have to sit next to you, so today isn’t anything special.”

He sits back, his face deathly serious. “You think I’m a total jackass.”

“Do you want a gold star? I thought it was obvious.” The lessons ends, and I shove all my things in my bag. I stand and hoist it over my shoulder when he grabs my arm.

“Just remember, Megan,” he whispers from behind me, “who came to who on Saturday night. And I bet you’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

Fuck. Smartass little dick.

I watch him go and I hate that he’s right. He might have put his cards on the table, but I’m the one that collected them and shuffled them. That stupid, stupid kiss was my own doing, and we both know it.

We both know I can pretend to hate him. We also both know it’s a big bag of bullshit.

“Ready to go?” Maddie holds the door open, and I glare at Aston’s retreating back.

“As long as we don’t run into anymore assholes while we’re there, then let’s go,” I mumble.

“What did he do?” she asks with a hint of laughter.

“He’s just being Aston.” I shrug. “You know – his usual Gods-gift-to-women self.”

“Mmph. Was he like that all weekend?”

“I have no idea. I barely saw him,” I lie and inwardly flinch. Damn. I hate lying, yet here I am.

“Probably just as well,” she muses, smoothing her hair back from her face. “Braden nearly combusted this weekend with the thought he’d left you here in Berkeley around his, and I quote, ‘will fuck anything with a pulse’ friend.”

I force a laugh. “You’d think Braden has no faith in my ability to stay away from someone like that.”

And rightly so.

Maddie shrugs. “You know what he’s like. Of course his mom heard his frequent use of vulgar words and handed him his ass on a silver platter.”

I laugh loudly and this time it’s real. “Oh, man. I wish I could have seen that!”

“It was hilarious.” She giggles. “She kept asking me if he’s that vile at college.”

“What did you say?” I peruse the board in Starbucks. “Caramel macchiato, please.”

“I said no and discreetly nodded a yes.” She grins and orders her usual.

“Damn. You know him almost as well as me.”

“I’d take a chance and say I have you beat on that.”

“And you can stay that way in that department,” I mutter, grabbing my coffee.

“Honestly though, I thought he was gonna kill his mom the amount of times she embarrassed him.” She giggles and we sink into armchairs. “I’ve never seen a guy before.”

I smile, the caramel scent drifting up from my cup. “Braden is a serious blusher. You’d never believe it, but if you get it right you’ll have him blushing like a high school freshman who just found out her skirt has been tucked into her panties all day.”

Maddie snorts. “So I found out. It’s cute. And, Megs … Did he really shave her cat?”

I choke on my mouthful of coffee and nod, hitting my chest. “I wanted a poodle, but my parents refused. Braden thought he’d be my savor and he shaved the cat. It looked nothing like a poodle, and we both ended up getting grounded for two weeks.”

“His mom told me that. She also said you both spent half that time in your rooms, leaning out of your windows and yelling at passersby in the hope that she and your mom would get so annoyed they’d unground you.”

The smile on my face widens as I remember. Our houses are set so they face each other, both with huge yards wrapping around. We both had the side rooms, the ones that faced the main street, and we’d lean out of them talking to each other all day until someone walked past. Then we’d shout and scream about how we’d been locked away unfairly by an evil witch.

Needless to say, I wasn’t allowed to watch
Sleeping Beauty
or read
Rapunzel
for a long time. In fact, my parents confiscated all my fairy tales for about a month. That didn’t go down well. At all.

“So, did anything happen here?”

“The usual. Nothing exciting.” I shift in my seat.

“In other words, Kay drank too many shots and offended someone, Lila sneaked off with Ryan, and Aston took some girl back to his room and pissed her off two hours later.”

“Pretty much,” I agree, choosing not to correct her about Aston. It’s only a half lie, anyway …

“And you, as always, turned down advances from the numerous hot guys and disappeared back to your room. Right?” She raises a skeptical eyebrow.

“Right.”

“Braden wasn’t here breathing down your neck and you didn’t take advantage of that?”

“Nope.” Kind of no, anyway.

“Wow.” She cocks her head to the side and smiles. “You really do need to get laid.”

“Wow.” I mirror her movement, trying not to laugh at her. “You really do spend too much time with Braden.”

She opens her mouth, pauses, and closes it again, her eyes widening. “Oh my God. You’re right. He’s turning me into a female Frat brother!”

“Join a sorority?”

“I don’t think I’m quite sorority material. Plus a good half of them have likely slept with my boyfriend and hate me because I’m the one that got him.”

“Ah, that would be awkward.”

“Mhmm.”

“Where is Braden anyway? Not like him to let you leave his side,” I tease her.

“Ha ha.” She rolls her eyes but smiles. “He’s gone to sort all his crap out. In other words, interrogate Aston and make sure he didn’t pull his usual tricks and get into your pants.”

Wow.

“And he thinks Aston would tell him even if he did?” My eyebrows get stuck somewhere between a frown and raising in disbelief.

“Apparently,” she mutters. “Just like you’d tell me if you did, right?”

“Uh, no.” I laugh, biting back the uncertainty that tried to creep into my words. Dammit.

“So you might have slept together?” Maddie’s green eyes sparkle over her cup.

“No.”

“Right. So you might have because you’re gonna tell me no anyway.”

“Maddie, stop putting words in my mouth.”

“It didn’t work, did it?” She pouts.

“No, because nothing happened.” I bang the table. “Nothing.”

Nothing anyone needs to know about. And no one needs to know, so nothing happened.

That logic works a lot better in my head than I’d imagine it would outside of it.