Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
NEVE
“Have you ever shopped at Skims?” Cynthia asks, scrolling through her phone, nails clicking on the screen. I glance at my own red nails, freshly done yesterday evening, after being questioned for two murders I did not commit, and shake my head.
“No.” I say it out loud because she’s not looking at me. At all.
We’re sitting beside each other on her all-white bed as Corpse Bride plays for the thousandth time this year no doubt, from her TV screen mounted on the wall, and the sun is sinking below the streets outside her window.
It’s Friday night, and all I want to do is sleep. Faust and I got up too damn early yesterday morning, and yeah, maybe the stress is getting to me. I ended up making it to my poetry workshop and wrote a couplet that rhymed “blade” with “fade” and I don’t even know if I was talking murder or hockey.
I’ve successfully avoided answering any of Nolan’s calls and I have not told him I spoke to Detective Lincoln. Without a lawyer. I did text him back to shut him up, but that’s all the bullshit I can deal with right now.
I mentioned Lincoln to Cyn, leaving out the parts about Will coming to our place. I want to keep her ignorant, so if they come for her, she can tell the truth of having no knowledge of it.
“I guess since you’ve stolen a pair of Dragon Hockey sweats from the hottest player in Ontario, you don’t have a need for loungewear, huh, Miss Vee?”
Vee. The name Sylvan used for me. My heart races but I keep my eyes on my own phone, despite the fact I’m staring at nothing.
I’ve avoided updating my social media, avoided my brother, avoided a random text from Mom and one from Lyra, a girl I sometimes meet up with for gym sessions together.
She was in my Family Psych class last year.
She wanted to see what I thought about “everything going on.”
Ha.
Cynthia knows I stayed with Faust last night and it took her nearly an hour of begging me to admit we had sex to truly believe we didn’t.
I don’t know what that says about me that my own best friend thinks I’m a whore, too, but when I got annoyed about it, she understood I was being serious.
“Maybe you can snag a pair for me,” Cyn mock-whispers when I ignore her, the only indication I’ve heard her at all a stupid grin on my face.
Stupid for many reasons.
I finally gave in and Googled both boys.
As starry-eyed as Drayton University students seem over both Faust and Sylvan, it’s nothing compared to what the online world thinks of them.
Girls stalking them, making fan art of them, gushing over their every move…
and I don’t blame them. Both boys have social media accounts which shocks me, but I came to understand how it is Faust, at least, and no doubt Sylvan too, pay for all the luxury they have.
They can’t get paid as college hockey players for playing hockey—Google cleared that up for me—but they both do sponsorship posts and brand deals.
Seeing Faust Darling modeling a pair of sneakers floored me.
But the thousands of comments, many of women asking to have his babies and too many fire emojis to put out with a hose, did not.
He is hot.
Pouty lips, quiet swagger. He’s not small either. The kind of man who could throw you across the room but, in my opinion, never would.
He’s hot, and yeah, so am I, but this is not an arena I want to be competing in.
They could have anyone, and while I know I’d be a prize, it feels like you’d always be looking over one shoulder.
They’re boys, really. Not ready to settle down.
And when they’re in the NHL like I know they’ll be—Reddit thread rumors go crazy on who they’ll sign with—it’ll get worse.
Not my circus. Not my hockey players.
“I’m not going there.”
“Where? His bed again? Because I think you should be face down in those sheets at least once.”
I whip my head around to Cyn, her brown eyes lit up as she grins at me, full lips tipped up high, white teeth flashing.
“Are you serious? You’re the one always telling me to stop sleeping around!”
She giggles, then looks back down at her phone. I see a whole ass shopping cart full of Skims. Guess she’s going for it. “Yeah, but that was before you picked a winner.” She winks at me and I roll my eyes.
“Speaking of,” she says, just as a text pops up on my phone, now that I’ve let notifications come through. So I don’t miss any from the detective, I tell myself, but I’m a liar. “Tonight. We’re going to East York.”
I frown at that, opening up the message. “What? Why?”
“You are the worst girlfriend in the world. Your boy is playing there. Against the Bears. Their bitter rival. Also, Karter and Tasia want to come. Tas said she’s over it and she wants to tell you something, all good, I promise, because I made her tell me first.”
None of what Cyn is saying registers with me when I read the text on my phone.
33
I want you wearing my name on your body tonight. Least you could do after sleeping in my bed.
I groan out loud, despite the warmth building in my core. “Why does everyone assume I’m going to spend my life following around a hockey player? Don’t you both realize I have a life?”
Cynthia starts snorting, then outright laughing, and when I look up, I see her gesturing around the room. At us. On her bed. Friday night. Corpse Bride on TV.
I start laughing too, despite myself, throwing in another eye roll for good measure.
Cynthia slides down on the bed, her curly dark hair flowering over her head as she holds her phone above her face, no doubt putting in her saved credit card details for her new clothes.
“Good to know he wants you there too,” she says, correctly inferring it was Faust who texted me.
I’m not wearing a T-shirt. I have better taste than that.
His reply is instant.
33
I dropped something off for you with the old man downstairs.
Casper. Ugh. I don’t want Faust bugging him too, but that exchange will give me the chance to ask about cameras around the building.
My face feels hot and I can’t stop smiling. Fuck. And he wasn’t even a psychopath who came to my door. Polite. Hot.
“What was that you said about Tas?” I ask, still not quite convinced I’m going to the game. It feels a lot like chasing, and I don’t chase dick. I might ride it, yeah, but that’s different.
Cynthia presses something on her phone, then clicks the button on the side, dimming the screen.
She turns to me, cradling her phone to her chest, her face glowing from the skincare she did earlier, and I have no doubt it’s prep for makeup for tonight. Glad to know everyone just assumed I’d be a puck bunny with no advanced warning. I mean, they’re not wrong, but damn.
“Do you want me to tell you, or let her do it?”
“I’m not getting in an Uber with her unless I know what she’s going to ambush me with.” She is not my drama.
“Wait!” Cyn holds up her index finger in the air. “What’s up with Sylvan and you, by the way? Are you trying to pull some kind of Will-Jackson with them?” She laughs as I frown. “That didn’t work out so well last time.”
“They’re dead, Cynthia.” I can’t bring myself to add conviction to my tone. I think of the antisocial personality disorder case study and wonder if I’m the problem.
Cyn presses her lips together like she’s trying not to laugh.
Then she just says, “I mean, yeah, it is fucked up.” This time, she’s serious.
“But really. What’s going on with Sylvan Connor?
I don’t think you should take them both at one time, at the very least. They’re…
tall. Their dicks are probably not small. ”
“They’re not. Not because I’ve seen them,” I rush in when Cynthia gives me a look. “But I’ve felt them. Through layers of clothes.” The blush is a tangible thing I can feel, down my throat, under my eyes.
Cynthia shakes her head in amusement, but then she says, very seriously, “Don’t end up with both of them. Don’t try that. Tasia thinks something is off about Sylvan. He’s hot, don’t get me wrong, but you don’t need more of that.”
“Tasia can go fuck herself.”
Cynthia laughs. “She might have to, since Sylvan seems to have moved on to you.”
I roll my eyes. “What does she want?”
“She wants to make sure you’re okay with her sleeping with…” She trails off, snaps her fingers. “I don’t remember his name; I wasn’t there to meet him. Who was the guy you were straddling before Tasia got her feelings hurt in the first place?”
I snort a laugh. “Ace? So she’s consistently choosing men who are into me. Got it.”
Cynthia shrugs. “You’re not wrong. Apparently, she swapped friends and wants him.”
Honestly, it makes me feel better about myself. I’m not the only one who doesn’t get it right the first time. So I make a decision.
“In that case, I’ll go to the damn game. And I’ll tell Tasia I don’t give a fuck what she does with Ace.”