Chapter Twenty-Three - Henry
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Henry
“I’M PRETTY SURE she wants to be alone,” Wilson says, catching me staring at Mirabelle again as she sits on the edge of the pool.
“Really? I had no idea,” I say sarcastically, looking back at the book in my hands.
The other day was fucking brutal, and it’s as if she’s a ghost, simply going through the motions ever since. Mirabelle took everything the twins threw at her and still defended them whenever either her parents or I intervened.
She shut her eyes on the way back to Charlotte, but I’m not sure if she was actually sleeping or avoiding talking to me. I’m not sure I would have known what to say if she did want to talk.
Mirabelle’s been waking up before me to go to work at an ungodly hour, driving separately. She got home an hour ago, walking straight past Wilson and me to the pool without a word, and hasn’t moved since.
“Price, what happened with her family? She’s been like this for two days now.”
Stacey asked me the same thing earlier today, and I didn’t know what to say.
I shut the book, setting it on the couch next to me. “I don’t know,” I answer, unable to resist looking back at Mirabelle like a moth drawn to a flame. I know she wants to be alone, but I’m not sure how long I’m supposed to let this continue. I know if Kaitlyn ever said anything like what Hunter and Bailey did, I’d be eviscerated.
“Maybe it’s a good thing your birthday is next weekend. I think you both could use a night to relax,” he says, and I’m honestly more excited for Kaitlyn to be here tomorrow than for an excuse to go out next weekend.
“Are you still cool with my sister coming tomorrow?”
“Price, it’s your house,” he reminds me, looking back at the playbook resting in his lap. “You don’t need to ask me for permission, but if you plan on playing Yahtzee again, count me in.”
“You hate Yahtzee,” I point out, wondering if Mirabelle is starting to get cold out there. I don’t want her to catch a cold.
Wilson chuckles, shaking his head. “I do, but I think it’s hilarious watching your kid sister kick your ass at it. You win nearly every other game you two play, except for Yahtzee.”
“I’m throwing it away before she gets here. You’ll have to find your entertainment somewhere else.”
“I could invite Quinn over and wait to see your head explode with jealousy as he fawns over Mirabelle. That sounds pretty fun.”
White-hot rage spikes through me at the thought of watching my friend hit on Mirabelle. “I’m not jealous of Quinn.”
“Sure you’re not. You just announced to the whole team for fun that you were going to sit next to your girlfriend on the plane during the last away game. It totally wasn’t you telling Quinn to back off.” Wilson snorts, and I flip him off, only succeeding at making him actually laugh this time.
“Aren’t you supposed to be giving feedback on those plays tomorrow?”
“Isn’t Mirabelle supposed to be your fake girlfriend?” Wilson counters, raising an eyebrow at me.
“She is my fake girlfriend,” I say, but the words feel wrong .
“If you say so.” He shrugs, letting this go far easier than I would have expected. “Then you shouldn’t be bothered that Quinn’s going to ask her out tomorrow, right?” Wilson challenges, calling my bluff.
The blood running through my veins turns to ice at the thought of Quinn asking Mirabelle out. Absolutely fucking not. Wilson laughs, finding this amusing. “Maybe you should go look in a mirror to see how believable it is that you aren’t jealous of him.”
“Fuck off, I’m not jealous.”
I am jealous, and I’m done staring at Mirabelle as she deals with this on her own.
I stand up from the couch as Mirabelle slips under the water, disappearing from my sight. In the time it takes me to walk from the couch to the back door, she still doesn’t come up. What is she doing? I push my sweatpants down, stepping out of them as I pull off my shirt, and then dive into the water.
Mirabelle resurfaces at the same time I do, wiping the water from of her face. “What are you doing?” she asks, her wet hair falling around her shoulders.
“I’m swimming in my pool,” I say, simply because I don’t have a better answer.
She tips her head back, exposing the smooth column of her neck to smooth her hair back from her face. “Right,” Mirabelle murmurs, looking away from me.
Look at me please. Let me in.
“What are you doing?” I echo the question back to her, hoping she’ll give me some indication she’s okay. Actually, that sounds stupid. Obviously, she’s not okay if she’s jumping into the pool fully clothed.
“You know, that’s a great question. I wish I had an answer.” Mirabelle seems as if she’s in a daze as she trails her fingertips through the water, exhaling sharply. “I haven’t called JJ back. He keeps calling, but I don’t know what to say, so I haven’t answered.”
“When did you last talk to JJ?”
“I was on the phone with him when Bailey’s school called me the other day. We were talking about . . . well, it doesn’t matter what. I told him I’d call him back, and I didn’t. Sister of the year, right?” she asks, her eyes shining as she finally looks at me. Mirabelle’s face is a window to her battered soul, giving me a glimpse of what she’s been hiding, and I’m utterly devastated as she wipes her cheeks hastily. Fuck, she’s crying. I’m not good with tears, but I’m even worse when it’s Mirabelle crying. “I’m sorry. I’m fine, I don’t know why I’m crying.”
“Actually, I’m shocked you don’t cry more. You’ve had a lot going on. You don’t need to apologize,” I say, and she cracks a faint smile.
“Well, if I cried every time something went wrong in my life, I wouldn’t get very much done.”
“What’s wrong with that? You’re allowed to have feelings,” I say, slowly wading closer with the hope I don’t scare her into disappearing.
Instead, Mirabelle looks at me like I’m insane, which I most definitely am. I’m insane for trying to provoke her. “What’s wrong with crying all the time? Are you seriously asking for an obvious answer? I know how much you love that word, Henry.”
“What word?” I question, fully aware that I’m playing with fire to goad her into giving me a reaction.
The corners of Mirabelle’s mouth tip downward as her bloodshot eyes flicker with the first sign of life in two days. Yes . More of that. Clearly, this is the right track. “Obvious.”
I feel like I’m missing something here, because I’m not sure why she thinks that. “Obvious? Why do you think I love that word?”
“Stop, you’re distracting me,” she says, her cheeks flushing as she attempts to turn away from me.
“I’m not trying to,” I say, catching her wrist gently.
Mirabelle exhales, an exasperated laugh escaping her. It sounds like the most beautiful thing in the world to my ears. “It’s so fucking ironic that you throw that word around when you wouldn’t know ‘obvious’ if it hit you in the face. You said I obviously have feelings for Quinn, but I don’t. It should be fucking obvious, but apparently, it’s not. There are obvious reasons why I don’t get to sit around crying every time something goes wrong in my life— because I’m highly aware of how privileged I am.
“Oh poor Mirabelle. Her brothers hate her because she’s so goddamn perfect—they think it’s okay to get drunk at school and blame her. Poor Mirabelle for having no friends at work—except her boss, who doesn’t totally hate her, and her fake boyfriend—because they all think she’s a nepo baby who sits around doing nothing.
“We should feel so fucking bad for poor Mirabelle, whose childhood home was nearly burned down, especially when her parents can simply call their best friend’s son, a professional athlete, to ask if she can stay at his house with its amazing pool. Poor Mirabelle can’t stop crying when there are people out there with real problems, who work all day to make ends meet, and still struggle to put enough food on the table for their families.”
Shit, what the fuck was I thinking pushing her buttons? This was not a good idea. “Mira—”
“Do you want to know what I was doing when you jumped into the pool?” she asks, the challenge lingering heavy like a finger on the trigger of a gun, waiting to fire. I pushed too far. “Ask me, Henry.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, refusing to let go of her.
“What were you doing?” I ask hoarsely.
“I was screaming.” She stares directly at me, tears welling up in her eyes again. “I went under the water where no one would be able to hear me, and I screamed until I couldn’t breathe. I hoped it would make me feel better.”
I’m out of my depth here, but I do know that this shit will drown her from the inside out if she doesn’t deal with it. I wet my lips, buying myself time as Mirabelle watches my face closely. “Just because shitty things are happening in the world, it doesn’t invalidate the shit you’re going through.”
“Why did you come out here?”
“Because I miss you. Because I’ve been staring at this shell of you since we drove back to Charlotte, and I’m fucking worried. Wilson’s fucking worried, and even Stacey has noticed you’re not yourself. I came out here because I’m tired of watching you punish yourself for something you didn’t even do.”
“But I did do it. I wasn’t fucking there for Bailey when he clearly needed me to be, and now Hunter is pissed at me, and I didn’t learn a goddamn thing from it because I’m fucking ignoring JJ too! He would have never let things get like this. I have ruin—”
I don’t know how else to shut her up, but it’s the only thing that comes to mind, so I cup Mirabelle’s face in my hands, pressing my lips against hers. It’s effective, stunning her into silence so I can make her listen to me. Pulling away, I wait to see if she’s going to hit me, but Mirabelle blinks, opening her mouth, before deciding to shut it. I brush away the tears on her cheeks, forcing her to see how sincere I am, because I won’t lie to her. “Then fix it. Call JJ back. You’re human, Mirabelle. You’re allowed to make mistakes, but what happened with your brothers is not on you. I was there, and I heard every word of bullshit they spewed to place blame anywhere but on themselves. I know you love them, but it’s not your fault. You’re their sister, but you’re not responsible for them because you’re not their keeper.”
Mirabelle leans against my bare chest as I wrap my arms around her. She shudders, and I hold on for dear life, hating how powerless I am to fix this for her.
I’m unable to resist pressing a kiss to the top of her head, and I know that if Mirabelle asked me, I’d do anything she wanted. She has me wrapped around her finger, and she doesn’t even realize it.
“Henry?” she mumbles my name against my skin, and despite it being the absolute wrong moment, my heart beats faster in my chest. I’m sure she can feel it, but I don’t think I care.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
I tighten my arms around her, the words nearly getting stuck in my throat, but I force them out regardless. “I’ve got you.”
~
“She was crying and you kissed her?” Andrew asks, and I roll my eyes as I set my phone down to towel dry my hair. Stacey found time in my schedule today to make up for the day I took off earlier in the week, so I had to play model with a bunch of shit in my hair that took forever to wash out.
“Yeah.”
Andrew’s laugh filters through the line. “You’re a fucking idiot.”
“In more ways than one,” I agree, but at least Mirabelle didn’t hit me.
“Does it get worse than you kissing her while she cries?”
“Depends on who you ask,” I mutter under my breath, grabbing a sweatshirt from Duke to wear tonight. With a hat, there’s a chance I can fly under the radar, but if I show up wearing anything related to the Panthers, it’s going to be a very long night.
“Oh shit. What?”
“Quinn asked out Mirabelle today.” I’m not certain, but he definitely pulled her aside while I was in the training room getting my hamstrings stretched. The only thing that kept my mood in check was seeing Mirabelle more like herself than she had been in a few days, and we’re hanging out with my sister tonight. I wasn’t willing to ruin the first spark of life I’d seen in her over something I wasn’t positive actually happened. I’m not sure if she should go to tonight’s game since Hunter will obviously be there, and I’m not sure about Bailey’s status for the night, but I can’t promise I won’t murder either of them if they upset her again. On the other hand, I don’t have a death wish so I’m not going to tell Mirabelle what she can and can’t do.
“Oh, I see,” Andrew muses, and I wait for him to finish.
“What?” I finally ask when my annoying best friend decides not to say anything else.
“You like her.”
It’d be impossible not to like her. Mirabelle’s incredible. “I wouldn’t spend time with her if I didn’t like her,” I answer, backtracking to my closet for my shoes.
“I’m not talking about liking her as a person. You’re falling for her. That’s why you’re pissed off that Quinn made a move on her.”
“It’s fine if she wants to go on a date with him,” I lie through my teeth, as my stomach twists at the thought of them together. Mirabelle is allowed to do whatever she wants. Except I want her to do whatever with me.
“Have you told her?”
No. I told Mirabelle to use me as practice for the lucky son of a bitch who actually gets to be with her because it causes me physical pain to see her hurting and upset. I haven’t told anyone, and she hasn’t brought it up again since I walked out of her room after coming in my pants like a fucking teenager. There’s been enough shit going on, she doesn’t need me to bug her about the list I told her to make. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“You’re full of shit, but I guess you’ll only have yourself to blame if she goes out with Quinn.” Okay, I’m tired of hearing these lectures from Wilson, and now I’m getting them from Andrew?
“I’m officially uninviting you from my birthday,” I say, stuffing my wallet in my back pocket, but I stop in my tracks when I see the paper on the floor in front of my door. “No fucking way,” I swear under my breath, picking it up.
“What?” he asks curiously, and my jaw hits the floor.
“Nothing, I gotta go,” I say, trying to wrap my brain around what’s in front of me.
“Wait, you can’t just—” I hang up, not feeling guilty in the slightest.
Mirabelle’s to-do list:
Get better at blow jobs
Find my favorite position
Dirty talk
Car sex?
Skinny dipping
Phone sex
Bondage?
Mirror sex
Bonus points
Orgasm during oral sex
Orgasms in general
Sex in a public place
She actually put together a to-do list. This woman never ceases to surprise me.
A hundred different mental ideas run through my brain, and my pants grow tighter.
Andrew sends me a flurry of texts, but all I notice is the time. Fuck, we’re going to be late if we don’t leave now. I fold the list, putting it in my wallet as I adjust my pants, trying to think of anything to make my erection deflate.
Fuck, but the things on the list . . .
I grab my hat, setting it on my head as I make my way down the stairs.
“Mira? We gotta go if we’re going to get there on time,” I call out, unsure of what part of the house she’s in. Wilson went with Crosby and Tyler for drinks, but he told me he would be back in time for game night.
“Sorry, I’m coming,” she says, running down the stairs, her footsteps loud enough to make it sound like there’s a herd of elephants behind her. Mirabelle slides to a stop in front of me, her blonde hair pulled back into a messy braid, with pieces falling into her flushed face.
She’s beautiful .
That fucking list is burning a hole in my pocket.
Blow jobs, mirror sex, all the different positions? I wonder if I could convince her to keep on the heels she loves so much. Oh fuck, my raging hard-on is back. I picked a bad night to wear sweatpants.
“Um, are we going?” she asks, bouncing on the balls of her feet, combing her hair back behind her ear. Shit, she’s wearing my sweatshirt too.
I clear my throat, grabbing my hat to run my hand through my hair before putting it on backward. “Yeah, let’s go,” I say, and her cheeks flush bright red.
If I hadn’t promised Kaitlyn I’d be there, I don’t think we’d be going anywhere tonight.
I wonder if Mirabelle can read my thoughts because she ducks her head and escapes to the garage before I can do something stupid, like kiss her senseless.
I’m so fucked.