Chapter 7 Gray
I may never stand again. Lying on my back, staring up at the floodlights, I realized the turf was comfortable. Okay, it wasn’t, but my body was broken, I was sure of it.
“You going to get up?” Jett asked me, and I could hear the amusement in his voice.
“No.”
“Woods hit too hard?” Ash asked me as he joined my brother.
“No.”
“Worked your legs too hard?” Jett said as he leaned over me, blocking out the floodlights.
“Yeah,” I groaned. “I need a rub down.”
“We’re meeting Quinn later. She’s got a new textbook, and I’m scared of her,” Jett told me as he grabbed my arm, and between him and Ash, they pulled me to my feet.
“I heard from the center yesterday she almost broke his calf,” Ash muttered as he patted me on the shoulder. “Maybe you need Izzy?”
“Yeah, Izzy is better.” We had all been test subjects for Quinn at some point, so we were all wary.
“She dug her hands in ’cause he was getting hard,” Jett grunted. “We all know she’s going to be shit hot at her job.”
Ash and I exchanged a look, but neither said anything. However, I hadn’t been told the dipshit had overstepped with her, and now I was glad that she hurt him on purpose.
“Of course, if you hadn’t trained so hard today, you wouldn’t be so fucking sore,” Jett scolded as we walked — well, I limped — to the locker room.
“I did what you did,” I defended myself.
“You ran with Quinn this morning,” he said, and I caught Ash’s quick look of surprise.
“And we said she needed to be watched.”
“Why are we watching Quinn?” Ash asked us quietly as we all naturally paused at the twenty-five.
Quickly, Jett told him about the guy in the bar, and I filled in the missing pieces about what he had said to her, about the Devils and calling her Queen.
“You think they’re watching her?” Ash asked with a scowl. “They touch her, they die.”
“Agreed.”
Jett watched us both, his look calculating before he looked around. “We need to be careful, and we need to make sure she is safe.”
“We never had any reason to think she was at risk.” Ash sighed as his hand ran through his hair. “I mean, what we’ve seen on the memory sticks, that didn’t happen to her, not all of it.”
“You sure?” My voice was so low and quiet, but it caught both their attention. “She lies. She only told Jett what happened because she needed him to get her out of that hospital. If she had been able to get hold of her stepmom, Anne, would we ever know what happened to her on her summer break?”
We stood in silence, each in our own thoughts, before Jett clapped us both on the back. “This gets us nowhere.”
“I think we need to press her.”
I looked at Ash in surprise. “Serious?”
“Yeah.” He hadn’t looked sure, but as his attention flicked between me and my brother, I saw his resolve hardening. “We need to know it all. She knows we got involved, she knows she can’t stop us, and I say we ask her to sit the fuck down and tell us exactly what we need to know.”
“I already said this,” Jett reminded him. “I said she needed to know.”
“Her needing to know and us asking her what we need to know, is not the same thing,” I warned them both.
“Then it’s full disclosure,” Jett snapped. “If, and I appreciate it’s a big if, they are looking at her to see who she tells or told, then we need to know what they have on her. Or what they would do to her to keep her quiet.”
“They will know she said nothing,” Ash argued. “She didn’t report it.”
“And thank fuck she never did, else where would we be now?” I grunted out a laugh. “Jail. Goodbye, college.”
“You want to back out?” Ash looked at me in surprise.
“Never.” I just knew it wasn’t going to be an easy conversation. Some wounds were better left to heal on their own without picking at the scabs.
“Maybe we should get her drunk,” Ash mused as we resumed walking to the showers.
“She’s meeting us outside.” Jett told us both.
Even I glared at him as I heard Ash curse. “Seriously? No warning?”
“I’m telling you now,” he said as he shrugged carelessly. “What more do you want, a written invitation?”
“God, you’re a dick.” Pushing past my brother, I headed into the locker room.
When I got into the shower, I used my tired body as an excuse to stand there longer than necessary.
Not the fact that we were about to force her to tell us her worst nightmare.
No, not a nightmare for Quinn, to her it was real. Maybe I needed a drink for this.
It was with a small measure of appreciation that I noted that Ash was as reluctant to leave the locker room as I was. However, as usual, my brother wasn’t one for waiting when he got an idea in his head.
Finally, when we left the locker room, she was standing outside the stadium, laughing at something Ava was saying.
Ava.
Well, that complicated things. Or did it? I saw the smile she gave us all in greeting, and I saw the small triumph in her eyes as she met Jett’s inquiring look.
Well played, Queeny. She knew Jett wanted to push, and this was her fuck you, telling him she would open up when she was ready. I hid my smile behind my hand as I pretended to scratch my jaw.
“Hey, this is a nice surprise,” Jett greeted Ava, pulling her into a hug as his hard stare met Quinn’s. She held her hands up in supplication as if she were innocent.
“Mia had practice until late, Quinn said you would all be tired, so I thought we may want to grab some food?” Ava looked around at the three of us expectantly.
“What about our meal plans for your assignment,” I asked, watching in satisfaction as Quinn’s look of smugness was replaced by one of irritation.
“Yeah, thought you had our food all planned out?” Jett slung his arm around Ava’s shoulders as he watched Quinn falter for a response.
“Oh, we thought of that,” Ava told him cheerfully as she tilted her head back to look at him. “Quinn can tell you what to order and what to leave off.” Ava smiled up at him, and I looked at Quinn, who was failing to hide her victory. “It can be our first real dinner date,” Ava added softly to him.
And for the winner of most conniving bitch of the year, ladies and gentlemen, I present Quinn Lawrence.
“You okay with all of us being on your first dinner date with my brother?” I asked Ava skeptically.
She always looked nervous when she spoke to me, and I still remembered her punching me on the jaw. “You’re Jett’s family; it would be nice to eat together.”
My eyes flew to Quinn as she pretended to look at her nails. “Wow,” I muttered as I shook my head and saw Quinn’s small, triumphant smile.
“Don’t you want to?” Ava looked confused as she finally picked up on the tension, and my response was about to shatter her illusions until I saw my brother’s glare at me over her head.
“Sounds like a great idea, I’m starving,” I growled as I walked past them and hooked my favorite trainer’s arm as I passed.
“Want to talk to you about a deep tissue massage.” Looking over my shoulder, I saw Ash and Ava engaged in conversation and met my brother’s curious look.
Ignoring him, I turned back around. “What are you playing at?” I asked her as she walked beside me, head held high and back straight.
“I thought you may be hungry after a hard day of training.”
“You used to be more convincing when you lied,” I grunted.
“You used to be gentler when you touched me,” she countered quietly.
I almost let her go, but instead, my grip tightened on her arm. “Really? I didn’t hear any complaints when my hand was wrapped around your throat and your pussy was sucking my dick dry.”
“You’re such an asshole.”
“Never pretended otherwise.”
“Hey, you two, slow down!” Ava called out behind us. “Not everyone has your long legs!”
With a deep breath, I let go of Quinn as we waited for the others to catch up. I was not looking forward to this.
* * *
We’d taken two cars to get to Cardinal. Quinn had opted for an Italian restaurant.
Smallish in size, it had a handful of booths and then a mix of small tables with red and white gingham tablecloths, with half-used candles in empty dark green wine bottles for authenticity, or something.
I’d been to Italy many times, and I had yet to see a half-used, heavily waxed, empty wine bottle as a candle holder, but hey, who was I to raise questions about authenticity?
The atmosphere between us was, to say the least, awkward. Ash refused to acknowledge Quinn, Jett was whispering sweet nothings into Ava’s ear, and I was seriously considering faking an illness. Anything that would let me walk out of here without having to endure an hour of this.
Ava, through no fault of her own, managed to catch my attention, and I saw her happy smile fade as she read the tension in my eyes. With a quick glance, she looked at the other occupants of the table.
“Have you been here before?” she asked us all, and I wanted to pat her on the head for her feeble attempt at trying to make conversation.
“You know, Ava,” Ash told her with a grin, “this is the first time you’ve probably ever sat with four other people who are all as crazy about football as you.”
Ava beamed. There was no other word for it; she looked positively giddy with glee. “Oh my God, you are so right. You can talk routes and drives all night long, and I won’t even feel ignored,” she said to Jett with a smile.
“Or we can talk about other things,” Jett said to her as he kissed the side of her head, his hard stare on Quinn.
I saw her moisten her lips as she reached for a glass of water.
“What else could we possibly have to discuss?” Her answering look was equally as hard, and I loved my brother, I did, but he deserved that virtual slap she just delivered him.
This was not the time, and it was not the place.
More importantly, he may be in love with his girl or whatever, but this was not a conversation for Ava to be party to.
Not now and possibly never.
“Who did you get to practice on today?” Ava asked her as she again quickly picked up on the tension and changed the subject.