Chapter 16 Quinn #2
We all took a drink, and I studiously avoided looking at the three men walking toward us.
I knew what Mia was doing, but I wanted to tell her it wouldn’t make a difference.
The two of them were like magnets: either Ava went to Jett or he to her.
He didn’t see it as a power play; he was as eager as Ava was to be in each other’s space.
“You look fucking incredible,” Jett told Ava as he wrapped his arms around her. Ava smiled, and then we lost the two of them as he kissed her in greeting.
“You had a good game,” I said to Ash, and he nodded, although he avoided looking at me. “You’ll be playing for the conference championship if you keep this up.”
“Should be,” he answered, and I watched him look at Mia. “I have no idea what you’re supposed to be,” he told her.
“You didn’t read comics?” Mia asked him with surprise. “I’m Mystique.”
Ash’s eyes flicked to mine, and I helped him out. “X-Men, she’s the shapeshifter.”
“She’s blue?” Ash asked me as he looked at Mia. “If she’s a shapeshifter, why is she blue?”
“Superheroes aren’t their jam,” I explained to Mia. “Which is why I never got to do this before.”
“They really did come as football players.” Mia shook her head in sympathy at me. “They must have sucked so bad when you were younger.”
“We are standing right here.” Gray’s dry tone didn’t bother Mia at all.
“You didn’t even wear the tight pants,” she protested as she obviously checked out Ash’s ass. “I mean, the jeans are nice, don’t get me wrong, but the pants . . . ya know.”
“You want to see my ass?” Ash asked her with a grin.
“Well, not yours,” Mia answered as she looked around the room. Her sights landed on Ben Kowoski, the backup quarterback. “His? Absolutely. Mama’s hungry,” Mia said with a gleam in her eyes.
“You’re such a horndog,” Ava said as she slapped her arm. “Plus, Ben has a girlfriend.”
Mia pouted and then stretched on her tiptoes to see over the crowd as Ben turned. She gave a low whistle. “Girl can still look,” she said as she settled back down and took a drink of her cocktail. “And I have no problems looking.”
“You having fun?” Jett asked me, and I turned to give him my attention.
“We are,” I said with a quick nod. “The maze in Cardinal was so much fun. We came in last.”
“That’s . . . good?” His look was quizzical, as if he couldn’t understand me being pleased at the result despite my nodding. “So, superheroes?” he guessed.
“Supervillains,” Mia corrected him. “We’re the hot bad guys . . . well, girls.”
I heard the snort beside me and chose to ignore it. Jett turned his attention back to Ava. “I think I like it,” he said to her as he pulled her in closer.
“You’re not the only one. Quinn just got hit on, like completely, blatantly hit on,” Ava told him. “My jaw was hanging open and everything, and she just brushed him off, with style. It was epically smooth.”
Jett’s eyes flicked to the dark presence standing beside me and back to me. “Denzel?”
“It was harmless,” I told him as I hid behind my drink. Gray reached over and took it off me before lifting it to his mouth and downing my margarita. Mia opened her mouth to protest, but I saw Ava nudge her to be quiet.
“Thirsty,” Gray growled when he finished. “Need another, be right back. Jett!”
Jett hesitated and then followed his brother to the kitchen, and the four of us stood in silence for a moment before I heard Ash grunt out a laugh.
“How the fuck didn’t I see it before?”
I knew he was talking to me, and I turned to face him, bracing myself for whatever was coming.
“I’ll catch you all later,” he told us instead, and I watched him walk over to Ben and the rest of his teammates, and I was selfishly relieved that I had yet again managed to avoid this conversation. I looked away from him.
“What was that?” Mia asked as she looked between me and Ava.
“Maybe he likes Ben’s ass too,” Ava blurted, and despite myself, I started to laugh. Mia joined in, and the tension was eased again. Ava handed me her cup, and I took a much-welcome drink.
“Ooh, there’s Bea, be right back.” Mia was already halfway across the room before Ava could reply.
“It’s nice to have you,” Ava said as she watched her friend. “I don’t mind really, but wearing this, I’m glad everyone’s looking at you.”
Glancing down at myself, I looked at her. “Not everyone,” I said as I looked over to the kitchen, and with a heavy sigh, I watched Gray talking to Denzel.
“You need to talk about that?” Ava asked me quietly.
“No, it’s nothing.”
“Okay.” I felt her arm slip through mine. “If you ever want to, I’m here.”
Ava was smaller than me, and I looked down at her. “Why? You hardly know me.”
“I’m a great judge of character,” she said as she took a sip of her drink before handing it to me. “I mean, I completely knew Jett would be awesome and Gray would be a dick.”
“You told me Ash was the nice one,” I reminded her dryly.
“He is . . . to me,” she countered as her eyes searched the crowd for him. “He’s the most open, I think.”
That was true; the twins played it tight to their chests. Ash was a little more relaxed about things.
“They each have their positives and negatives.”
Jett and Gray were walking back to us, and I shifted nervously where I stood. “Ava, I hate to do this . . .”
“Go,” she said as she took her cup back. “You’re having fun, go mingle with Mia.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. When I reached Mia, the music that had been playing as background music got turned up, and she grabbed my hand and yelled Dance to which I agreed.
I spent the next while on the dance floor. Mia drifted in and out, but I liked dancing and was never alone. Two guys approached me, and I danced with them, always stepping out of their reach when they tried to get closer.
Mia was back on the dance floor, and we were both dancing to Thirty Seconds to Mars’s “Closer to the Edge,” and I was having fun.
The lights dimmed, and my feet faltered when I saw six of the football team had all pulled up black bandanas.
Wildly, I looked at the door and saw it was closed, and then as I looked back, I saw Gray watching me.
He gave a wink, and just like that, the lights went out.
The screams were instant as the music cut off, and I got shoved as people on the dance floor moved.
“Mia?” I called, and I felt a hand take mine. “Mia?”
“It’s me,” she said as she stepped closer to me. “Mayhem?”
“Yeah.” I turned slowly in the darkness. They hadn’t told me. They always told me when it was Mayhem.
I startled when I heard a loud scream pierce through the speakers, and then low, eerie laughter followed. Suddenly, a spooky voice screamed Run, and it echoed all through the house as people panicked and screamed.
“Don’t run,” I warned Mia as I felt her pull away. “Never run, they can’t do anything if they can’t catch you.”
Reaching out my hand, I guided us to the wall and pushed us both up against it.
“You knew this was happening?” Mia whispered over the noise of people running, falling into each other, and the horrible, creepy laughter.
“No.” We stayed there as we felt and heard people laughing or crying out around us. I’d always been clued in on Mayhem before, but being on the other end of it was pretty unnerving.
“Oh look!” Mia tugged my hand, and I looked around and saw the neon glow sticks moving through the darkness. “Is that new?”
“No, that’s not the Devils.”
I heard a crash and a scream, and I had a sudden bad feeling. Holding on tight to Mia, I made my way toward the kitchen. Bumping into the drinks table, I grabbed onto the edge and felt along the side, trying to remember the way.
Suddenly, the lights and music came back on, and I jumped at the brightness, blinking in surprise.
Looking around, I saw a number of people entwined, a few people shoving each other, ready to throw down, and I saw the captain of the basketball team putting ice on his busted lip as people fussed around him.
Searching the crowd, I found him, right where he had been standing, Jett beside him, talking to him with his head turned away so no one could lip-read. I knew from the set of Jett’s shoulders that he was angry.
Gray wasn’t listening. He was staring at me as his good hand checked his strapped hand. I turned to look at Denzel and back to Gray, the question on my face clear.
His answer was a smirk as he watched me put it together.
Jealous possessive dickhead. I hoped he’d broken more of his bones. He deserved it.
“Why do they do this?” Mia asked me in bemusement as she watched the party get wilder as a result of Mayhem.
“Because they can.”