Chapter 15
ANTHONY
A few moments of silence pass, then West says something I can’t make out as his phone starts vibrating over and over again, like it’s caught in some sort of loop. Finally, the mechanical sound stops, and he mutters something that sounds a lot like “Fuck my fucking life.”
I spend the next ten or so minutes doing little tweaks on the file I was working on that don’t require a lot of my attention while West sits on my couch, his attention fixed on his phone.
I can see him out of the corner of my eye when I swing my chair to the left, and he seems to be in a different position every time I check to see what he’s up to.
One minute he’s sitting with both feet on the floor with his arms tucked into his sides.
The next time I look, he’s got one foot up on the couch, and his chin is resting on his knee as he balances his phone on his other leg.
A minute later he’s sitting cross-legged and hunched over, and the next time I look, he’s switched so the soles of his feet are pressed together and he’s in a butterfly pose.
And it’s not just him moving around that keeps grabbing my attention, it’s also the litany of sounds he’s making as he does whatever he’s up to.
The heavy sighs and little grunts and groans of frustration are almost as distracting as his nonsensical exclamations, and it’s obvious he’s getting more and more worked up the longer he’s on his phone.
“For fuck’s sake,” he grinds out and stabs at the screen with his finger. “Fuck all the way off.”
The phone vibrates again, and he lets out a frustrated growl. “Fuck this.” He tosses his phone on the other side of the couch, and it starts vibrating again before it’s even stopped bouncing. “I’m not fucking dealing with this.”
“You okay?” I ask when he buries his face in his hands and groans loudly.
“Yes, but no.” He drops his hands and blows out a frustrated sigh. “I’m not looking at my phone again for at least a week. Everyone can just fuck right off.”
“That bad?”
“I swear every person I’ve ever talked to on campus is texting and asking about the breakup. And my brother is being an even bigger dick than usual, and I just can’t deal with any of this right now.”
“Your brother is being a dick?”
“A bigger one than usual,” he corrects.
“Which brother?”
West’s two older brothers—and his father—are famous in Keeper lore for all the records they hold and the accolades they have, but he never talks about them.
“Tyler.” He shoots me a wry smile. “Greg was being a dick earlier, so I guess it’s Ty’s turn.”
“What are they being dicks about?”
“They heard about me and McKenna breaking up,” he says, but doesn’t offer any more details. “Because of course they did. I swear they’re more plugged into what goes on here than I am. And I go here.”
I’ve already picked up that West doesn’t get along with his brothers, and he never talks about his parents, at least not that I’ve heard, but it’s strange that his family doesn’t seem to be supporting him when he’s clearly the one who’s been wronged.
“They didn’t like her?” I ask, still trying to get a read on the situation.
He snort-laughs. “Are you kidding? They love her. My whole family does. My brothers are pissed we broke up, and I’m sure my parents are too.”
“Do they know she cheated on you?”
“Probably not. I haven’t talked to any of them yet.” He lets his head fall back against the cushion behind him. “But they won’t care. I’m sure it will still be my fault somehow.” He lets out another loud groan. “Fuck my goddamn fucking life.”
“Do you need a distraction?”
He lifts his head from the back of the couch and shoots me a look that I can only describe as bashful. “I think I might.”
“Come here.”
He gets to his feet without hesitating, but the rush of pride that moves through me is mixed with something dark and primal, and it takes a second to place it as possession.
West looks adorably shy as he sort of shuffles toward me, and I stand so he can take my chair. “Sit.”
He immediately sits in my vacated seat and watches curiously as I go to my closet to get the spare gaming desk chair I keep in there for when my friends come over.
“A helmet?” he asks as I move the helmet from where I put it on the seat of the chair earlier and onto one of the many built-in shelves inside my closet.
“For my bike.”
“You have a motorcycle?” He blinks like he’s trying to process this new bit of information.
I nod and drag the chair across the room.
“I’m such a moron,” he says sardonically.
“I know your friends all have bikes. I’ve seen you with your helmet, and you were literally wearing a motorcycle jacket and boots when I saw you earlier today.
I know all that, but it never occurred to me that you have a bike.
” He shakes his head ruefully as I push the chair right up against his.
“I swear I’m not as dumb as I seem. This is an off night. ”
“You need to stop putting yourself down,” I say as I sit next to him. “You’re not a moron or dumb or any of the other things you call yourself.”
“I feel like all of those things,” he mumbles.
“You’re not,” I tell him firmly. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
He smiles, and two faint spots of color appear on his cheeks. “It makes sense you ride since you love things that go fast,” he says, effectively changing the subject.
I chuckle and push my hair back from my forehead with a swipe of my hand. “That’s one reason I like motorcycles. Are you a fan?”
“Depends what you mean by fan,” he says. “I’m a fan of bikes, and of people who ride them, but I’ll never willingly get on one.”
“But they have brakes.” I bump his arm with mine. “Isn’t that your thing?”
“They do have brakes,” he agrees with a laugh. “But they don’t have seatbelts or airbags or walls, and those are also very important when it comes to things that go fast.”
I nudge my mouse to flash my screen up. “But the lack of airbags and walls and seatbelts is part of the fun.”
“For you, maybe.” His eyes are shining with laughter. “But the thought of zooming down the road with nothing between me and the asphalt is a big nope. Same with potentially tussling with other vehicles that do have all those things and will definitely win against me and a bike.”
“Fair enough,” I concede. “But there’s nothing like feeling that kind of power between your legs.”
His eyes widen comically. “What?” he says, his voice so high it’s almost a squeak.
“The engine,” I say innocently. “That kind of speed is addictive.”
His neck flushes pink, and he quickly looks at the editing program that’s still open on my screen.
“Is that one of your videos?” he asks.
I nod. “Do you want to see some of the others I’ve finished?”
“Really?” His embarrassment melts into a big, bright smile that warms something in my chest.
“Of course. I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it, remember?”
A soft expression crosses his features, but he glances back at my computer screen before I can read it. “Yeah, that would be awesome.”
I make sure everything is saved, then close out of the program and open the folder that has my newest edits in it and click on one of the videos.
“Is that you?” he asks as the video starts, and an aerial shot of Rath speeding down a hill and toward a small jump fills the screen.
“That’s Rath.” I point to the figure on skis behind Rath, filming him. “That’s me.”
“How did you get those aerial shots?” he asks as the video transitions to a compilation of the four of us doing various small jumps and tricks when we were playing around one afternoon.
“Drones.”
“Who’s controlling them?”
“Me.” I point to the corner of the frame where my skis come into view for a few seconds, then disappear again. “I’m back there trying to stay out of the shot.”
He leans closer, completely enthralled by what he’s looking at.
“Which one is you?” he asks when the video transitions to various shots of us doing runs.
There’s nothing fancy about them, but it’s how the clips are set to the music that makes the impact.
“I can’t tell when you’re all wearing goggles and masks. ”
“I’m in blue,” I say. “Rath’s in black, Hazen is red, and Connor is in orange.”
“And now you’re all wearing different jackets.” He laughs softly as the video transitions to a shot of the twins taking a jump together and showing off their best moves as they twist and flip in the air before landing in perfect unison.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he mutters, his eyes wide as he stares at the screen. “How exactly does one figure out that they have a talent for doing that? And what would possess someone to actually do that at all?”
“Adrenaline and a twin brother you have a pathological need to always outdo,” I say. “I don’t even remember who said they were going to learn to do flip jumps first, but they just kept trying to one-up each other until they could do all that. Now they work together to show off.”
“Can you do that?” he asks.
“No, and I’m not stupid enough to try.”
“Not a lot of guys would admit that.” He tosses me a quick look.
“Probably not, but there’s no shame in knowing your limits.”
“In my family, having limits is considered a weakness,” he says. The bitterness in his voice is clear.
“In my family, pushing yourself to the point of failure is considered a weakness.”
“Your family sounds smarter than mine,” he muses.
“We have our moments.”
“Whoa,” he breathes, his attention fixed on the screen. “Can you go back a bit so I can see that again?”
I pause the video and move the counter back to the start of a shot of me taking a jump and doing several horizontal twists before landing on my skis backward, so I’m facing up the hill.
I continue down the next portion of the hill without turning, then I hit another low jump and do a simple flip with a half twist to land so I’m facing the right way again and continue my run.