Chapter 7 #2
“Fine, we were gonna smoke a blunt,” Fletch amends.
Figures.
I don’t bother lecturing him. Not my place. If they want to risk failing a drug test, that’s their prerogative. It isn’t as if we haven’t been through this before. At best, he’ll get a slap on the wrist. At worst, he’ll be benched a game or two.
“But Murph heard something,” he goes on. “Voices. So, he went to investigate, and I followed. Found these two making a break for it.” He chuckles a little nervously. “We were just messin’ with them. I swear. Murph just—”
“He was hurting my brother.”
An eerie stillness washes over me, and I fight a shiver that has very little to do with how cold it is away from the fire.
On the outside, my reaction is probably not that noticeable. But inside…inside, my pulse jackknifes as memories surge forth, threatening to crash over the present, and suck me down into their murky depths.
I distract myself with focusing on how…different, but also familiar his voice is.
Smoother, and only a little deeper than it was last time I heard it.
At least, last time I heard it under normal circumstances, and not the high-pitched, childish, hysteric way he spoke before the cops dragged him out.
Still, beneath that, there’s a…pointed sort of softness to it that feels…
Dangerous.
And full of meaning I’d rather not try to decipher.
“Brother?” Casey says at the same time Fletch holds a hand up and says, “Whoa, okay, that wasn’t me. We were just messing with ya.” More nervous laughter escapes him as he directs his next words at me. “Murph, man. You know how he gets when he’s drunk. Dude just got carried away.”
“Yep, Eden’s my brother. My newest one,” Aston announces proudly, and pointedly, paying no mind to Fletch’s shitty excuses. “In fact…”
Fuck.
Well, that answers that.
Question now is…how much does he remember?
“Whatever,” I interject loudly. “He’s too young to be here. And we don’t even know—”
“Is it true you were a patient at Ashwood?” Casey blurts suddenly, cutting me off.
If Aston was going to call me out on my bullshit, my best friend’s point-blank, and arguably insensitive question, effectively nips that whole concern in the bud.
For a long moment, no one says anything. The tension filling the silence is so thick, it’s stifling. Makes it hard to breathe evenly and not betray my rapidly growing unease. All the other sounds that had fallen to the background suddenly seem louder.
The pulse-thudding music.
The rustling of leaves.
The faint spikes of laughter and crackle of firewood.
It all returns in stark clarity, taking center-stage.
“What do you know about that?”
Casey shuffles awkwardly, telling me this time the danger lacing Aston’s misleadingly soft tone doesn’t go unnoticed. “Um. Forget I said anything. That was rude. I’m drunk.”
Again, the silence in the wake of his words is near-painful. With every second that passes as I wait to see how Aston will react, the dread sitting like a pit in my stomach sinks deeper.
As a kid, I’d mastered the art of reading him. He was unpredictable at times, sure—more often than not as we got older—but there was a pattern to it if you were paying close enough attention.
This version of Aston though is a wildcard. He might as well be a stranger. And that’s not even taking into consideration what Quentin disclosed on the drive here.
Finally, Aston breaks the silence, an obnoxious burst of laughter exploding out of him.
Irritation wars with the prickle of unease it triggers. The last time I heard him laugh, we were covered in blood, with a freshly butchered corpse laid out between us.
Eyes wide, Casey slowly pivots his head toward me. And mouths, What the fuck?
Clamping down on my molars, I give a little shake of my head, before aiming a glare up at the stars winking back at me. Taunting me with the illusion of closeness—giving me the impression I could rip them from the sky with my bare hands.
Because who else is to blame, other than the cosmos, for this sick joke.
“Relaxxxxx,” Aston drawls once he manages to compose himself. “So, you heard I was in the looney bin. It’s the twenty-first century, babes. The world’s shit. We’re all a little cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.” He sniffs, and in my periphery, I catch him inspecting his nails. “Some just more than others.”
I don’t miss the way the Jennings’ kid—Eden, Aston called him—grows even more tense, and I wonder if he’s afraid of his new brother.
I have no doubt he was forced here. Blackmailed somehow.
Tonight is far from the first time he had a run-in with one of the guys from the team.
He’d never willingly walk into the lion’s den.
Aston doesn’t know that though.
And even if Eden did tell him… Well, it clearly wasn’t enough to make Aston reconsider bringing him. No, that would require exercising some sympathy. When he’s only ever been capable of experiencing a basic level of empathy.
And that makes a hell of a difference. I would know.
“You had a knife,” Fletch murmurs, drawing me from my musings.
“And did I hurt anyone with it?” Aston fires back.
“Well, no. But—”
“What if I was carrying a gun?” He twirls his finger in the air. It’s only then I notice what’s draped around his neck—binoculars.
What the fuck?
“Don’t think I didn’t spot that bulge Murph was sporting. Unless you want to tell me he’s got a spare member growing from his hip that was just happy to see me.”
Casey snorts, while I wrench my gaze to a gaping Fletch.
“He’s got his gun on him?”
His lips fumble with a response that won’t come, and he rapidly shakes his head. Then, finally, he manages to get out, “I-I have no idea.”
I scowl. “Go fucking find him and confiscate that shit. Hand it over to one of the DDs. He’s drunk off his ass. Him accidentally blowing his or someone else’s brains is the last thing I—we—need.”
Not picking up on my near-slip, he nods stiffly, and leaves.
“A twink like me’s gotta protect himself somehow,” Aston drawls. Arms crossed, nose turned up at the sky when I turn to face him, he looks ever the melodramatic brat he was as a kid.
The Jennings kid at his side mumbles something under his breath, too quiet for me to make out, but it has Aston dropping his arms and turning on him with a gasp. “Eden! Watch your mouth. You’re lucky it’s so—”
I turn to Casey. “Can you, like, get them out of here? Make sure they don’t get lost.”
He nods.
“Wait.”
Plastering on a look of bored indifference, I turn an arched, expectant brow on Aston, finally giving him a little taste of what he wants by meeting his gaze head-on.
A spark of surprised satisfaction briefly widens his green eyes.
Yeah, I’m not fucking scared of you.
As if he can read my thoughts, his lips twitch with the makings of a smile.
Eyes glittering with a mix of challenge and something else—something hot and dangerous that I refuse to acknowledge—he sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and dips his chin just enough so that he has to peer at me through his thick lashes.
It should look ridiculous—this whole sweet and naive flirtatious act. But I know the truth. And all it serves to do is make me see red.
It’s a taunt. Nothing more. Nothing less.
When he’s yet to say anything, I clip out a short, “What?”
Running his teeth across his plush bottom lip, he saunters toward me. Two feet separate us.
Then, one.
Then, inches.
He’s so close now, that if I wasn’t holding my breath, all I would smell is him.
And that’s the very last thing I need right now, when I’m barely managing to keep the memories at bay.
Barely able to ignore the way my cock twitches at the sight of his shiny full lips up close.
That lean, lithe body, broader and only slightly taller than he was years ago.
That pale delicate neck just begging for my fingers. My teeth.
It makes me want to throw up. This instantaneous attraction to the last person on Earth I should be lusting after. This…primal, blinding surge of want, trampling what I know to be true and logical.
Makes me want to grab him by the hair and force him to his knees and punish him.
Makes me want to snap his neck while my cum is still clinging to his lips, my dick still out and hard and slick with his spit… and the last thing he sees before the light fades from his eyes.
Either he’s oblivious to what his proximity is doing to me—to the twisted thoughts and cravings circling my mind like sharks—or he doesn’t give two shits.
My bet’s on the latter.
If the twinkle of laughter shining from his sage eyes is anything to go by, whatever he senses lurking behind my stony exterior seems to greatly amuse him.
Like this is all just a fun game to him—like we’re picking up right where we left off years ago, with him staking claim on the next roll of the dice.
“Thank you,” he eventually says.
“For what?” I mutter stiffly, ignoring how tempting his full lips look.
“Well, for coming to my rescue of course,” he says innocently, batting his eyes. “Do you always just—” He makes a flicking motion with his fingers. “—swoop in and save all the boys?”
My eyes narrow.
I didn’t save him.
If anything, I prevented a massacre.
Before I can think better of it, I find myself responding, “Only when I get something out of it.”
His brows fly up, and I’m distantly aware of Casey coughing to mask his startled laugh.
“That so?” Aston murmurs so quietly, I’m certain the words aren’t meant for me. Then, “Tell me, Vale.”
Fucking hell. Biting the tip of my tongue, I will my expression to remain blank.
“What do you get out of it?” His mouth twitches, and I can practically hear the two words he’s biting back. This time.
I give a bored, unimpressed once-over. “Honestly?” Our eyes lock. “I just didn’t want my best linebacker to risk getting expelled for kicking your ass. The team can’t afford to lose him if we have any chance of winning States this year.”