Chapter 9
ZARIAH
LONE WOLF DENALI
As awkward as it was with Denali, we had to accept being around each other. For Elijah.
We took him in shifts. Denali had my brother in the mornings for hockey practice, and I swung by to grab Elijah for my lunch writing sessions where he did his homework.
We traded Elijah again for their shared classes since they were kinesiology majors, and for the evening, I’d drag Elijah to wherever I was supposed to go.
Not with my football friends because they were still wary around him.
And we never hung out with his team, Elijah didn’t want to spend time with them.
Sometimes, I brought him to the library to write with me. Other times, I forced him to drive us to our family home for dinner. Elijah would put on a happy face for our parents before that disappeared on the drive back to Marrs.
We pretended like this was normal. It wasn’t.
By the time the trip to Atlanta arrived, I knew Elijah was tired of it. It was five o’clock in the morning, I was ready to go, but when he opened his door, he sighed.
“Z? We need to talk.”
“What’s up?”
“You’ve got your own thing in Georgia, I don’t want to drag you down.” He pressed the button for the elevator. “I promise, I’m just going to be hanging out in my hotel room. You don’t have to keep taking me on walks and shit, I know you have stuff you want to do there.”
Except I did have to keep taking him out on walks. If I didn’t and Denali was busy, I was pretty sure Elijah didn’t leave his dorm.
“What are you thinking about with Atlanta?” I asked.
Elijah was obviously waiting for me to drop it, but I raised my eyebrows. He sighed again. “What about Atlanta?”
“Will the game be a blowout? Or a slow ass-whooping?”
“Do you want honesty?”
He sounded so serious, I didn’t know what to say.
I forced my tone to stay light. “Don’t I always want honesty?”
“I’m kind of…” Elijah shifted uncomfortably. “Nervous.”
I had no idea my twin could be nervous. Mom said he didn’t smile first, he smirked—Elijah had been cocky since the womb. Seeing him nervous unsettled me more than I could show.
“Wow. Must be a new feeling.”
“It is,” he acknowledged. “The last group of Gladiators, they couldn’t play for shit, so I didn’t care. If we sucked, it was like that every year. It didn’t matter. But…I don’t know. There’s expectations now.”
We left Roman Villa and made our way to the training center. “What’s the issue then? Shouldn’t you be excited?”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
I wrapped an arm around his waist. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you’re being a huge baby for no reason.”
“Thanks, Z.”
“Even if you have a bad feeling, you get to go to Atlanta for free. Food paid for, bed paid for, a couple of days to hang out with your teammates—”
“I don’t hang out with them anymore. Just Denali.”
Elijah never hung out with any of his previous teammates either, he never cared enough. He was Mr. Independent. Which was why I was so surprised about his friendship with Denali. Friends had never really been Elijah’s thing. Or, at least, I’d thought so.
Maybe my brother wasn’t always the cocky asshole he pretended to be.
Maybe he could be lonely. It was a weird thought.
“Who’s that?” Elijah wondered, breaking my psychoanalysis.
I glanced over my shoulder, reverting my gaze just as quickly. Oh, goddammit. “It’s five in the fucking morning. What’s up with grown men following me around this year?!”
“You know that guy?”
That guy was Jeremy. I met him at a frat party when one of my best friends, Adam, introduced us. Adam was my favorite wingman, but if I would’ve known what Jeremy was like, I wouldn’t have bothered. He was a shithead. I hadn’t slept with him since April, why couldn’t he leave me alone?
“Zariah?” he yelled after us.
“Move faster,” I urged Elijah.
“That’s one big dude,” Elijah muttered. “Zariah, he’s like seven feet tall—what the hell?”
We made it over the hill before Jeremy’s impossibly long legs caught up with us. He blocked my path, his grin as pronounced as his widow’s peak. “Hey? You didn’t respond to my messages?”
“Ooo, that’s a fun puzzle,” I muttered. “If someone doesn’t reply after a couple of months, whatever could that mean?”
“I want to talk—”
“I don’t want to have sex with you again, which is what I said already. So go away.”
“Ew, gross.” Elijah gagged. “This is one of your lays? He’s a fucking mammoth. Shouldn’t you copulate with things your own size?”
“Ooo, the vocabulary prize goes to you, E.”
“What? Copulate?”
“No. Mammoth. I’m proud of you for learning your animals.”
He snorted. “Fuck you.”
Jeremy seemed to miss that I was purposely leaving him out of our conversation. “Is he your boyfriend?”
“Now I’m going to vomit,” Elijah choked out.
“He’s my twin,” I said, irritated.
“I want to say I’m sorry—”
“What happened with Mammoth?” Elijah asked.
I rolled my eyes. “He made a joke about my ass being small and I ended things with him.”
“Uh…you do have a small ass.” Elijah chuckled.
“You’re my brother, you can say that.” I flipped off Jeremy when he came too close, which did nothing to deter him, heightening my exasperation. “I choose who I sleep with. I want a man who respects me. My choices, my body, and my small ass.”
“Your loss, dude,” Elijah threw over his shoulder. “Beat it.”
“I was kidding,” Jeremy pleaded, stopping us again and almost running into my brother.
Elijah bristled. “What the fuck—?”
“Elijah,” I warned. “Calm down.”
Jeremy tried to interject. “Zariah, it was one joke—”
“No, it wasn’t. It was a pattern, and I’m not a referee. I don’t jump for joy at unpacking red flags.”
We were too close to the bus to have this conversation, and I didn’t want Elijah involved. He was working on his temper, trying to be better, but I could see the flash of anger across his face. If there was anyone not worth getting in trouble over, it was Jeremy.
I grabbed for Elijah’s shoulder, but another hand beat me to it. One way bigger than mine, knuckles tense.
My eyes slid to Denali’s face, where his focus was locked on Jeremy. “Who’s this?”
“Some guy Zariah used to bone who needs to get the fuck out of here,” Elijah replied, his voice curt.
Elijah was pissed off, but Denali was another thing entirely.
His body stiffened and he took a conscious step to the right, inserting himself into the situation.
Which didn’t need to be a situation at all—I already had to deal with the fallout from Elijah’s fights, I sure as shit wouldn’t add to that.
I motioned to Jeremy. “Go.”
He moved closer. “Zariah, can we talk in private—”
Denali’s hand snapped to Jermey’s chest, and his voice dipped to something darker. “What the fuck did Zariah say that’s so difficult for you to understand?”
I froze, taken aback by my own reaction. My belly swooped at his words. What the hell was that?
I’d been cleaning up Elijah’s messes for years, I hated unnecessary, bullshit fights. They were the bane of my existence. I didn’t need a clone of Elijah running around, making trouble. So why was it so hot when Denali got involved?
With a hard shake of my head, I grabbed Elijah and Denali by the back of their jackets and yanked them to the bus.
It didn’t matter how my heart thumped, we weren’t having a standoff at five in the morning.
Over Jeremy? Fucking Jeremy? I didn’t stop until we were surrounded by the hockey team, beginning to spread out to investigate what we were up to.
How could Denali get involved like that? He was a self-proclaimed Elijah handler, didn’t he have common sense? It was stupid and reckless—and his voice was entirely too sexy when he got into Jeremy’s space.
I released both boys and merged into the team, determined to put some space between me and Denali.
“Zariah, you were fucking that?” Nick asked, dumbfounded. “With what, a ladder? How does that even work? What are you, five-feet? How would that guy bend down far enough to—?”
“Nick,” Denali snapped.
“I’m five-foot-two, jackass,” I muttered.
Nick rolled his eyes. “Do those two inches even matter?”
“Ugh, how many girls have you said that to?”
Nick’s mouth fell open in indignation, but Fridge beat him to a reply, his lips twitching for a smile. “That guy’s a basketball player if I ever saw one.”
Reluctantly, I nodded. “He’s my last athlete, I learned my lesson.”
“Did you hear that, Denali?” Nick glanced at Denali. “She learned her lesson. That’s her last—”
Denali shoved him. “Get on the goddamn bus.”
I couldn’t corner Denali to talk to him about what happened, but I had to say something to Elijah. Careful to keep my voice low, I tugged Elijah to a stop. “E, I don’t need you to protect me.”
“You’re my sister,” he muttered back. “I want the best for you. The guy you’re with is supposed to listen to you when you’re uncomfortable—”
“Hey, asshole. You’re my brother and you didn’t listen to me back there. And I was uncomfortable.”
“That’s different.”
“Enlighten me. How?”
For a brief moment, I could see the rusty cogs turning behind his eyes.
Elijah opened his mouth and I really thought he’d connect those thoughts for the first time in his life.
A rare fuse going off in the brain he never used.
Instead, he motioned for me to keep going. “You’re my sister, it’s different.”
With a sigh, I let Elijah pick where we were sitting. Of course Denali was across the aisle from him. Of course, we had to be close together. With how this semester was going, it only made sense.
I shot a wistful glance at Montoya at the front while the noise increased tenfold. The team chatted together, anticipation thick in the air. Reluctantly, I took my seat.
“Gladiators!” Sémajuste boomed, drumming his hands on the back of a seat. “Are we ready for Atlanta?”
The Gladiators cheered as Cleo filmed the reactions.
“WE’RE GOING TO KICK SOME ASS!” Nick thundered.
“No cursing, I have to upload this,” Cleo rebuked.
“WE’RE GOING TO KICK SOME SNATCH!”
“How is that better?!”
“SORRY, MOM!” Nick shouted, using Cleo’s team nickname.
The bus rumbled beneath us, and we were off down the highway.
I’d traveled with the Gladiators before, but these guys were way more animated. The guys hung over their seats, shouting and laughing together. I watched them until I realized Nick was watching me.
His lips tugged up for a grin then he glanced Denali’s way. “Captain, when are you getting a date for alumni night?”
“I don’t need a date,” Denali muttered.
Another hockey player piped up from behind me. “That’s our lone wolf.”
I frowned. “Lone wolf?”
“Who’s got the Denali impression?”
Instantly, the bus was a chorus of hockey players tightening their voices into raspy growls, everybody glaring at each other.
“Don’t simp for pussy!”
“Focus on hockey!”
“You’re doing too much, women will fuck you over anyway!”
What the hell kind of impersonation was this? I stared incredulously at Denali who was burning bright red. “Wow.”
“I—I—”
“Denali dated this girl who broke up with him.” Fridge glanced over his seat to explain. “He’s decided to blame all women. It’s an unhealthy coping mechanism.”
I gazed in shock at Fridge, and for a brief second, I wondered if maybe this mysterious girl was someone else. But there was no way it could be, not with Denali stammering, his face the color of a stop sign. “It’s not that simple—it’s—it’s complicated—”
Bear leaned into the aisle. “I thought you said it was out of the blue?”
“Denali, that’s terrible,” I said, my voice hard. “How long were you two dating?”
The rest of the bus had returned to their conversations but Bear, Elijah, Nick, and Fridge waited for his answer. Denali’s eyes were on me, both aware of our audience.
He cleared his throat. “A…couple of months.”
Fridge blinked. “What?”
“A couple of months?” I echoed. “Huh. And this was…recently?”
He winced. “High school.”
“High school?” Elijah repeated, confused.
“You’re joking,” Fridge said. “High school?”
“Dude, you were a kid,” Nick said. “Seriously, who gives a shit about high school?”
“But she broke up with you out of the blue?” I pressed. “So at least you have a good reason to teach your teammates that they don’t need to respect their girlfriends or be kind or—”
“That’s not—I didn’t—”
“Because it’s not like you have impressionable young men under your wing.” I made a show of glancing around the bus. “Oh, wait. You do.”
Elijah cleared his throat. “Zariah—”
“Don’t ‘Zariah’ me. This is your best friend, a grown-ass man. He can speak for himself.”
Denali hesitated. “She had…some family stuff going on and told me that she was going through a lot mentally—she couldn’t keep the relationship going.” He took a deep breath. “I thought if we could talk face to face, I could fix things. She told me to stop contacting her and I…went to her house.”
Our section of the bus was completely silent.
Fridge put his head in his hands. “You didn’t.”
“She told you she was done and you showed up at her parent’s place…” Bear breathed out slowly. “Goddammit, Denali.”
“She and I got into contact recently. When I heard how she saw things…I get it now. I know what I did was wrong.” Denali’s eyes never left mine. “And I’m so sorry.”
Everything was given with minimal information to prevent Elijah from finding out. The story was true, but the heartache was in the details.
When my grandfather was put in serious medical care in Colorado, I was devastated. That hospital visit was different. There was a sense of finality, the end was coming.
Too much had happened that summer and I was drowning in things I wasn’t ready for. Hersch’s impending death, how emotionally complex my relationship was with Denali, the future he tried to plan for us together while I still didn’t have my driver’s license…
Everything was bigger than I could handle, I wanted to retreat to my family. I wanted to be a kid again.
I told Denali I wanted to go home but we could have a long-distance relationship.
I knew it was going to be a hard conversation, but I had no idea it’d be that bad.
Outside of Hersch in one of his moods, no one had ever screamed at me like that before.
Denali wasn’t angry, he was panicking, and that made it so much worse.
God, I didn’t want to think about that conversation.
That was the first time Denali made me cry.
I kept my gaze on his, fighting the range of emotions threatening to spill over. I was a ghost that haunted Denali and that hurt, but I was so angry Denali made me into this cautionary tale for his teammates. As if he wasn’t the one who hurt me.
And yet…I was angry, yes, but I also felt that familiar twinge of hurting for him.
“Denali?” Elijah cleared his throat. “Did the girl…uh—you know—accept the apology?”
Denali was quiet for a moment. “No. She didn’t.”