Chapter 24 #2
“You were fifteen years old. This isn’t some idealistic movie with star-crossed teenagers who defy the odds—that’s not me. I wasn’t prepared for that. It would’ve been the trap I couldn’t have escaped from. I would’ve been unhappy.”
He met my gaze again. I could see him digesting the conversation before he exhaled. “Oh.”
“I need you to understand. You can’t hold on to a past that wouldn’t have been good for us. It wasn’t a bad thing that we broke up.” I sighed. “I’m sorry about everything that happened.”
Denali was quiet for so long. “Me too.”
Except his agreement didn’t feel like a finality, none of this did. This wasn’t a goodbye. There were hidden questions between the lines of our conversation, and I was finding it harder and harder to look away.
If anything, this intensified things.
Denali nodded to himself, reaching in the cabinets for two short glass tumblers. He dug ice out of the freezer, two cubes per glass, and set one in front of me, one in front of him.
The glass bottle of apple juice from the fridge made my heart skip a beat.
He held it out for me to inspect, his words soft. “Is this okay?”
“It’s okay,” I whispered, holding the glass between my hands, cool to the touch. He filled it halfway—just the way I liked it—that same sparkling sensation inside. Denali could always do that to me. The fireworks, the sparklers, and a small smile crossed my lips, like a secret between us.
The sudden knock on the door jolted us.
God, if it was another barnyard situation…
I didn’t want to deal with it, but Denali was one step ahead of me, striding to the door to yank it open.
“What the hell are you knocking for?” Denali demanded, his voice purposely low. “Elijah’s asleep.”
“We went to the gym—you weren’t there,” Nick retorted.
Denali glanced over his shoulder at me. “I told you, I can’t make it.”
“I thought you were joking, you don’t miss the gym.” Nick shoved past him, stopping when he spotted me. “Oh. I get it. Good morning, Zariah.”
“It smells like food,” Fridge muttered. “Are you making food?”
I paused. “You were supposed to go to the gym? I thought you said you couldn’t sleep?”
“I also can’t sleep,” Denali muttered, embarrassed.
He skipped the gym to make me breakfast? I smiled into my glass of apple juice and took a long drink, pleased.
“You fucked up my gym slot,” Nick decided, pointing towards the frying pan. “I want food too.”
“I’m not making you tacos.”
“What the fuck are we doing?” Bear asked, leaning in through the door frame. He rolled his eyes, leaving. “I’m going back to sleep with my girlfriend.”
Denali finally relented on making more tacos when I said I could eat another. Nick, Fridge, and I stretched out on the couch and the chairs while Denali cracked eggs in the kitchen.
“I’m glad you’re here, Zariah,” Nick said, hands folded over his stomach. “Or Denali wouldn’t be making me breakfast.”
“If she wasn’t here, Denali would be at the gym, and we wouldn’t be up at five for no reason,” Fridge pointed out.
“Don’t say that.” Nick elbowed him. “Because I’m about to make some money.”
“Oh, goddammit.” Fridge rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Don’t do it.”
“Don’t do what?” I asked.
Nick leaned my way. “Has Denali told you about Evie?”
I frowned. “Evie?”
Nick dropped his voice while bacon crackled in the kitchen. “Evie. Evelyn. About five-seven. Blonde. Wears lots of tennis skirts. Works for the training center staff, you’ve probably seen her.”
“Nick…” Fridge warned.
“I want my money, I’m tired of waiting for it,” Nick retorted. He shifted my way. “Ask Denali who Evie is. Better yet, ask Denali when’s the last time he slept with her.”
He had sex with this girl? I stared at Denali’s back, the thick muscles of his arms. My fingers gripped the glass tighter as I put everything together. Suddenly, I felt sick. Was Denali talking to me in a soft voice and sneaking Evie into his dorm?
I had to know. Fuck being coy.
“Denali?” I said, my voice curt. “Who’s Evie?”
He froze. “Evie?”
“Yes. Evie. Who is she?”
“Nobody.” Even as he said it, he winced. “No, she’s somebody. She’s…uh…a senior I had an acquaintance-with-benefits arrangement with?”
My heart sped up. “When’s the last time you slept with her?”
“Uh…” He scrunched up his features, thinking. “Late July? Early August? No—it was July.”
That hateful, spiteful hurt inside of me vanished. Before I was even on campus? What did she matter? Why had Nick brought her up?
“Evie’s been texting me,” Nick chuckled. “She wants to know what she did wrong, Captain.”
“She didn’t do anything wrong,” Denali muttered.
“You cut it off pretty suddenly. She wants to know what game you’re playing—”
“I don’t play games,” Denali interjected, his voice hard. He was tense and took a deep breath, returning to the breakfast tacos. “Evie’s a nice girl but I’m not interested anymore. I told her that. I was upfront. I don’t play games.”
I put together the timeline, why I’d never seen her around. “When’d you break it off with her?”
Denali was quiet. “Day before school started.”
Every nasty thought buried deep inside was gone. Satisfaction coursed through me, wild and unbridled, until I had to turn away. I was breathless with butterflies, flushed with them.
I arrived at Marrs, snarled at Denali, and told him he meant nothing to me. And what did he do in return? He texted his hookups to say he was off the market.
Oh my god. I smirked into my glass, taking another sip.
Until I realized Nick was grinning at me. “Oh, ho, ho, don’t hide that shit, Zariah. I saw that little dance.”
“Fuck,” Fridge muttered and smacked a twenty-dollar bill in his open palm.
“Thanks for the cash.” Nick wove it in my face. “I can’t wait to collect it from everyone else.”
“I thought you were smarter, Zariah,” Fridge sighed.
My mouth fell open. “Asshole. You set me up, Nick.”
“Hell yeah I did.” He snorted. “Don’t pull the superior card. I know what you’re doing. You’re toying with my captain. You have him on the fishhook and you’re tugging at the line. You’ll make him sweat it out, huh?”
My face burned. “I’m not doing that.”
“You’re misreading the situation, Nick,” Fridge sighed.
“How could I be misreading this?”
“Zariah heard Denali stalked some girl in high school and he’s been hung up on her since, what, August?” Fridge tipped his chin towards Denali. “Zariah’s not toying with him, she’s being smart. She’s testing the waters before she goes swimming.”