33. Marcus
MARCUS
Ihate my birthdays.
I’ve always fucking hated my goddamn birthdays, and despite Mom’s attempts to cheer me up during them, I’ve wanted to forget them.
But now, I feel like I’ll never forget my birthday.
On my twenty-second birthday, Preston was shot.
It happened right before my eyes, but I couldn’t stop it.
I could only stand there and watch as a bullet ripped through his chest.
It almost feels surreal. Just minutes ago, he was so touchy and close to Violet and Dahlia.
Yes, I was there most of the time, leaning my back against a tree and watching him like I usually do when he shuts me out.
It’s a sickness, maybe, a desire for something unattainable. The more I can’t have him, the more my entire being roars to life, needing to reach him.
Toxic, yes, but I never claimed to be a saint.
And no, there’s no reality where Preston belongs to someone other than me.
If anything, I’ve been having these thoughts lately—like I should’ve pursued him since that first college league game we played three years ago. The first time this little rivalry turned into something more.
Or maybe I should’ve started in high school. When Preston really looked at me, and I mean looked at me, after that time when we were kids. The first time he noticed me, when he put me on his shit list and vowed to bring me down.
The first time he saw me.
Sure, he only saw me as an opponent he needed to crush, an adversary, a challenge—because he loves his challenges, my Preston.
Back then, I should’ve shot my shot.
Should’ve made him mine and never let him go.
Maybe that way, I wouldn’t have suffered through average sex and a lack of emotional connection.
Maybe, by now, he would’ve been comfortable enough with me to tell me what the fuck terrorizes him when he closes his eyes at night.
Maybe he would’ve confessed about what happened to him that causes any form of intimacy outside of sex to make him as rigid as a board.
I have an idea, but I’ve refused to speculate or think about it.
But perhaps I should’ve. Maybe I needed to push him more out of his comfort zone.
Perhaps I had to just…be there. At all times.
I was there today, but I was busy being jealous of his closeness with Violet to act in time.
And now, he’s in surgery, fighting for his life because I couldn’t protect him.
The waiting room hums like a broken light—too bright, too white—smelling of antiseptic I never loathed until this moment.
Jude is pacing a path into the linoleum.
Kane stands with his arms crossed, his back to the wall like he’s holding it up by sheer will.
Lawrence is the only one sitting, perfectly composed in one of the ugly blue chairs, his elbows on his knees, his fingers laced, his knuckles white. His face is blank.
I stay by the doorway. Not in. Not out.
My thumb taps against my middle finger in a slow, controlled rhythm.
One, two, three.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Start again.
Preston will get out of this.
I’ll take him and go.
Somewhere else. Anywhere else.
Away from guns and emotionally stunted fathers.
He gets out. I take him. We leave.
I repeat it until the words stop sounding like a wish and start feeling like a plan.
Jude’s gaze cuts to me as he stops in front of me, his arm wrapped in a bandage that’s soaked through.
No idea how it happened, couldn’t have fucking cared less as I was holding Preston in my arms, whispering that he’d be okay, that I’d be here, begging him not to go.
The only reason I released him when Kane pulled me away was so the medics could take his cold, unconscious body to the ambulance.
“And why the fuck are you here?” Jude snaps in my face.
I don’t look at him. Don’t move.
Will not move.
Because Preston is on the other side of that door with his chest cut open and his heart still fighting, and I am done leaving him alone with people who don’t know how to fucking protect him.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“I asked you a question,” Jude grinds out.
“Cut it out.” Kane pushes off the wall, watching me closely as he paces. No idea what he did or didn’t see in the park. I don’t even care.
“I want you gone,” Jude says.
“No,” I say coolly, my fingers pausing because I finally notice the red covering them—my nails, my knuckles, my hands. They’re streaked with blood.
Preston’s blood.
I curl my hands into fists as they tremble uncontrollably.
Jude grabs my jacket’s collar, slamming me against the wall. “Get the fuck out of here, Marcus.”
“I said I’m not going anywhere,” I say slowly, but my voice is boiling over with rage. “If anything, you’re the one who needs to scram for failing to save him.”
“The fuck you just say?” he snarls.
“Want me to spell it out for you?”
Maybe I need to snap his neck for being the reason Preston is in the OR. If I didn’t know Preston would hate me for hurting his “bestie,” I’d choke this motherfucker in his sleep.
“Go fight outside,” Lawrence commands, his voice hard but cool as if it’s not his goddamn son who’s lying on an operating table.
I slide my gaze to him. “Is that all you have to say when your fucking son is facing death? Go fight outside? You have no other goddamn reaction?” I release a low, mocking laugh. “God, you’re all the same. Every single corner of your fucking empire is rotten to the core.”
Lawrence doesn’t even look at me and just continues to stare at the door.
“That’s enough.” Kane squares up to me. “Leave before I have someone escort you out using unpleasant methods, Marcus.”
“And let you big shots handle everything, right?” I fist my hand in Jude’s collar, laughing in his face. “Like the way you got him shot, right, Callahan? Useless piece of shit.”
“You fucking—” Jude slams me against the wall harder, and I just won’t stop laughing.
I can’t.
“What? You’re going to stand there and tell me you didn’t, in fact, invite death upon your supposed best friend?”
“It’s not his fault.” Two girls hurry toward us—Dahlia and the girl who just spoke.
The reason Preston isn’t with me right now.
Fucking Violet.
“It’s my fault,” she whispers. “Preston did that to protect me—”
“That’s right. It should’ve been you,” I say in a deadpan voice.
A brutal punch lands on my face, and something warm trickles down my nose and the corner of my lip. “Shut the fuck up, Osborn!”
“But I’m right. She should be the one in that room right now—”
Jude hits me again, the sound of the thwack reverberating around me.
You know what?
I lift my fist and punch him, letting him have a taste of the aggression and helplessness echoing inside me.
I rain down regrets and what-ifs and the depressing reality I have to live in.
There’s a lot of talking around us, Kane calling his people, Lawrence speaking to Violet, but I don’t hear them over the violence.
Thwack.
Thwack.
Thwack.
It’s all because of this idiot who couldn’t protect his woman, so Preston had to.
Of course he would’ve.
He believes he’s an unfeeling monster or a high-functioning narcissist, but he’s truly the warmest person I’ve ever met. If he cares about you, he’ll go above and beyond.
For weeks, he’s been buying all sorts of shit for Mom and me. Last week, he single-handedly changed the entire Wolves team’s gear to premium jerseys and equipment.
I thought it was Serena trying to bribe me, but I found out it was him.
“It’s fine. I can afford it,” he says, blushing a bit as we skate in the arena alone at one in the morning because he couldn’t sleep.
He’s only in his compression shirt and shorts, looking like a snack waiting to be unwrapped. It’s categorically impossible to keep my hands off him, so I glide in front of him as he leans against his stick.
Preston sizes me up, his eyes narrowing to slits. “You better not dream of taking our championship, though.”
“No promises. Besides, we’re already taking it. First place, remember?”
“That’s because Jude isn’t in top form.” He sighs dramatically, rolling his eyes. “My highness has to keep the team afloat, but I’ll be coming for that championship. Won’t take it easy on you in the next Vipers versus Wolves game.”
“When have you ever?”
He grins. “True that.”
“Though you did avoid me.”
“Did not!”
“Yes, you did. Since college, I believe?” I reach out a gloved hand, wrap it around his waist, and slam him against me, making his stick clatter to the ground. “Scared of little ole me?”
He places a hand on my chest, but he’s not pushing me away, and I like that. The feel of him just letting me touch him without tensing up or trying to wiggle free. “You’re just boring. I can’t get into your head.”
“Is that all?”
His eyes shift, looking cloudier, but then he releases a sole, “Hm.”
“Well, you can’t avoid me now.”
“Tant mieux (Good, I prefer it this way).”
“What’s that mean?”
“Unfortunately.”
“I’m starting to think you’re translating things wrong.”
“Shut up.”
I smile and ruffle his hair to which he grumbles. “Jokes aside, you don’t have to keep buying me things.”
“Not sure what you’re talking about. These are just necessities.”
“Fixing all the lights in our neighborhood is a necessity?”
“Hell yeah. It’s dangerous when you’re going home at night.”
“Worried about me?”
“Worried about June. She’ll be sad if something happens to you. Besides, that road is full of potholes.”
“Are you going to fix those, too?”
“Yup, working on it. Honestly, why are we paying taxes if they don’t use it to fill in potholes? Am I right?”
“You pay taxes, baby?”
“Probably? I mean, yeah. No clue how much, though.”
“Such a rich-boy statement.”
“Hey! I’m using my money for a good cause.”
My lips twitch because he sounds so sure of himself, chest puffed out and everything.
There’s a strand of hair that’s close to his eyes, and I tuck it behind his ear, making him shiver a little. “Is buying the auto shop I work at a good cause?”
“Yeah. Because that way, you can work on your own time and not according to someone else’s.”
“That makes you my boss now.”
“A better boss than your previous one. I’ll pay you more, and you can work less. You can even take a break whenever you wish. No notice needed.”
I chuckle and he watches me with parted lips. “That’s not how you run a business, my prince.”