2. Mason #3
“No, don’t leave. I wanted to play GTA with you guys.”
Galen stood abruptly, pocketed his coin, and slid his phone back into his pocket. “I’ve got somewhere to be, so we’ll leave Mason to sulk all on his own. No GTA for at least eight more years, Zoe.”
“But you’ll be so old by then.” Zoe stared at him with genuine concern, probably imagining that our hips would crumble into dust by the time she was eighteen and we were twenty-six.
Erik picked up his shredded pizza box and wings. “Right, Zo? We’ll be ancient.”
“Leave the food,” I said, knowing I was being a dick.
“But—but I ordered it.”
“And you drank all my beer.”
Erik’s shoulder slumped. “Just mean, man. Your brother’s so mean, Zoe. Don’t turn into him when you get older.” He fist-bumped Zoe and stared longingly at the food, but left it, probably guessing—correctly—I’d make him wear it if he tried to take it with him.
Once they left, I turned off the music.
“Next time, don’t let them leave before I get back.” Zoe rested her stick against my couch. “Ballet and hockey practice take up so much time,” she whined.
“I thought you liked both of them.”
“I do, but Galen said he’d teach me to roll the coin.”
“You don’t want to hang out with them.” I sat on the arm of the couch. “How was practice?”
She shrugged. “It was fine. I scored three goals. Mama Lena was so happy.” She winced.
“But I missed two. Don’t tell Dyadya, okay?
” Her worried look hit me hard. The name for my father sounded like Dad, and most people who didn’t speak Russian probably thought that’s what she called him, but he’d settled on “uncle.” Still fuzzier than what I called him, which was usually “sir.”
Alena and my father might not have been her birth parents, but they were the only ones she remembered.
Alena had even taught Zoe Russian. I’d picked up enough to know when my father was angry or annoyed, but not enough to have a full conversation.
“I won’t tell him.” He usually treated Zoe’s hockey as more of a fun party trick than the exacting precision skill he expected from me or Bair. “We’ll do accuracy drills this weekend.”
She bounced on her heels with a wide grin, then turned her head. “Do you think I’ll get to be Havoc like you?”
I laughed. “You’ll be a lot smarter on the ice than we are, Zo. No ejections for you.” I tickled her.
“Zoe, I told you straight to the shower.” Alena’s voice bounced through the hallway. “Your sweat is stinking up the whole house.”
“Night, Mason.” Zoe flung her arms around me and kissed my cheek before she took off to her room.
“Night, Zoe.”
This was a life I’d never have been able to give her.
She’d had a childhood because of my father and Alena.
Any of her faded memories from the first three years of empty stomachs, evictions, and sleeping in our car had been replaced by this house, her room, the mountains of clothes and attention from Alena.
Not being lugged along with me to practice or at home with mom, who may or may not have been nodding off while trying to heat up canned spaghetti.
As the accidental kid my father had with a bottle service waitress, I’d gotten lucky. Doing everything my father needed me to do wasn’t only for me, but for Zoe too. I’d do it all a thousand times over for the same outcome.
Maybe that was why I couldn’t hold back when it came to Lilah. I needed my father to know I understood and wouldn’t let him down. Only it wasn’t just that.
Head leaned back against the cushions, I scrubbed my hands down my face.
During the season, my brain and body were so exhausted that I could shut down without unwanted thoughts creeping in.
I longed for that escape now. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about her, but a high-stick hit of a memory crashed into my brain.
“Looking forward to senior year?” Lilah set the book down.
I trailed my finger along her arm. I’d been enjoying hearing her read the book she’d been talking about nonstop. It wasn’t half bad, but even better was that it gave me an excuse to spend a couple hours every night with her.
She shivered, goosebumps sweeping across her skin.
I clenched my other hand, wanting to touch more than her arm. To taste her. To make her shiver for completely different reasons, but this was Lilah. I didn’t want to ruin this.
All my usual ideas of what to do in the dark with a beautiful girl sputtered and died the second her hands touched me.
She had wrapped her fingers around my arm and helped me slide down the cabinet to the floor, and then grabbed an ice pack.
I’d wanted to lash out at her, but she’d stared at me with those big brown eyes shining with concern, and I couldn’t remember my own name.
The pain seemed to disappear under the too-gentle brush of her fingertips.
So no, as much as I might’ve wanted more, I stopped myself. Restraint might kill me, but I never wanted to pressure her. When it happened, it would be on her terms—even if I wanted to drop down on top of her and kiss her until she was breathless.
She looked up at me with a trace of a smile. “Mason?”
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“You’ve got a lot of pressure heading into this year. Are you excited about it or freaked out?”
All I’d been thinking of was the immense pressure tightening around my neck for the championship and getting my offer letter to Rhode Island, but suddenly, next year didn’t feel so heavy. With Lilah’s fingers interlaced with mine, none of it felt like too much.
“This year will be better than I could’ve imagined.” Because you’ll be there. “Let me take over reading.”
“You don’t have to pretend to like it just because of me.” She peeked up at me in that sweet, innocent way that made me want to ruin her and never touch her again all at once.
“We can’t stop now. I need to know whether she finds her sister.”
She smiled, the kind of smile that could stop a first line on their skates, and rose off my lap so we could switch places.
I squeezed my eyes shut against the onslaught of memories and glared at my traitorous dick, which hadn’t gotten the message that she was a liar.
Lilah trailing her fingers across my cheek while I read to her.
Liar. The way she stared down at me while she was probably laughing inside.
So convincing. She could sell the Girlfriend Experience to any guy out there. Hell, maybe she was.
I slammed the locker closed on my heart.
Lilah couldn’t last much longer, and all I wanted was to see her crack. To see her feel half of what I’d felt after she humiliated me. I didn’t care what it took. She couldn’t keep up that brave front forever.
She didn’t get to ignore me. Looking past me with those autumn-breeze eyes and lips so soft…
I squeezed my eyes closed.
Tomorrow, I’d step it up. I wasn’t letting Lilah get away with this. Hawthorne Prep hockey season started in two months, and I wanted two things from her before then.
Her tears, like the ones she’d seen me fight back, and for her to know her misery this year was all because of me.
A bell chimed for the start of the next period. I swung by the dining hall after leaving the guidance office and grabbed some food, fueling up to be ready for the next shiny new class on the printed schedule the counselor had handed over.
Calder sat at our table by the door and shot a leg out to stop me from leaving. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere.”
He looked up, eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly.
“Where’s he going?” Erik slid his two plates piled high with sliced beef, vegetables, and noodles onto the table.
“The Michelin-star treatment,” the Hawthorne Prep brochure called it.
Somehow, they’d bribed a two-star restaurant to cater to the monied progeny of the tristate area’s power players.
Prestige certainly didn’t matter without the money to back it up.
I would be sure I was never without both ever again.
Galen set his tray down. “Yeah, where are we going?”
I flipped them the bird. “That’s where I’m going.”
Calder patted down his pockets. “And here, I forgot my lube.”
Erik laughed into his plate of stir fry.
Galen sighed, shook his head and went back to his phone. “Don’t get into trouble.”
“Not my fault if it finds me.” I backed out of the dining hall.
In this case, trouble had found me. It had reached inside my chest with soul-splitting eyes, making me feel things I’d never wanted to feel, and then driven nails straight into my heart.
This wasn’t me starting trouble. This was me ridding myself of the distraction that was Lilah Byrd.
I walked to the room with Textile Lab etched on the glass nameplate beside the door. This part of the building was foreign territory. Not exactly my style, but I’d make an exception to give Lilah’s life a little more hell.
I opened the door, and when she looked up from whoever she was laughing with, her smile died on her lips.
Her stomach plummet was almost loud enough to hear.
Yes, this was the perfect plan. Just like all the ones Lilah used to talk about.
And I was more sure than ever that my head would be Lilah-free in a matter of weeks, if not days.
“Hey, Little Byrd, didn’t think I’d find your hiding spot?”