19. Jace
Chapter Nineteen
JACE
He was the last to come out and the only one to notice me at all. Judging by the way he stopped in the doorway and laid his gaze on me, I was in a bit of trouble. Not that I hadn’t anticipated it. He would be angry that I’d gone down this path, but he would understand. Eventually.
Perhaps I had misjudged just how long it would take Easton to see why I had done what I had done.
He crossed the parking lot in front of the rink, fury giving him speed.
The last of the sunlight had just faded out of the sky, and the lights of the streetlamps made him glow like some radiant apparition full of malice.
“How dare you?” Easton demanded as he closed the distance between us and stood inches away from me. His face was tortured, eyes wide and pleading, and his fists closed as if he were ready to strike me. “How dare you take control of my life like that?”
I lifted my hands, palm open and facing him. “Easy, there,” I said. “Someone had to solve that problem, Easton.”
“And you decided it had to be you,” Easton spat. “Do you have any idea what you did to me tonight?”
I could think of countless things I was going to do to him tonight, but they seemed to be growing less likely by the second.
In fact, if I didn’t chill Easton’s temper quickly, all the things I’d laid out on his bed were going to be a bit embarrassing to explain.
“I had that piece of shit caught red-handed, didn’t I? And his pathetic dealer.”
“No, no, no, no, no,” he blurted. “You don’t get to level your moral high ground all of a sudden.”
“Don’t I?” I asked, not yet taking offense. “You don’t know DJ like I do.”
Easton squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then looked at me reproachfully. I hated being on the other end of that look, especially coming from him. He was supposed to know me better than this. “I don’t even want to know how you know DJ. You ruined my life tonight, Jace.”
“I’m sorry I snatched that revenge out of your hands, baby boy,” I said.
Tears welled in Easton’s eyes, and I saw my words pass through him like they were of no consequence. “You fucking asshole,” he whispered. “You still don’t get it. You still think you did something amazing. Should I thank you?”
Apparently not. A frown creased my brow as I cocked my head.
What had happened in there? What I had done was the result of weeks of planning, of pulling strings wherever I could, and of gathering intel in gaming dens from Ivan’s drunken rivals.
It was a crescendo of justice. Wasn’t it?
I had spent all this time watching, learning, and writing down the pieces of the puzzle until I found the solution.
I had spent weeks in the maze, marking the turns and dead ends until I found one narrow path to victory.
Ivan had been resolutely against it. DJ was one of his guys, and you didn’t let them fall just like that. But Ivan had no idea that DJ was pushing more than LSD to bored college students. Ivan didn’t think to ask, but DJ had seen the possibilities laid out before him.
It wasn’t Ivan who supplied DJ with coke. Or with testosterone. DJ searched the needs of the market and found suppliers elsewhere.
Playing cards and emptying the pockets of Ivan’s rivals was a nice source of income, but it was an even better source of information.
When those guys drank and popped various kinds of pills down their throats, their sharpness deteriorated.
God forbid they ever thought they were culpable.
But that was where my particular skill of seeming unimportant and inconsequential came into play.
A late-middle-aged man named Ray Dugan, who fancied himself a captain in a large-scale operation run by Lenny Vargas and his crew, showed a remarkable amount of interest in me.
I’d told him how I struggled to keep up with my teammates, and he pointed out that I was perhaps too small for such a rough game.
“I might be wrong,” he’d said. “I can’t fucking see it with that baggy stuff you’re wearing. ”
It only took lifting my hoodie to show him my abs before blood left his brain and his tongue untied.
There was someone who could help me perform better if I were willing to take the risk.
Plenty of athletes did it. It wasn’t dangerous at all.
Was I a Steel Saint? How lucky! Did I know Kyle Hobbs?
Yes? Well, I just needed to look at Kyle and see what Ray Dugan’s stuff could do.
Lenny Vargas had the best suppliers; everyone knew that.
And if I ever wanted to have something more, something to loosen me up and make me more fun, then I just needed to come see Uncle Ray. He had all I could ever dream of.
Ivan didn’t hesitate after this. He even refused the cut of the night’s winnings. “You saved me more money than I can tell you by catching this traitor.”
And having Ivan the Pretty Alright grateful to you was always a good thing. He let me plan things out instead of dealing with DJ the old-fashioned way, with baseball bats and bare fists. I wanted to see the guy behind the bars, sure, but I really wanted to see Kyle tested and suspended.
That was justice.
Except, Easton’s eyes glimmered with tears, and his mouth twisted with fury. “Huh? Should I thank you?”
The tip of my tongue passed over my upper lip as sweat broke under my arms. “Judging by your tone…” I exhaled. “What happened?”
“What happened, Jace, was that you took matters into your own hands without a clue as to who was involved. The reason I never moved against Kyle isn’t because I had no weapon. I never let you seek the guys who beat me up for the same reason I never would have let you do this.”
“And that is?” I asked grimly.
“When Kyle imploded, he took me straight to hell with him,” Easton spat. “He told everyone. He told them that I was a pervert, that I tried to fuck him.”
My temper flared. “That’s bullshit. It’s not true.”
“Who cares?” Easton cried. “Who cares if it’s true, Jace? They all think I’m lurking in the shadows, waiting to take advantage of them.”
“We can fix this,” I growled.
Easton took a step back as if stung.
“I’ll kick their asses, Easton,” I vowed. “Every single one of them.”
Easton tilted his head as if to see me better. Or, perhaps, he was searching me from another angle, seeing something he had never seen before. Then, he shook his head. “No, Jace.”
The calmness with which he spoke those words chilled me.
“You went too far,” Easton said. “You emailed everyone on my team. I don’t even know how, but you hijacked the whole rink.”
Easy. DJ was stupid enough to pull all the data from an assistant coach’s unprotected computer. He’d probably been afraid of Ivan getting suspicious, so he hurried to be servile, doing what Ivan asked without a question. The fucker had no idea he would be arrested within a week.
“And you hijacked my life,” Easton said. “You. Always you. You walked in, uninvited and you never thought to leave some space for me. I let you have all the power, Jace. I gave you everything in the bedroom. I let you be my master, my God, but it wasn’t enough. You just had to take more.”
My lips curved, and my nose wrinkled. The odd stinging sensation behind my eyes shocked me, and my mouth was dry.
Easton took a step toward me and pressed his index finger against my chest, almost as if he could stab me with it. “I was wrong to let you in again.”
“Don’t,” I said dryly.
Easton shook his head.
“I…” My voice cut off, and I didn’t know what was happening to my body. “I can’t lose you.”
“It’s not fair that only I lose everything, Jace,” Easton said coldly and passed by me.
He marched away with a purpose. He wanted to put as much distance between us as he could, but I couldn’t let him leave.
Not like this. Couldn’t he see why I had done this?
Couldn’t he see the lengths I’d gone to protect him?
Ah, but it failed. It backfired, and it wasn’t me who got shot, but Easton.
I turned around and hurried after him. He was in danger. If Kyle was trying to destroy him in the team’s eyes, then he wouldn’t hesitate to send his brutes after Easton again. This time, it might as well be for good.
I ran after Easton, but he was already descending into the underground. By the time I passed through and reached the underground, the train’s door was closing, and Easton was inside, not looking back.
The next train arrived three minutes later, although it felt like three hours.
In the time between the trains, I remembered every moment of tenderness and intimacy, every instance of dirtiness, every sin we shared.
I remembered the softest of kisses and the roughest of wrist-holds.
I remembered the time Easton was brought home and Mom saying, “Kiss your new brother, Jace. Go on. Give him a welcome hug.”
“No!” I’d shouted. At eight years old, I was done kissing and hugging people, especially those who were there to replace me. “I’ll never kiss him. I hate him.”
How the universe played games with us. How funny it all must have seemed to God, if there was one out there in the freezing vastness of cosmos.
The train seemed to move slower than ever, screeching and gliding along its fixed tracks, taking me after Easton. And when I finally emerged in his quarter from the depths of the underground system, I was dazed and in panic.
A small yet impossibly powerful part of me was beginning to believe that Easton had meant it. Could he be done with me? Could I have gambled it all away?
It’s not gambling if you know what you’re doing. Except I had no clue. I had never loved before. I didn’t know what the rules of this game were. All I knew was that I had somehow lost.