Cole #2
The alley was cold, quiet except for the muffled bass from the club. I leaned against the brick wall and stared at my split knuckles, blood already drying in the creases.
I checked my phone again. Tristan hadn’t called or texted.
I’d won. Too bad it felt like losing.
The rattle of my blinds opening and the bright morning light drove a pickax into my eye. No, my skull. No, my ear.
“Get the fuck up,” a familiar voice growled. “Where the fuck is Tristan?”
I blinked, casting my mind about, trying to follow the thread of the conversation. The world felt fuzzy around the edges, reality sliding away from me like water. Why did I hurt so fucking bad this morning?
“He’s gone, and so’s your car,” Haruto continued.
I scrubbed my face, wincing at the bruise on my cheek. “He’s driving up to New York. Thinks Eva’s in the hospital.”
“You let him go alone? In this weather?”
I shook my head, confused. “What?”
“Classes are canceled until the city can plow the streets,” Haruto growled. He pulled the curtain aside, revealing a stunning winter wonderland blanketing the city.
No no no no no. I scrambled for my phone on the bedstead and called Tristan. Pick up pick up pick up pick up. My heart sank with each unanswered ring.
“Yeah?” Tristan’s voice was tired but alive.
Relief hit me so hard, I nearly collapsed. “You get there okay?”
“In the parking lot, pulling up my courage to go in. Roads were rough.”
I gave Haruto a weak thumbs up.
“And Eva?” Haruto asked.
“You’re on speaker,” I told Tristan. “Any word of Eva?”
“I’ll let you know when I hear something.”
The line went dead, leaving me alone with Haruto’s disgust. “The fucking hospital,” he said as I hung up the phone. “You all are a piece of fucking work, you know that?”
Yeah. I know. My phone buzzed against my thigh, and without thinking, I reached for it, automatically swiping on Eva’s social media, only to find the same fucking pictures as last week, before we lost the series to the Hawks.
Fuck her.
I threw the phone across the room.
“You’re such a fucking asshole,” Haruto said and dumped cold water on my face.
Sputtering, I threw myself to my feet, only to sway and collapse back onto the bed. The room spun, but not fast enough to blur Eva’s smile in the last picture. When was the last time I made her look like that?
Never, you piece of shit.
“I’m calling Coach,” he said, but before he could, I flung up my hand.
“No, wait, stop.” The last thing I wanted to see was Coach. He’d been fucking my girl all fucking semester. He’d been no better than we were—worse, even. He’d made her give him a blowjob so she could get the position with the team she needed to spy for my father.
I threw my arm over my eyes. “It’s too fucking bright.”
Haruto stood at the foot of my bed, disgust in his eyes. “Why do you look like you got the shit beat out of you?”
I waved my hand at him in an asshole move I knew would piss him off. “Begone.”
He snorted. “You’re not gonna get rid of me that easily.”
Massi popped his head into the room. Fuck, the captain. The last thing I needed was the man on the team who respected me the least seeing me at my worst.
No.
I’d chosen this.
Because I wanted to forget, and forgetting was fucking impossible when everyone kept adding me to group chats about goddamned Eva. Eva, Eva, Eva, who was in the hospital, who wasn’t here.
Good. She’s better off elsewhere anyway. So fuck all of them.
I rolled back onto my side and hid my face with my arm. “Get the fuck out of here.”
Massi grabbed my feet and pulled. “You let Tristan drive to New York alone, you asshole, and instead of being the friend he deserves, you’re drinking yourself stupid.” He looked me up and down with disgust. “And fighting again, you fucking dick.”
Guilt slammed into my chest. Tristan. Fuck. I’d been so busy wallowing in my misery, I’d abandoned the one person who—
“At least it’s not coke,” I sniped right back, regretting the thought instantly. A line of coke would be fucking heaven right now—euphoric joy that would wipe out the misery lodged in my gut.
Massi grabbed my feet, and Haruto grabbed my shoulders. I was too drunk and too sore to fight them off. The cold shock of water from the shower woke me the fuck up as two men I respected and hated in equal measure looked at me with disappointment that cut deeper than my father’s worst insults.
The shower still smelled like citrus and vanilla, that goddamned creamsicle shampoo. Her pink razor sat on the shelf, her face cream on my counter. I pressed my forehead against the tile and almost fucking lost it right there.
“You’re such a fuck-up,” Massi muttered, and I flinched.
I’d been weak, distracted, thinking with my cock instead of my head, just as my father had accused me. He hadn’t even had to throw Eva in front of me. I’d done it to myself, for a piece of ass.
Except Eva wasn’t just a piece of ass. She was— Nothing. She’s fucking nothing. A lying, betraying bitch. And if I repeated that enough times, maybe I’d start to believe it.
“Where’s Tristan going to stay?” Haruto asked me when I tipped my head up to let the cold water pour down my face.
“Fucked if I know.” Guilt, malevolent and cruel, wracked through me.
Tristan deserved better than me, better than all this bullshit.
“Let me out,” I rasped finally.
“Are you going to get your shit together?” Haruto asked.
I looked him in the eye. “Absolutely fucking not.”
“She deserves better than you,” Haruto said.
Didn’t I fucking know it.
The phone slipped from my hands, clattering to the floor. I scrubbed my face, and when I turned around, Massi handed me a towel, his expression concerned rather than disgusted.
Right.
I deserved this.
I handed him my black card. “Get him a fucking hotel room.”
“You think where he’s sleeping is Tristan’s biggest worry right now?” Massi said.
Haruto rooted through my drawers, looking for a clean set of clothes. “Someone needs to make sure she has what she needs.”
“Eva’s not my fucking problem,” I snarled, but the words came out weak and unconvincing.
Haruto slammed me against the door. For a goalie, he was fucking huge.
“I don’t know what the fuck went down between you three, or with Coach, but you better make sure that she doesn’t have to pay for a goddamned thing related to this accident, do you understand?
Use those billions for something useful for once. ”
Fuck Coach. It wasn’t enough that he’d been fucking her behind our backs. He’d made her give him a blowjob so she could work for the team. What the fuck kind of man did that?
The same kind of man who made her get on her knees when he caught her spying, a voice whispered in the back of my head. I silenced it.
I met Haruto’s gaze and held my black card up again. “Make sure Tristan has a place to stay. The rest? Fuck them and fuck you.”
Haruto’s jaw clenched. Bet he was regretting being my wingman at that last party of the summer, when I’d fallen so fucking hard for my sparrow, I thought I’d never get up.
I was regretting it too.
Should have let her stand there nervously, let the team eat her alive and spit her out again, instead of taking her upstairs and worshiping her.
“Enough,” Massi growled, finally interrupting the standoff.
I shoved past both of them to raid the liquor cabinet downstairs.
They trailed behind me, watching me drip all over the fucking stairs and the kitchen as I rummaged for a bottle of cheap liquor.
They didn’t stop me when I drowned my disappointment.
And theirs.