Chapter 9
CRUZ
My life had always been one hell of a shit show. Early on, I had learned to just go with the flow, but the flow had never felt so fucking good.
I was high, and I wasn’t on any drugs.
I’d learned to latch on to any scrap of good life threw at me, and this morning was so fucking good.
I didn’t have it in me to feel guilty; I wasn’t lying to Ava when I told her that her dad hadn’t sent me here for any of that. Did he know I had a thing for his daughter? I was sure he did. He was a guy, he loved her, and he’d seen us interact, and I wasn’t the most subtle person.
He probably thought I would talk to her and maybe get her to tear up a bit and open up about what was bothering her. He didn’t think I’d have her coming hard as fuck as I watched her best friend go down on her.
Just thinking about it had my cock twitching.
Sex had always been just that—a means to an end. A fun way to relieve stress or overcome boredom because in the last few months, hanging with Big Dog and his crew was starting to get stressful. My life felt at an impasse, and fucking was a good way to hide behind your problems.
Did I have a preference when it came to sex?
Not really.
I mean, I liked fucking girls as much as guys. I wasn’t the ‘trust you with my feelings’ kind of guy—but that didn’t mean I gave my ass to just anyone. So it had been a long time since I bottomed, that required more…more trust, and hell of a lot more intimacy on my part.
Except with Ava and Micah earlier, it had felt like more.
Shit, I was supposed to be here making sure Ava was okay, and here I was about to have a crisis because the girl and guy that had sucked me off had more of an emotional hold on me than any of my previous sexual encounters.
Shit.
We had a bond, one formed from a crazy night that hadn’t let up since it all went down. And now we were engaging in fuckery, and I couldn’t see this ending well. Trauma and possible jail time aside, I felt like I was in the middle of a relationship I had no reason taking part in.
I know what Ava said, and I believed that she liked me.
Hell, I liked her too, more than I was comfortable with, but at the end of the day, she and Micah had more history.
They had a deeper bond, and a part of me was scared to fully let myself feel, because what if when this was all said and done, I was tossed aside?
That was the crux of it all, wasn’t it?
Trust.
I went from being on my own to having to trust three other people with my life.
Ava and Micah wouldn’t send me to jail, but Grayson felt like a wild card.
Before any of this, I wouldn’t have given two shits about the social hierarchy at Blackwell, but now that I had been thrust into the deep, I had to do my own recon.
Grayson on the ice was ruthless.
He had focus and strength, he led his team, taking all of it on his shoulders, and now he was doing the same for our own little fucked-up group.
He was used to making hard calls. And at the end of the day, Micah and Ava were his friends.
They were part of his world, and if the person behind this began to pull at our strings, I was sure if push came to shove and someone needed to go down, that scapegoat would be me.
The thought wasn’t a new one, it was just one I didn’t let myself dwell on too often. But now, after what went down, it was all I could think about. I finally felt a sense of belonging, and more than ever, it felt like it was about to be ripped away from me.
“Okay, I’m ready!” Ava shouted from somewhere on the second floor.
Her voice was soothing enough that it made me smile.
“Come on, princess, we can stop by your dad’s before going to the rink.”
She nodded at me as she made her way down the stairs. Her eyes were softer and not as haunted as they had been earlier. Her hair was now dry and in a ponytail, and she was wearing her usual black leggings and tight, long sleeves that she used for practice.
Ava needed to go back to normal, whatever that normal now was, and she had already missed half of her classes today.
I figured the best way to get that sense of normality would be at the ice rink.
I didn’t skate, but I raced, and the thrill of it relaxed me, as crazy as it sounded.
Long drives going nowhere grounded me, so I figured skating would do the same for her.
“Cruz,” she said as she tugged on my hand. “Are you okay?”
Her big eyes seemed concerned for me. They looked softly at my face and then dipped down to my lips.
That made me smirk.
“I’m okay, princess,” I lied.
She looked at me for a few seconds longer. “If you weren’t, you’ll tell me, right? Or Micah, right?”
Fuck. That made my stomach knot up.
Instead of answering, I pulled her toward me, circled one hand around her tiny waist, and kissed her. She went up on her tiptoes, wrapped her other hand around my shoulder, and deepened the kiss.
When she pulled back, I thought I had successfully avoided her question.
“You matter too.” She said the words softly, but they might as well have been shouted by the way my ears rang afterward.
“Come on, I’ve been dying to drive your car,” she teased as she pushed past me, going toward my car.
“You can ride stick, princess?” My voice was low and suggestive.
Ava’s cheeks warmed, and her skin color was quite pretty, making her look more alive than she did when I found her in the morning.
“I think this morning proves just how well I can handle it.”
Fuck.
My cock didn’t twitch, it throbbed.
“My dad…your boss…made sure I could handle myself if I were ever stuck in an awkward situation.”
Shaking my head in amusement, I reached for my keys and handed them to her.
“Take care of my girl, princess. No one but me ever drives her.”
That made her eyes go soft again, and I loved that look on her. I wondered if that was how her face looked before I met her, before life played a cruel joke on all of us.
My car purred to life, and it was hot as I watched Ava handle the shifting. Who the hell was I kidding? I would be in a perpetual state of arousal until I could get Ava and Micah under me or over me. I wasn’t picky, and we could engage in more fuckery.
“You want to know why my dad taught me stick?” she asked, even though I knew she would tell me anyway.
“He said boys with nice cars drove stick, and he said that he never wanted me to feel stuck because a guy was being an asshole and refused to bring me home. I think he implied I should steal his car if that ever happened, or if I were ever at a party with a guy who got too drunk and he was the only option to take me back home. My dad wanted me to have a way out.”
The last part was said fondly, and the more I heard about her dad, the more I liked the guy.
“You’re lucky to have someone who loves you like he does.”
At this, she smiled sadly, and I knew it was part of the guilt that still ate at her.
“I know.”
I remained in the car while Ava ran into the shop and talked to her dad.
As I waited, my phone and Ava’s, which was still in her purse that she had left in the car, both beeped. My heart sped up.
It might be the group chat.
But as I reached for my own phone, I knew it probably wouldn’t be.
Right there at the top, glaring at me, was an unknown number.
Unknown:
1…2…3…4…
I might have missed once,
But I won’t anymore.