Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WREN
"I don't like it," Tiger said.
"You said that at least a hundred times already," I pointed out. "I'll be all right here by myself. You were the one who said this place was secure. I'm not planning to let anyone in. None of you guys can stay back while the rest of the team plays away games. And anyway, it's only for a few days."
Honestly, I was nervous as hell being here by myself, but at some point it had to happen. They couldn't put their entire lives and careers on hold for me. They'd do it if I let them. Which I wouldn't and we all knew it.
"They could break in," Tiger said stubbornly.
"How?" I asked. "Land a helicopter on the roof and rappel down to the balcony?"
He looked towards the balcony doors, lips parted, clearly picturing that in his head. "They might. I wouldn't put anything past these assholes."
"Nothing says subtle like landing a helicopter on the roof," Bray said. "Half the city would see them."
"No one wouldn't be able to act in time to stop them from grabbing Wren and flying away with her." Tiger slid his arms around me as though he could hold me in place if that happened.
"It's not Fiorelli's style," Lex pointed out.
He was busy slicing vegetables to make a salad for dinner.
"Not to mention, hiring a helicopter would be expensive.
I'm not saying Wren isn't worth the expense, but I can't see him doing something like that.
Not with the limited resources he has. When Dante was alive, that would totally have been his jam. "
"Lucky for us he's long gone," Bray said. "I hate to agree with Tiger on anything, but I don't like the idea of Wren being here alone." He looked over to me. "Can you go and stay with Mum and Martin?"
"And risk them getting caught up in all this shit?" I asked. "You don't want that any more than I do."
"They could stay here." Bray's stubbled chin jutted out, as stubborn as Tiger.
"They wouldn't want that. They've done well so far to stay under the radar. If they stayed here, that could change. The last thing in the world I want is to risk either of them."
"You could come with us," Lex suggested. "Elenna and Sinclair are."
"They both work for the team," I pointed out. "I don't."
"We could get you a job as a Demon Girl," Bray said, half teasing. "Or a mascot. You'd look cute dressed as the Demon."
In spite of its name, the mascot was a cute version of a demon, with a bright red face and bright blue horns, dressed in the red and blue of the team.
"The team doesn't need either of those things," I said. "Those positions are taken by other people and I'm not going to take their jobs from them."
"I could speak to Caleb and see if there's any…work he needs done while we're travelling," Lex suggested.
"Like taking delivery of stolen gems and bringing it back to Dusk Bay with the team?
" I asked. "He has Finley and Elenna to do that.
Seriously, I'll be fine. I'm sure you guys will call and text three million times a day, until I tell you to stop because you're interrupting my work.
" I eyed them all, because they all knew it was true.
"Only because we care." Tiger squeezed me a little harder. "None of us want anything bad to happen to you."
"I don't want anything bad to happen to me either. Or any of you." I placed my hands on his arms.
I didn't want to be the one to bring it up, but there was always a possibility Nicholas would go after him when they were on the road.
They'd done it before, when Dante was alive.
Not chasing the team, but chasing the band Tiger's brother was a member of.
If they could pull that then, fuck knows what they might pull now.
"I'm starting to think the only answer to all of this is to stay home," Tiger said.
"The only answer is for you to do your job and stop worrying about me," I said. "The worst thing that could happen to me while I'm alone here is that I'll get bored. I mean, your TV is so tiny I can't even watch a movie on it."
He chuckled. "You won't be watching movies on that anyway. You'll be too busy watching us play."
"And answering our text messages," Lex said. He piled the vegetables into a bowl and started to toss them with his hands.
"And making pendants shaped like dicks," Bray added, looking smug.
I sniffed. "I told you I don't do those."
"Yeah, but you were lying," he said. "What's the problem, stepsister dear? Do you think I'm going to give you shit for it?"
"You absolutely will," I agreed. "Just like you've been doing for the last fifteen years. If you weren't any good at hockey, you would have made a career out of it somehow."
"There's a career where I get to give you shit and get paid for it?" He cocked an eyebrow at me. "Because I want in. I can't play hockey forever."
"If there's a way to do it, you'll figure it out." I rolled my eyes at him. "In the meantime, you'll have to keep practising those mediocre stick skills of yours and hope the Demons don't realise they don't have to keep feeling sorry for you, and keep you on the team."
He laughed. "At least I didn't have to rely on my daddy for a job."
Resting the back of my hands on Tiger's arms, I turned my wrists to stick both my middle fingers up at him. "You would have if people realised you actually suck at hockey. You could have learnt to make cock bars."
"If I did, I'd make fucking good cock bars," Bray said.
"You are a cock bar," Tiger told him.
"I belong at the end of a dick?" Bray asked, pretending to misunderstand.
Tiger shrugged. "Probably. It sounded like a good insult."
"I like it," I said. "It's perfect for Bray."
Bray smirked. "I love you too. With a stepsister like you, who needs enemies?"
"Probably still you," I said. "Since I'm amazing. Maybe if you weren't such an asshole, you wouldn't have enemies."
"You're the one who got drugged by a chocolate chip muffin," he pointed out. "It seems to me you're the one with the enemies."
Tiger growled. "Don't fucking go there. There's nothing funny about what they did to her."
Bray was undeterred. "This is how Wren and I are. We snipe at each other, but we don't really hate each other too much. Right, Socks?"
"Not too much," I agreed. "We don't hate each other enough to want to kill each other. Just enough to want to give each other hell as much as possible."
Tiger grumbled something but didn't continue the line of conversation.
"Dinner is ready," Lex said. He was placing pieces of grilled chicken onto plates already piled with salad.
"Since when do you cook?" Tiger asked.
"Since I've lived by myself for the last decade," Lex said. "This is about all I know how to make, but it fits in with your diet and Bray's."
"It looks delicious." I picked up a plate and a fork and sat down on one of the stools at the edge of the island. I should eat more food like this, especially after eating so many of Finley's biscuits. Having someone like him around would be dangerous for my waistline.
"I’ve always meant to hire a personal chef," Tiger said. He slipped into the stool beside mine and started to eat.
"That can go on the list of things we can think about after we've dealt with Nicholas Fiorelli," Lex said. "I wouldn't trust anyone to come in here and make food unless it's the four of us, or someone we know really well."
"Let's not give anyone the opportunity to drag or poison us all," Bray agreed. He slipped into another seat. "I hear that happens a lot at Brutham Academy."
"I heard the same thing." When I was growing up, the only thing I wanted to do was study there. I didn't know what I'd study, but something, in spite of the University's reputation for being the only one in Australia with a higher mortality rate than dropout rate.
At the end of the first year, they held trials, designed to weed out the weakest. It's one of the things that gave the place its nickname— Brutal Academy.
"They're opening a campus of Brutham here in Dusk Bay soon," Lex said. "I'm hoping they'll add a hockey program, to transition more players to the professional level."
"That's just what we need," Tiger said. "A whole new generation of Dusk Bay Demons happy to kill their competition to get them out of the way."
"That would be different to the way it is now, how?" I asked.
He stopped with his fork half way to his mouth. "I never killed anyone to get where I am." He pushed the chicken into his mouth and chewed.
"You might not, but Bray might." I couldn't resist the tease. "That would explain how he got his spot on the team."
Bray snorted. "Why would I kill them and leave you alive? I could have done us all a favour."
I put a hand on Tiger's arm before he lunged at Bray to embed a fork in his eye. "There’s as much chance of him killing me as him killing anyone to get a spot on the team."
"Did you just say I'm talented, Socks?" Bray asked.
"First of all, if you keep calling me that, I'll let Tiger stab you with a fork," I said. "Second of all, let's not go crazy here. If I said anything that nice, you might think I'm sick." Before he could take a dig, I added, "I mean the unwell kind of sick, not the fucked up in the head kind."
"You say fucked up in the head like it's a bad thing." Bray grinned.
"Only you would respond that way," I said.
"I like to be original." He bit into a slice of cucumber.
"That's one word for it," I said.
"Unique. Different. Special." He ate the other half of the cucumber.
"Weird. Odd. Peculiar." I smiled.
"Amazing. Handsome. Irresistible." He wiggled his eyebrows at me.
"Delusional. Crazy. Frustrating." I was having too much fun with this.
"All just words to say how much you care about me," he concluded.
"You two are adorable," Lex said. "I can see why you both gave in after all those years. Lucky for me and Tiger you waited. Otherwise we might have missed out on being with Wren."
He gave me a look full of affection and heat. My heart flipped and my nipples perked up. I couldn't imagine a time when my body didn't react to them that way.
Amazing, handsome and irresistible were perfect words for the three of them. And here I was. Wren Valentine, who was never a model student, but makes pendants shaped like cocks, and engagement rings for people who could afford something extra special. And has three boyfriends.
"I wouldn't have missed out," Tiger said. "I would have ended up with her either way. Whatever I had to do to make that happen."
"Awww, did you just say you'd kill Bray for me? That's so sweet." I leaned my head against his shoulder.
"As if he could," Bray muttered.
Hopefully it never came to that.