Chapter 21
GAbrIEL
After taking Cecilia home, I return to find Julio and Felix inside, waiting for me. “Let’s have it,” I say, taking a seat on the couch opposite them. I know what’s coming, and in a strange sort of way, I’m looking forward to it.
Bringing Cecilia here today didn't make sense. But at the same time, it made perfect sense. They didn’t know she was coming, yet my boys took her presence in stride.
We don’t bring casuals to the house. This is our home. Our haven. But despite what we’ve agreed, Cecilia isn’t casual. Not even close. I don’t know what she is to me yet, only that it’s more. More than I expected. More than I deserve.
“She’s good for you,” Julio tells me.
“She is.” If he’s looking for an argument from me, he won’t find one.
“Too good,” Felix adds.
I grin. “She’s that too.”
“Don’t fuck things up.” Felix quirks a brow.
I throw a pillow at his face, but he dodges it.
“What? It’s good advice.”
Flipping him off, I settle back into my seat. “It’s shit advice and I don’t need it.” The moment he looks away, I hurl another pillow at him. “I won’t fuck this up.” I connect with the left side of his face.
The fucker grins. “Good.”
Julio ignores our exchange, rubbing the back of his tattooed neck. He’s got that look on his face that lets me know he’s contemplating something. Might as well give him the silence he needs to tell us what it is. Catching Felix’s gaze, I dip my chin toward Julio.
He rolls his eyes and pretends to zip his mouth closed before tossing the imaginary key away.
“Has she told you what happened? Who hurt her?” Julio asks.
Well, that didn’t last long. Sucking on my teeth, I shake my head. “No.” Judging by the look on Julio’s face, he’s as frustrated by that as I am. “She doesn’t trust me enough yet for that.”
“You can’t push her.”
“I know.” Doesn’t mean I don’t want to try.
“Was it hard like this with Allie?” We don’t talk about it much.
What happened to her. Allie’s business is her own to share, but we know the basics.
I wish I could have been there for her when it happened.
Helped her through it. She’s like the sister I never had.
But all of us at once would have been overwhelming for her and she’s always been closest with Julio.
“Yes and no. It was different.” I wait to see if he’ll continue.
If he doesn’t, we move on. I won’t ask him to share what he can’t.
“Everyone handles their shit differently. With Allie, it was fear that sank claws into her. Fear of being hurt. Of him coming back. Of not knowing who it was or what he looked like. In her mind, every man she came across could have been her attacker. There was nowhere safe.”
I swallow hard, hating the idea of her living like that. Hanging with her now, you’d never guess at all the crap she’s been through. “But she got over it,” I hedge, because like I said, we don’t talk about it. She knows we know, and that’s that.
A cushion smacks me in the face.
“I don’t think rape is the kind of thing you just get over.” Felix dangles the other pillow I threw at him off the side of the sofa. A reminder he has one more.
“You know what I mean.”
He shrugs.
Julio throws his own pillow at him. “Stop messing around.” Turning back to me, he says, “Your girl doesn’t seem to have an aversion to touch or to men. Not like Allie did.”
“So maybe it wasn’t as bad.”
Felix snorts but says nothing.
“Don’t assume that.” Julio leans forward and laces his fingers together. “Like I said, everyone handles their shit differently. We haven’t been around her enough to figure out her triggers, but she had a panic attack when the three of us approached that first day.”
“So, groups might be an issue?” Felix questions.
I don’t like the possibilities that leads to. “She was fine today.”
“She felt safe.” The way Julio says it, looking at me like I’m the reason for it, makes me sit taller in my seat. Until I remember one small detail.
“They’re on the team.” I’ve barely gotten the words out before Felix explodes to his feet.
“What!? Who?” he demands. “Benson? Was it him? I bet it was him. He’s such a slimy little shit.”
I need to head this off before Felix gets carried away.
“I don’t know if it was him.” Though I can’t say I’d put it past him.
Felix is right. Benson is a slimy little shit.
But we don’t need Felix running off half cocked, beating the shit out of random players on the team.
Coach would bench his ass, if not kick him off the team entirely.
“It could be anyone on the team. She didn’t say, which is why you two need to help me figure it out. ”
“You’re sure?” Julio asks.
“I am.”
“Then we check them all out,” Felix suggests.
Julio presses his tongue to his cheek. “It’s not Atticus.”
“No. Not Atticus.” I’m not inclined to rule anyone out without doing at least a little digging.
That’s how mistakes are made, and bad people continue to get away with more bad shit.
But Atticus Bennet bats for the other team.
No one outside of this house knows that.
But it’s enough to ease my own concerns and strike him from my list. He wouldn’t try to fuck Cecilia because he has no interest in what’s between her legs.
But more than that, he’s genuinely a good guy.
Young, and still has a lot to learn, but he grew up with shitty parents and still gives a shit about other people’s well-being.
That kid wouldn’t hurt a fly. He even saves the fucking spiders in the house and moves them outside instead of smashing them beneath his boot.
He has my respect—not for the spiders. I hate those creepy little assholes and I don’t care how harmless they are.
All they’ll get out of me is a view of the bottom of my shoe.
But despite his affection for the eight legged monsters, Atticus Bennett is good people. Compassionate. Trustworthy. Loyal.
Which is more than I can say for some guys on the team. Most are nothing more than overgrown toddlers.
They get the chance to play college ball. Have a shot at going pro—something Julio, Felix, and I work our hardest to achieve every fucking day—but most of the guys on the team waste their potential. They’re blinded by parties and pissing contests.
They have four years here to carve the path for their futures.
To be good enough for the MLS SuperDraft.
To stand out. It’s not what you do on the field that matters.
It’s everything you do leading up to it.
Win or lose, your success is determined in the off season.
In every minute and every hour you spend off the field and out of the gym.
“Who does that leave us with?” Felix paces the length of the living room. He doesn’t do well with inaction. If there’s a problem, he needs to fix it. Preferably with his fists. It’s helpful most of the time, but not for sensitive things like this.
If we want to keep him out of trouble, we need a plan. Something clear and actionable so we can point him in one direction and cut him loose. I scrub my hands over my face. Why does this have to be so complicated?
“There are twenty-eight players on the team if we count Hunt.” Julio’s face is pensive and I can all but see the gears turning in his head. He grabs a notebook from the coffee table. A pen from behind Felix’s ear—
“Hey!”
—and scribbles down everyone’s name on the team, including ours. Thorough fucker.
“It’s safe to assume Hunt wasn’t involved, since he’s a late transfer.” He scratches the name from the list. “Subtracting him, Atticus, and the three of us,” he drags a line through our names next, “that leaves us with twenty-three possibilities if your assumption is right and he’s on the team.”
Cecilia didn’t say it word for word, but she might as well have.
She knew what I’d think when she made her request. And I’m sure she never would have made it if she knew I’d act on the information.
But that’s a problem for another day and I’m happy to pretend she let it slip, hoping I’d step in, figure it out, and save the day.
Chicks believe in all that fairytale crap anyway, and this is my chance to ride in like Prince Charming and prove to her I can keep her safe.
“How many of our teammates are Greeks?” Holt is involved.
I can feel it. Either he was there or he found out after the fact and helped cover it up.
Either way, I’d put money on whoever hurt Cecilia being a Greek.
She used to party with them. Life is a party #ZetaPi…
that’s what she posted on social before…
before she tried to take her own life. Fuck. I hate thinking about that day.
“At least half.”
That’s more than I expected. “We start there. With the Greeks. If they’re all innocent—”
Felix coughs into his fist. “How many pledged to Zeta Pi?”
Running his pen down the list, Julio places a check mark next to a handful of names. “Six.”
“What are the odds it’s one of them?” Felix cracks his knuckles and rolls his neck before shaking out his arms to loosen his limbs.
“No,” I warn.
“He said six. Six is a reasonable number.”
“Not for what you have in mind,” Julio deadpans.
Felix wants to argue. It’s written all over his face. “Your machismo is showing. Put that shit away.”
“Fuck you.” His nostrils flare.
“Knock it off,” Julio growls. “And pay attention. The sooner we figure this out, the easier shit will be for Cecilia. No woman deserves to go through what she’s been through and have the prick who hurt her still walking around free.”
“Is there a reason we don’t go straight to the source?” Felix asks. “We know Holt is involved, right? He knows who hurt her. Might even be protecting them?”
I nod.
“Then why aren’t we knocking down the door of Zeta Pi and demanding some answers?”
“You know why,” I grind out.
“Let me—“
“No!” Julio and I shout in unison.
“You two never let me have any fun.”