Page 30 of Fighting the Odds

“Does it even matter? I’ve ruined any shot with her I ever had.” Colt sighs as his head falls back on his seat, his hands run through his hair, tugging gently on the ends.

“You’ll never have a shot if you don’t try to contact her. You want to wait until you can see her in person, but you need to man up and message her now. Tell her you were a fucking tool,” I rant, wishing he’d see how insane waiting is.

“I may have ruined it for all of us,” Zander says sheepishly, and our heads whip toward him. What the fuck?

“What do you mean?” I ask, massaging my temples. I can already feel a headache coming on from these two.

I love them, but they are driving me crazy. I’m always going to regret not pursuing her harder the day I saw her in the shoe store. I knew then she was it for me. I’ve never felt as intense about someone as I did her. It was an instant connection. Some would say love at first sight.

“She told me about the charges against her about abusing Sam. Sierra actually thought I believed them. I told her I didn’t and promised to send her pictures of Sam. Which, by the way, we need to keep a secret from Dad.”

I still don’t see why this would ruin anything for us.

“Okay, and what's bad about that?” I gesture between Zander and myself. “You told her we didn’t believe them either, right?” Again, I feel like I’m asking a stupid question.

“Of course I did. That’s not the problem. She told me she was coming back to school and agreed to let me see her. I used our project as leverage. Then I asked her if she would want to know who turned her in.”

“You fucking told her?” Colton blurts from the back seat.

I shoot my gaze back and forth between the two of them, waiting for Zander to deny what Colton said.

But he doesn’t.

He just nods his head.

“Why would you fucking tell her that? Not even talk to us about it before you did it? She probably thinks we were in on it. Has she messaged you back?” I could kill him right now for taking that group decision away from us.

“No, she hasn’t, and I told her because she was upset and deserved to know. I didn’t want her to find out later that we knew and didn’t tell her. Now I think I’ve fucked it up for all of us.” He slams his fist into his thigh and blows out a deep breath.

“It’s okay, we can fix this. We’ll keep messaging and letting her know we’re here for her. Each of us will be doing it along with sending pictures of Sam. That’ll let Sierra know we still care about her.” I give Colton a pointed look. There’s no way in hell he’s going to slack on this.

“Okay, but do you think she’ll believe us?” Zander picks up his phone, frowning.

“She will. So let’s get home, eat and tell Sam the news that we’ve heard from Sierra.”

They both nod and I start the car back up, pulling out of the parking lot.

I have to believe she will, there’s no other option. I don’t want to think about the future if she doesn’t.

She’s going to be with all three of us, we just have to show her that’s what we want. I’m still not sure how the guy in her apartment fits into all of this, but that’s a question for another day.

“So, we’re just going to share her and be okay with it? Is it even something you think she wants?” Colton asks nervously.

“I know she reads books where it happens. We’re even doing our English project on authors who write that type of relationship,” Zander tells us.

“As long as she knows we’re unified, I think she’ll be okay. Plus, we look exactly alike, Colt. So, even if she was with one of us, it would be like she’s with both of us.” It sounds crazy, but in my mind, it makes perfect sense.

The rest of the ride is silent. We are all stuck in our heads.

I glance over at Zander, who’s fidgeting with his phone.

As we pull into the driveway, I go over the plan again. “Remember, we’re going to eat, then talk to Sam, and then each of us is going to send a picture of her to Sierra, along with a message. We keep doing this until she answers. Then when she returns to school, we support her. No one is going to fuck with her again.”

I turn the car off and turn around in my seat to face Colton.

“And you need to end this friendship with Wes. He’s a dick and only causes trouble. We should have never listened to him, especially when he wouldn’t even tell us what he thinks Sierra did.”

“I know. I was an idiot. It’s just I wanted to fit in here so bad. Moving at the beginning of senior year sucked. I was looking forward to playing football and being captain this year,” Colton finally confesses.

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