Page 49 of Trip Through Your Wires

I turn from the window and make my way over to the couch, sinking down onto the cushion. “Any chance Coach will give us a snow day?”

“I don’t think he has a choice.” Cruz slumps down opposite me and lifts his leg onto the cushion. “Lives up by Dawson’s Ridge and I heard on the radio they got two feet of snow. Snowplow probably won’t clear the roads up there until later today.”

I lay my head back and look up at the ceiling. “I could use a day off.”

“Same,” he agrees. “Today is one of those days I could crawl back in bed and—”

I hold my hand up to stop him.“Come on, I just got up.”

“What?” He shakes his head. “I was going to say sleep. I’m exhausted.”

I look over at him and note the fatigue in his eyes. “Storm keep you up?”

“Some,” he admits. “The rest was my mind.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not yet. First things first,” he taps my arm. “Let’s talk about O’Brien.”

“What about him?” I close my eyes. “We talked about this already.”

Cruz and I talked about what happened yesterday on the way home from practice and came to the conclusion our new team member was trying to rile us up. He may have been a superstar on his old team but at Highland he was struggling to fit in and what he said was his way of lashing out. It just so happened his smart mouth, coupled with any mention of Cal and last summer, was enough to get to both Cruz and me. That was it, words that were too close for comfort, nothing more.

“He sure riled you up,” Cruz says with a laugh.

I bring both hands behind my head and squeeze. “I could say the same for you, brother.”

“Yeah,” he nods. “He did. But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you. Don’t think I’ve ever seen you that way before.”

I drop my arms and jiggle one knee. “He got to me,” I shrug. “It happens.”

“Yeah,” he says matter of fact. “And that’s my point. You’re the cool one. Nothing gets to you. Certainly not a little shit-talking from guys like O’Brien. So what set you off?”

He’s right. O’Brien did set me off and it wasn’t just because of what he said about last summer. It was also what he said about Jenica.

Cruz didn’t say anything to me about O’Brien’s comment about the frat party and thank God because I didn’t know how I would answer him if he did. If I tell Cruz what happened, that’s it. Getting us together is going to become his and Ellery’s focus because he knows me and knows that if I found her with O’Brien and cock-blocked him it was for one reason—because I liked her, more than I let on.

Deciding now is not the time to get into it, I cross my arms over my face and exhale into my bicep. “I was having a bad day. End of story. Now you.”

“What about me?” he asks.

I drop my arm and turn to him. “Why didn’t you sleep last night? What’s on your mind?”

He sits back and brings a fist to his chin, thinking for a moment. “What he said yesterday, it may have been shit talking, but it brought up some stuff.”

“Elmhurst?”

He nods. “Courtney and Dex Webster, Asher and his sister, Skye Vaughn…their lives were changed when their little society was exposed, and not for the better. You can’t tell me they just took that shit lying down. They may be quiet right now, but they didn’t disappear. O’Brien’s question may have been random, but you can bet your ass those fuck faces are asking a question of their own, and that is how to get my family back for what happened.”

When Cruz says family, he’s not just talking about his parents and Ellery. He means all of us, Jenica, me, and Marcus.

“Hey.” I tap his knee, ignoring the way Jenica being a target of anyone makes me feel. “They’re not going to do anything. If they were, they would have already.”

“How can we be sure?” He drops his hand to the back of the couch. “Every one of them is loose thread. And they’re not the only ones.”

Cal I think in silent agreement. He wasn’t just a loose thread, but a potential loose cannon. He says he doesn’t remember what happened that night. The only the details he remembers being that of his time with Royce and the deal they made. But I know Cruz doesn’t buy it. Cal chose money and fame over loyalty and friendship, and that wasn’t someone I’d believe, either.

I don’t think he’s lying, per se. He probably doesn’t remember anything given how hopped up he was that night. But I don’t think the memory is gone, either. I think it’s buried under a haze of drugs and lies, and with a little therapy, could come back to him at any minute and that worries me. Marcus is the only one that still speaks to Cal and I hate the idea of him remembering something and telling Marcus. If he does it could incriminate him and neither Cruz nor I want that.

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