Page 113 of Iced Out

Goddamnit.

“So how did you manage this if you didn’t drug him?”

The next sentence he says damn near knocks me off my feet.

“I just took them.”

My eyes snap back open. “What?”

He shrugs in one of thosewhat can you doways. “I wanted to slip them to him directly, but I couldn’t figure out a way to without him noticing, so I just took them. And when the time came, the label with our names was on the lids of the sample cups, so I just…swapped the lids.” He shrugs again. “Made the whole thing a lot easier than having to swap the samples the way I thought I’d have to. Playing with piss is—”

“You really don’t need to finish that sentence,” I tell him, wrinkling my nose in disgust.

Fuck me running.

I can’t unknow what happened now. And like Braxton alluded when this whole thing started, I don’twantto know it in the first place.

Because now…I have to figure out what to do with it.

My fingers rake though my hair before I lock my hands on the back of my head. “This is really fucking bad.”

He waves me off. “You really think de Haas is gonna do anything about it this close to the tournament? There’s no way.”

I blink at him, floored by the sheer audacity he has. “No, Brax. I don’t think he will. But I’m sure gonna.”

His eyes bug out of his head like in those old cartoons. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

Again, I’m stunned into damn near silence. Staring at him like…he’s a complete stranger all of a sudden. “You’re really asking that question right now?”

“You’re really gonna sell me out when I did this shit for you?”

“I never asked you to!” I shout, tossing my arms out in front of me. “There was no time I ever asked you to do something like this.”

“You didn’t have to! This is what friends do for each other, Oakley. Or did burying your dick inside de Haas make you forgetweare friends? You and me, not you and him.”

Oh, but he’s wrong.

Braxton and I…we’re not friends. Maybe we were at one point a few years ago. Hell, maybe even at the beginning of the season when all this shit started. But that ship has long since sailed with everything happening right now.

And then me and Quinn?

My eyes sink closed. A knot forms in my throat as the image of him with that pill bottle in hand comes barreling back into my mind.

During this season, he’s gone from the person I despised most in the world to the person I never want to live without. The one who makes me laugh harder than anyone else. The one who brings out my reckless side, because life shouldn’t always be so serious.

He’s the one I should’ve protected at all costs.

Not Braxton.

“No,” I tell him, shaking my head.

“No?” he repeats, his dark eyes hardening. “Are you really gonna sit here and choose some good dick over me?”

“And that right there proves my point exactly.” I scoff, my lips curling back into a snarl. I can barely look at him right now. “You might’ve thought you were doing me a favor with all this, but all you’ve actually accomplished is costing me the trust of the person who matters most to me.”

Braxton shakes his head before waving me off. “Whatever, man. Give it a couple days and you’ll be over it.”

Yeah, considering the way I just tried to bolt after the guy in my underwear after letting him fuck the daylights out of me, I sincerely doubt that.

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