Page 57 of Hate the Game
I shoved Danny into the lockers and leaned in close. “Don’t spread that shit about her. Understand me?”
Things were tense as fuck as I left the locker room with Jax and Cole. We were close enough to read each other and I knew that we were only waiting for the privacy of our dorm to let loose. I glanced over at Savannah’s door when we got to our hall and had third and fourth thoughts about how I’d left her that morning.
I didn’t know what the right protocol was. I knew what I wanted but she was a fucking spy for Texas. She couldn’t feel the same way as me. So I’d snuck out to save us both from the awkwardness.
The moment the door closed behind us Cole spun on me. “What the actual fuck? You slept with her?”
I shoved past him and went to the fridge to grab a beer. Once we all had one in hand I cleared my throat. “Yeah. It just happened.”
Jax, usually calm and collected, drained his beer in one go and snarled at me. “I ate her out yesterday. Had her begging for me. If I’d had a condom and a lack of fucking morals I could’ve fucked her. I didn’t, though, because she’s a fucking spy, Ryder!”
“So you both tried to fuck her yesterday.” Cole sank into the couch. “I guess I’ve been taking my sweet ass time for no reason.”
“I didn’t try. Idid.” I couldn’t help being an asshole about it. It’d beenmyname she was moaning. No one else's.
“What is she doing?” Gesturing towards the door, Cole jumped back to his feet. “Fuck it. I’m just going to ask her. Because you aren’t the only fuckers who’ve had her coming for you. She rode my fingers until she came all over them. She would’ve let me take her that night. I put a stop to it, though. Maybe you were just the consolation prize, Ry.”
I shoved him harder than I meant to but he was pissing me off. “Fine. Let’s fucking ask her which one of us she really wants. And have her explain what the hell she’s doing messing with all of us.”
When I pounded on her door, though, she didn’t answer. I tried to call her but her phone was off. The annoying voice in the back of my head said I’d messed up by sneaking out that morning.
“She told me yesterday that things had happened with both of you.” Jax leaned against the wall next to her door. “For whatever reason, it’s less offensive that it’s you two. I still don’t fucking like it, though. Not to mention that we’re supposed to be running some kind of counter operation on her. This whole thing is a shit show. What the hell are we doing, making this messier than it already was? And where the hell is she?”
“Call Blaire. Maybe she’s with her.” I rubbed my face and thought about the night before. “If she’s still acting to get back at us for what happened with the Texas game, she should be on the big screen already.”
“You think she’s as fucked up in this as we clearly are?” Cole frowned as he said it and shook his head. “Of course, she is. I’mnot a fool. I know her intentions were shit but I don’t think she’s been acting for a while.”
Jax grunted as a greeting to his sister once she answered. “Do you know where Savannah is?”
I couldn’t hear what he said but the look on his face made my stomach drop. I’d fucked up.
As soon as he hung up he looked at me and frowned. “She’s gone. She went home to Texas for the weekend.”
Cole glared at me. “Was it a planned trip?”
“Nope.”
I swore. “Goddammit. I left this morning while she was still asleep. I didn’t think she’d want a big morning after thing.”
“Well, this is great.” Cole looked genuinely upset. “You piss her off, or worse, hurt her, and she runs back to the assholes who think we tried to end their career. What are the odds that she comes back here feeling any kind of warmth for us?”
“I’ll text her.” I’d apologize and do what I could to make it better. And if I told myself it was only because I didn’t want to risk her writing an even worse article, that was my business.
***Savannah***
As soon as I turned my phone on I had several texts that I ignored to get a car. Once I was in my uber I shut it off again without looking at the messages. I couldn’t obsess over what the message from Ryder might’ve said, not when I was about to face my brothers. I needed to figure out how to keep a good face when all I wanted to do was cry and scream. The emotions warring in me made me confused about who I wanted to scream at, too. It was a mess.
The uber dropped me off at the bottom of the driveway since there were cars parked everywhere, even on the lawn in front of my brothers’ house. I’d moved in with them as soon as they got it because the idea of living with my dad without them there was awful. I considered it my home, too, but when I saw the state of the place, the sheer amount of people drunkenly stumbling around, I wanted to run after the uber and retreat to my crappy little dorm room at USC.
Anxiety made me jittery as I walked towards the front door. I instantly regretted coming home. I felt different. I was still in the same body, still the same on the outside but I felt like a strangerinside. I hadn’t been at USC for very long and already my Texas house didn’t feel like home. I hated it. I wanted to claw at my skin.
I was a traitor. A no good, dirty, rotten traitor. When I’d left the house to go to USC I’d been so confident in what I was doing. I had it all worked out with a pretty checklist and I was going to get in and get out. I’d planned on coming back to Texas at the end of the semester and carrying on with my head held high. Except I felt lower than dirt.
My brothers were expecting me to walk in with embarrassing stories about The Apex Three. They were ready to laugh at Jax, Cole, and Ryder over what I was doing to them. I couldn’t, though. I didn’t believe in the mission anymore but the idea of telling them that was way too much for me to ever consider.
A drunk guy bumped into me and sloshed beer down the front of my dress without bothering to apologize. I hadn’t even made it into the house yet. I forged on but every step felt like moving closer and closer to hell. The house was even wilder inside. It reeked off beer and weed and I didn’t even recognize the place. It was trashed. A sinking feeling in my stomach had me shoving through people to get upstairs to my room.
There were just as many drunk assholes on the top floor and I quickly found out that several of them were in my room, fucking on my bed. I barely even glanced at them because the state of my room was so awful it shocked me. All of my things were either gone or were destroyed. My closet was open and when I looked inside I gasped. Someone had shit in the middle of the floor.
