Page 6 of Bear
“Wait, what?” Her eyes search mine. “But how do you do that and football? Don’t you have to choose one sport per season?”
I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. “It’s not school sanctioned. It’s not for sport. My coach doesn’t know. Can’t know. My dad runs these fight nights. It’s a whole gambling set up… and I fight for him.”
“But”—her brows knit together—“isn’t that dangerous for you? Like from a collegiate-sports perspective?”
“I…” I wet my lips and simply finish by shaking my head. It’s more dangerous than she knows. Not only because I’d get kicked off the football team if they knew, but also because sports gambling is currently illegal in Georgia. It’s fucking stupid and reckless and a whole lot of other shit, too. She’s fuckin’ smarter than any of us gave her credit for.
Does Derek Pierce give a shit that it could be career ending for me?No.All he knows is that I’m his cash cow, and he has me over a barrel. If anyone ever found out what I did… well, it’d all be over. Every minute, every hour, every day of my life. Every football practice, every time I puked from working so hard. All the blood, sweat, and tears that I’ve poured into my career. It’d all be over in an instant.
FOUR
LENNON
The sunshine streaminginto my bedroom tells me I’ve slept in well past my usual hour. I figured I would, considering the sheer insanity of the last eighteen hours or so. Exhaustion had been like a heavy weight pulling me under the surface, but it’s best that sleep had found me, because I’d so badly needed the rest. And by some miracle, I hadn’t woken up to a nightmare either.
I wince at the soreness radiating throughout my body as I roll over in search of Bear’s warmth. Finding cool sheets at my fingertips instead of his skin, I frown. Then it hits me.Right.He got up early to get a workout in. I remember now, he told me he was leaving. That must have been hours and hours ago.
I cover my eyes with one hand as my mind sets all of yesterday’s events on replay and forces me to relive them, one after another. The ick from the OG Bastards at the football game. The abduction. The locker. The nightmare. Mason’s attack—physical and verbal. The shit he told me about his mother.I fuckin’ killed her. Me, Lennon. I pushed my mother off a balcony.I take a breath, remembering the rest.You shouldn’t have clawed your way into my heart, Kintsukuroi. Now you’ll be next.
I force my lungs to work, pulling air into my body and exhaling heavily. I’m overwhelmed. Completely and utterly crushed and beaten down by all of it. Abalcony,like the one we share that he’d held me up against when I was so out of it, I couldn’t fight back. How the fuck I’m not curled into a little ball and rocking myself after that ordeal is an excellent question. Everything hadn’t even been going that great, but this weekend took the cake. What a disaster. And now… I don’t know what to think. Whether I should stick it out or run.
I press my fingers against my eyelids, struggling to understand my own thoughts, my feelings.Fuck.If I stay, I don’t know how to handle Mason. What the hell do I say to him? How do we begin to interact with each other after the way he came after me? And worse yet, when I think back to how he’d fucked me free of that nightmare… I seriously wonder if I’d turn him away if he came in here right now. There is something so twisted up and wrong about the way I feel when I’m with him. Yet, I can’t escape the pull I feel toward him, the connection we have. Two damaged souls trying to make each other whole. I feel the closest to him that I’ve felt to anyone in my life. He sees my broken pieces. The problem is sometimes he puts them—me—back together… but last night he’d torn me apart.
It’d been Bear who caught me when I fell. Bear who’d held me and made sure I was okay. But also Bear who’d put his foot down when I tried to seek comfort through sex… and despite the fact that I made him feel like I was using him, he’d still taken care of me. Fuck. I hate that I made him feel like that. I never in a million years would have thought he’d say no. But when he explained what was on his mind… I guess I kinda get it. The guy hasn’t said it in so many words, but I think he has real feelings for me—and he doesn’t want to be the type who continues to say,Fuck it, she’s offering herself up to me, I should take advantage of that.This time, he hadn’t let us go there. And I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it.
Setting that aside for now, I pull myself out of the bed, moving gingerly, and head directly to the dresser to pull out some clothes. Once I have a pair of cutoffs, a tank top, and underwear in hand, I slip into the bathroom, peel the T-shirt I’d worn overnight off, and set everything else down on the counter. As I get a look at myself in the mirror, my eyes widen, and I gasp.Oh, shit.I scan my body with nervous eyes, concern mounting at every visible bruise and scrape. Turning around, my gaze drifts over the bandages that Bear had so gently applied last night. On the whole, it’s worse than I thought it was going to be, which totally sucks. Usually, I’d just be like, fuck it. But wow.
Damage. Injury. Hurt. I’m a fucking mess—and all this? It’s only the physical battering I’d taken. It’ll take far longer to recover mentally. And knowing myself as I do, I’d love nothing more than to try to pretend none of it ever happened instead of dealing with it. I’ve been doing that for years with my abhorrence for small spaces. But there’s no way I can live here with Mason and ignore what happened. It’d be uncomfortable for both of us and only come back to haunt me later.Ah, fuck. A cold sweat breaks out over my skin. I really don’t want to deal with any of this. My heart rate accelerates until my head begins to spin. I slam my eyes shut, gripping the counter for balance.
Breathe, Lennon.This is temporary.Most of it, anyway.I give myself another five seconds, then do my best to shake free of the spiral I’d almost gone down. I’m gonna be fine. As I pick up one article of clothing after another, I fumble a bit as I get dressed, my hands trembling.Get it out now, girl. Don’t you dare show any of these brothers—whether it’s Mason or any of the rest of them—a single sign of weakness.
I glance at my reflection again. There’s no way I can go downstairs looking like this, but maybe if I wear something with long sleeves, it will make my injuries not quite such a glaring issue. I head for the closet, turn the knob, and swing it open. My gaze narrows on the clothing hung there, and I almost immediately see what I’m after—a lightweight hoodie, the kind I like to wear at the beach for sun protection. I lunge into the closet and grab it by the sleeve. It pulls off the hanger no problem, but then my eyes fixate on that hanger while it swings wildly. A shudder shakes me to my core, but I blow out a hard breath and pull the closet door firmly shut behind me.
Leave it to me to give myself an immediate reminder that small spaces are never going to be my jam, especially after being trapped in a locker. I’ve hardly put any of my clothes in the closet, instead opting to keep most of what I brought in the dresser. The first day I got here, I thought for a moment I’d be okay with the fancy walk-in closet since it was within my bathroom, but nope. I fucking hate it.
I take a few moments to braid my hair over my shoulder, then slick a little lip gloss on and sweep mascara over my blond lashes. Good enough. As far as I know, I can hang here all day to catch up on the hellacious amount of reading I have to do for my psych and history classes.
I tug the hood over my head to ward off as many questions as I can and jog down the staircase, noticing with every bouncing step how quiet the house is. Suits me fine, seeing as how I’d rather not be interrogated about the handprint on my neck. I would imagine most of the brotherhood is resting or getting homework done for tomorrow’s classes, so hopefully I’ll be in the clear to grab something to eat.
In the kitchen, however, I come around the corner and almost run smack into Tucker. There’s a moment of uncertainty as he bobbles his plate of food, and I stumble, but he manages to both save his food, as well as grab my arm to steady me. I flinch hard, jerking myself out of his grasp.Fuck that hurt.
He doesn’t seem to notice anything is amiss, or if he does, he doesn’t explicitly say so. He sits at the island with his food, even though I swear he was on his way out of here a moment ago. Much to my dismay, he appears to be getting comfortable. He tips his chin in my direction. “I didn’t hear you coming.”
“That’s okay. I didn’t know anyone was in here either.” My gaze travels from Tucker’s raised brow to where Warren is visible sitting at the dining room table, sandwich held up to his mouth. He takes a bite, never lowering it back to the plate as he frowns down at the assignment that seems to be stumping him. He taps his pencil on the table. Then, almost as if he senses I’m watching him, he looks up and lifts a hand in greeting—the one with the pencil, not the sandwich—but then goes right back to whatever he’s working on. I refocus on Tucker. “Where is everyone, do you know?”
He glances down again, then back up, squinting at me, and I can’t help but feel self-conscious. “Out of the house, mostly. Pierre is in the pool. Quincy and Arik got sent on some errand for next weekend. Something about masks that were special ordered.” He shrugs, putting a chip in his mouth and chewing slowly.
He must be talking about the auction. Not really any of my business. I fully intend to make myself scarce that night, if possible. Pushing all of it out of my mind, I head over to the counter where the fruit bowl sits next to the fridge and select a shiny apple, then open a cabinet where I’d spotted an industrial-size jar of peanut butter earlier this week. Taking it over to the island across from Tucker, I rummage around in a drawer and then a cabinet until I come up with a knife and a cutting board. Quickly and quietly, I begin slicing the apple, but the entire time, I can feel Tucker’s snakelike gaze slithering over me. It’s almost as if he’s waiting for a good time to strike.
Finally, I stop what I’m doing and glance up to see him semi-leering at me. “What?”
His gaze drops from my eyes to my throat. I give my concentration back to cutting up the apple, but a moment later, find myself adjusting the collar of my hoodie. He chuckles. “Goddamn, girl. Who’ve you been getting on your knees for? That’s the first thing I noticed. They’re all red. And your neck. Fuck.” His lips twitch into a knowing smile that’s designed to make me feel filthy.
For several seconds, I go right on with what I’d been doing. I pull a butter knife from the drawer in front of me and jam it into the peanut butter jar, scooping some out to put on a paper plate—there always seems to be a stack on the counter—and I let his words sink in. Slowly, I raise my eyes to his, giving him the most uninterested look I can manage. “Don’t be a dick.” He obviously thinks he has a shot with me. I have no idea how he always seems to be with a girl. Don’t they see right through this?
The asshole gets up, circling the island until he’s standing no more than a foot from me. He casually rests his hip against the counter as I slide my apples from the cutting board to the plate next to my peanut butter. He leans in, totally invading my space. My skin prickles with distaste, and he’s so close I can feel his hot breath fanning over my face. It smells like potato chips. My heart picks up speed, but not in a good way, more like an irregular, nervous jumping around inside my chest. I glance over my shoulder through the doorway, but Warren is consumed by whatever he’s reading.
As if I’m watching from outside of my body, his hand reaches up, and his fingers trail over the discolored skin on my neck. My body shivers violently, then in the next second I bat his hand away with a sharp slap. Meanwhile my other hand closes around the handle of the paring knife. I continue staring at him. He has no idea who he’s messing with. The confidence in this prick is astounding.
