Page 17 of The Players

A quiet buzz dragged my attention away from my near meltdown, giving me a nice distraction from my inability to cope. Someone was calling me. I pulled my phone out from under the duvet cover and glanced at the screen. Randy’s face peered back at me.

“Hey,” I said after hitting the green button. “You will not believe the day I had today.”

“Viv, something’s wrong.”

My body froze. Randy sounded frazzled, scared even.

“What’s going on?” I said pressing the phone harder to my ear as if that could transport me to my best friend who needed me at this moment. “Is it school?”

“No, not school. They… It’s just… my parents… I overheard them talking. We’re going to lose the store.”

Randy’s parents’ grocery store was their life’s work, their only income. It was everything. I knew what losing the store meant. It meant destitution. It meant the end of an era.

“What do you mean? How?” I said, stumbling over my own words.

Randy’s voice came in rushed and staccato over the phone. “Some asshole land developer. He wants to build a tech store here, a new cell phone business, or an Apple store. I don’t know. Whatever the hell it is, he wants totear our store down. My dad isn’t having it, but the guy is putting on the pressure. Likemajorpressure.”

“Oh my god, Randy. They can’t sell.”

“I know,” she replied. “But they might not have a choice. It sounds like they either sell, or they are planning on doing some shady shit, things like leaking that our store had cockroaches or bribing the health inspector to shut us down. I… I don’t know, Viv. We can’t fight these guys. They have so much money.” Randy sniffled. It sounded like she was going to cry.

“Who are these assholes?” I said, the rage building.

Randy sniffed. “I don’t know, but I have the business card here.” The phone made a sound as Randy shifted before coming back to the speaker. “It saysSilverhill Land Development Corporation.”

“Silverhill?!”

“Yeah, why?” Randy asked.

I shook my head. All of a sudden it was all making sense, why someone suddenly wanted to destroy my best friend’s family business, why the urgency to put a tech store in a shitty part of town.

There was only one explanation.

Easton Hill.

“Randy, I’m going to see if there’s something I can do to stop this,” I said, a new determination solidifying. “Just hang tight.”

“Viv, what are you going to do?”

I bit my lip and spoke the next words more to myself than to Randy. “I’m going to play his game.”

Chapter eight

ItfeltlikeFridaynight would never come, but somehow I made it through the week. There’d been no more threats, no more pictures of my murdered parents. As soon as I let Easton know, by text, that I would play his stupid game, Savannah and her brother left me alone. That group, consisting now of Ty, Easton, Savannah, and Spencer, didn’t as much as look at me during our time together at school. It was almost like I didn’t exist, back to how things used to be before my parents’ murders and the ensuing aftermath.

But there were differences now, mainly the fact that I had three boyfriends who wanted to know what the hell was up with me, why I was acting so strange and aloof this week and why I couldn’t hang out Friday night. One of the conditions of Easton’s game was that I couldn’t tell Mills, Hector, or Lowell that I’d agreed to do it. Easton had let me know, in no uncertain terms, that none of them could catch a whiff of what was going on or Randy’s parents’ store would be in jeopardy. He’d reasoned over text that they would do anything to stop me from participating, and I had to agree with him on that point. If any one of them knew I was going to play a game with Easton, they’d move hell and high water to make me stop.

But keeping it from them was easier said than done.

The weekends were our time, often spent on dates with one of the guys, or hanging out at the warehouse, which sadly was no longer an option. Mills had offered up his dad’s restaurant—the one on the swanky part of town—while it was closed, and the boys seemed to agree that it would work for now. It did make me think back to the night Mills had pressed me up to the glass and had his way with me—sweet lord in heaven—but now was not a time for distractions. I needed to focus.

First, I had to focus on coming up with a reasonable lie to back out of any obligations Friday night. I told them that Randy’s parents were sick and that she needed a ton of help at the grocery store. The guys seemed to understand that my best friend came first, and I was grateful for that. And Randy was always good at keeping a secret. She was my ride-or-die.

The second thing I needed to focus on was what kind of game Easton would submit me to. He’d already made me swim in dangerous waters, orchestrated a piss-filled water gun fight, and buried me alive, amongst other things. What kind of sadistic torture was left? Make me eat bugs? Stick me in a dark room full of rats?

Every thought made my skin crawl. Every idea had me seconds away from picking up the phone and calling Easton to back out, but I knew I couldn’t do that. Randy’s parents could not lose their store. It was their livelihood and also part of their family identity. Without it, everything would fall apart, and I knew exactly how awful that was.

I also knew that if I didn’t play Easton’s game, I would never find out more about what he knew. I’d never get to solve the mystery of my parents' murders.

---