Page 2 of The Players

I shivered again. Hector noticed. He rolled over and pulled me into his arms and pressed me into his smooth, muscular chest.

“You okay?” His voice held real concern. I wasn’t as good at hiding my feelings as I’d thought.

“I’m peachy.” I didn’t feel like rehashing it again. We’d gone over every angle of what had transpired and what we knew. Right now, I wanted to forget. Did I use sex with Hector to feel something other than awful? Maybe. Did he seem to mind? Not one bit.

He brushed strands of hair out of my face tenderly, then kissed my cheekbone. “We can handle this. Whatever Easton is plotting, whatever his fucking father has to do with this, we can handle it. Leave it to us.”

I nodded, pressing my face against his warm skin, but I wasn’t sure I believed it. Easton Hill was the most devious, sadistic person I’d ever met. He was the one who thought it would be a good idea to bury me alive. He was the one who came back and pulled the air hose out of the coffin he’d buried me in. It was only by luck that I survived long enough for the boys to dig me out.

He tried to kill me. He’d wanted me dead.

And to top it all off, it seemed like his father had something to do with my parents' death.

Was I strong enough to face Easton again? Even with the boys at my side, could I even look Easton Hill in the eye? I wasn’t sure. I simply didn’t know if I had the strength. The past could bury you. I knew that more than I knew anything.

I hadn’t admitted to Hector how much being buried alive had affected me, how I woke up nights in a cold sweat, a raw scream stuck in my throat. How any enclosed space scared the shit out of me now. I couldn’t ride in elevators. I couldn’t even go into my closet without breaking into hives. The terror lurked around every corner, just waiting to take me out at the knees when I least expected it. But Hector didn’t need to worry about that, not when I had him looking into Easton’s father for me.

A car door slamming outside Hector’s window made both our ears perk up.

“My dad’s home,” he grumbled. Planting a kiss on the side of my head, he got up and searched for pants before tugging them on.

I started to dress too. It wasn’t like Hector’s father cared what he did unless it was with me. His father hated me because I’d set out to get him disbarred after he’d insisted my parents’ murderers were a murder-suicide.

I had known that was false then, and I knew it was now. I simply didn’t know who did it, but now I had a clue.

While I dressed, I watched Hector as he slipped his shirt over his amazing body. His bundled muscles flexed and released as the fabric slid over his pecs and abs. No one could deny how stunning he was, both in form and intellect. We’d only had sex a couple of times, but each time I’d enjoyed myself. Yet, that didn’t mean I didn’t think about Mills and Lowell. Somehow the four of us had formed a sort of gang. With the vacuum Easton left when the Lords had fallen apart, we’d become our group. And, despite having sex with all three of them, they didn’t seem to mind.

Was it weird? Definitely. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Especially now when I needed them the most.

“I’ll walk you to your car.” He stuffed his feet into slides and opened his bedroom door for me.

I nodded, my eyes scanning the halls for Hector’s dad. I still hated the man even though I’d changed my mind about his son. The idea of bumping into him made my skin crawl. There was no way I wanted him to know I’d been here.

We slunk down the hallway to the back stairs. Hector’s house was huge since his father may or may not have been taking bribes. Even though the size of the house was disgustingly big, it helped us avoid his parents and the housekeeper. I never saw Hector’s mother. She’d caught wind of the affair and was in Wisconsin with her sister for the time being.

If any of this bothered Hector, he didn’t say.

I gripped Hector’s hand as we moved surreptitiously through the house. Tiptoeing down the back stairs and slipping out a side door was not the best way to end a hot date, but it would have to do.

Hector walked me to my car which was parked down the side street a block away. He stood by as I unlocked it and then grabbed my wrists as I went to slip inside.

His walnut-colored eyes searched my face with real concern. “Hey, tell me you’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” I lied.

He nodded, already accepting it. I found it was easier to give people the answer they wanted rather than the truth.

“Okay, just text when you get home.” Pressing a kiss on my cheek, he turned and walked away.

I slipped into my car and watched him jog back to the house. When he was out of sight, I started the engine and drove home.

It wasn’t hard to lie to Hector. After all, he was the one of us that had the least trauma. That distinction could be shared by him or Mills, but Lowell was another story. If I’d told that lie to Lowell, he would have seen through it like Swiss cheese. Maybe that’s why I was spending so much time with Hector lately. It was easy to hide.

The drive from Hector’s house to mine took about twenty minutes. I left the nice part of town and drove to the other side where people had double mortgages or rented from shitty landlords who took shittier care of their houses. The houses got increasingly smaller, the yards weedier, and the cars junkier. It wasn’t hard to be reminded of the huge gap between the boy’s lives and mine. All three of them had money, and I had…

Well, I had their ten thousand dollars so that was a start.

The money I’d won in their contest had gone right into the bank. I needed most of it to pay Gram’s medical bills. Yet, it seemed that an anonymous donor had taken care of a large chunk of the hospital bill she’d incurred when she’d nearly died a month ago, the one that might have wiped out my ten grand in a flash. I still didn’t know who paid that off. I’d asked all three boys, and they flatly denied it, though I had a feeling one of them was lying.

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