Page 14 of Wicked Games

I started then scowled at Jaxon. He was lucky I’d paused, or I would have dug the pencil into the paper. “Yes.”

No reason to clarify. The talk about Jax painting at night had triggered the memory of me coming across him for both of us. A few times, I’d covered the walls in the studio room with charcoal renderings of what I saw in my dreams. Before he could tell Brooke and James, I’d destroyed the evidence. I had been terrified that it would somehow make them want me to leave or that social services would swoop in and take me away, labeling me a risk. It was ridiculous, but I couldn’t help it. I was very protective of the family I’d been included in and tried to hide the darker side of myself, the one that seemed to awaken in my dreams.

“They have counselors here. No one has to know if you see someone.” Worry coated his words. “It might help.”

“Maybe.” My pencil hovered over the page. “I’ll think about it.”

I knew it bothered Jaxon. He’d witnessed so many things I’d drawn, and not just the faceless man but of my life with my sister. I always shredded the drawings after I created them. It was cathartic to get some of what I’d lived through out of my head then destroy it.

It’d become a regular thing for a while, the two of us awake at odd hours during the night, working away together in the studio, in silence.

“Jaxon, I promise I’ll tell you if I’m struggling. But right now,” I pleaded with him, “I just want to be normal, to put myself out there and make some friends.”

I hadn’t even tried it while we were in high school. I was friends with the people he was closest to because I’d tagged along. Or Jaxon had made me. But college was my time. I’d promised myself and Brooke that among other things. I didn’t want to think about the rest right then. It was enough that I wanted to try.

“Have some faith in me.”

I needed all I could get, and my brother was the best person around to have on my side. I nudged him. “Hey, I wanted to hang with you and find out about Max. We’re getting too deep here for my first week at Thane. Spill. Tell me everything.”

Jaxon laughed, and the sound was so carefree and happy that it seeped into the cracks in my soul. I needed that, and I would soak up every minute I could with him, leaving the scary stuff for another day.

CHAPTER SIX

SHANE

I’m not the same person I was in fifth grade. I’m Shane fucking Bennett, star football player and NFL draft contender.I looped that repeatedly, working hard to dispel the replay of nightmares—of memories—I’d been caught in last night. The sense of helplessness and fear about going to school and what the girl I’d had the biggest crush on would do to me next.

No more.It was payback time.

I hardened myself against the image of her today, as opposed to when we were kids. She looked pretty well-adjusted, confident and beautiful with all that amazing strawberry-blond hair that I wanted to wrap around my fist or see fanned across my pillow. I knew from experience she didn’t have the heart to feel what I did, but I could certainly make sure she became acquainted with the despair and humiliation I had experienced at my lowest. I would find a way to make her pay.

My mind was too foggy from back-to-back classes and lack of sleep to figure out a plan yet, but I would. It was only a matter of time because the kid inside me deserved the chance to get back at her.

Muted sound traveled under the closed door from my teammates moving around in the football house. In my room, it was quiet enough. I used to share the space with Phoenix before he moved out and into married housing with Aspen for the current semester. I was still getting used to that, as I imagined they were too.

My stomach rumbled. I needed food. I shoved my wallet into my back pocket and headed out to Dillon’s Diner, where Joe, my dad, wanted to meet.

Mixed feelings plagued me on the ride there, and I sat in my Range Rover for a few minutes after parking. Phoenix and Mom were wary of the man who had abandoned us when she was pregnant with us. The reasons he’d listed when he’d reached out at the beginning of my first semester at Thane had seemed valid, but I’d known Phoenix would be a tough sell, so I had waited to share the news. The timing had sucked, and I would always regret what had happened when I’d brought my brother to the hotel where Joe—our dad—was staying.

I was the only one who would talk to Joe. The others weren’t ready or willing to let him into any part of their lives. But I’d been given many second chances in my life, and the jury was still out on which would go well. Tracey, my former girlfriend, had tried to get back together with me after dumping me so brutally. I’d entertained the possibility and hooked up with her several times, but the betrayal had cut too deep.

As for the opportunity that had fallen into my lap when Phoenix and I had gone for coffee, that was just the beginning. And I was eager to get some revenge on Winter. It felt like the one thing in my damned life that I had any control over.

Joe’s second chance was underway, and I hoped with everything in me that we could build a relationship. I left my car and entered the diner, spotting Joe quickly—it was still difficult to think of him as my father.

I slid into the booth with two menus already on the table. The waitress came over immediately, and we both placed our orders since I knew what I wanted from eating there often enough. When she left, I studied Joe like I had every time I’d met him. The similarities between him and Phoenix were uncanny. We were fraternal twins. I looked more like Mom than I did Joe. It bothered my brother that he and Joe resembled each other, and I could understand that, even if I hoped we could put the past behind us and become the family we never had been.

“No Phoenix?”

I shook my head. Joe asked whenever we met, and I always confirmed the obvious. My brother wasn’t interested in a relationship. He’d told me Joe couldn’t be trusted despite the evidence our dad had presented against our mom’s dad, Grandad, and his involvement in our dad’s absence from our lives. I didn’t fully understand Phoenix’s reservations. Joe had shown us the absurdly large and uncashed check Grandad had bribed him with to stay away from Mom.

He studied me for a moment, and it felt like ants crawling all over me with how stressed I was. Things were escalating. I couldn’t sleep without reliving my fist hitting Luke, then him falling, his head cracking open on the step. The blood. The yellow fluid—spinal fluid. The last rasp of breath as it left his mouth then nothing. It played on repeat when I wasn’t busy. The guilt and horror ate at me, and I couldn’t talk to my brother about it. He had Aspen and the baby to worry about. School. Football. His plate was full. I refused to tip it over.

“It’ll work out.” Joe’s voice pulled me from my thoughts.

“What will?”

“The legal stuff you’ve got going on.” His dark-silver eyes hardened. “Remember I told you about the legal trouble I got into as a kid?”

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