by Dean, Ali
Shit was still happening while we waited on the Malones. On Tuesday morning, Kylie and Afua were standing by Hazel’s locker. Kylie glared at me before turning to Hazel. “Do they let you go to the bathroom alone?” she sassed.
Hazel stiffened for a second before putting on a mask of indifference as she put in the combination on her locker. “I see you’re still going with the blackmail strategy.” She sounded bored, but I knew these girls were getting under her skin.
“We didn’t get pulled to the varsity field yesterday. You’re really willing to risk our testimony against your cousins, your boyfriend, your best friends?”
Hazel turned to look at the two girls. Her expression softened just a touch. “You’re going to regret this. It’s not worth it.”
“Easy for you to say,” Afua said. “Come on, Kylie. We have our answer.”
We stood there watching them go down the hall. I could feel Hazel deflating beside me. “Dad’s talking to Seamus today about the Flynn case. He’s going to request it be closed permanently.”
I pulled her hand until she was focused on me. I was greedy like that. “I’m glad you didn’t tell them the truth.”
“The truth?”
“Yeah. I mean, I really don’t let you go to the bathroom alone. Bathrooms are sort of my favorite place to be with you lately.”
I had her back against the locker, caged in by my arms, and I felt her shake a little with suppressed laughter. She told me, “I was just thinking that you looked super hot right now, and where could we sneak off to be alone before first period?”
I brushed my lips against hers. “Your dad only said you have to stay at your house on weekdays. We’ll get to be together this weekend.” That was a long three days away, but between school, soccer, and getting the rest of our shit done, there wasn’t much opportunity to sneak off together.
“I have my Harvard visit this weekend, remember?”
I closed my eyes to hide my disappointment. I’d somehow blocked it out. “We’ll be around the campus then. Harvard’s still Malone territory.”
“I know. Does it make me weak that I like knowing you and the guys will have my back?”
“A week ago, before the Malones got to you and you learned all this, would you have wanted us around all the time, up in your business?”
She shook her head. “No. It was already starting to drive me nuts and I didn’t know anything yet. You know I was fine on my own the past three years.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Were you?”
She shrugged. “Fine, yeah. I was fine. Nothing more. Now, it’s more. I’m more myself now though. Happier is too trite.” I watched her struggle with it before putting her out of her misery.
“You’re scared though, and that’s on us. You’re still independent, Hazel. But you know what could happen now, and honestly, it’d be dumb if you didn’t want protection right now. I don’t want you to be scared anymore. We’re going to figure this out, okay? The last thing you need to be afraid of, though, is wanting us around. We want you too. We need you. I need you.”
“We don’t really need a bathroom, do we? Just kiss me here. I don’t care.”
I did. It was short and sweet, but it would have to do. As usual, we had an audience.
* * *
Jeremy was monitoring the Defiance Falls police reports and nothing came in that day about Flynn’s murder. No witness accounts. Nothing came in the next day, or the day after that, either.
It was a hot one on Thursday, and we hit up the Lake after practice. Hazel was headed into Cambridge after practice on Friday, and this was our chance to regroup.
The guys were on edge. Waiting on the Malones to call truce or declare war was bad. We’d always had at least an illusion of control over the situation, or part of it. Now it felt entirely out of our hands. We were either about to sit back and let all their wrongs slide or we would be in battle our entire senior year, maybe throughout college.
We were letting loose now. Spike had picked up fried chicken and sides and Moody, who had the best fake ID, had filled a cooler with beer.
Bodhi swung across the rope swing and jumped into the Lake, and his twin followed a moment later.
Hazel came over and sat between my legs in the grass. She’d changed from her soccer clothes to a bathing suit. My hands immediately went to the bare skin on her thigh and she leaned back into me, a smile on her face.
“Do you ever think about how this could all change?” she asked.
“This?”
“Yeah. Say the Malones agree to the truce. They let Dad go, stop dealing with Braven pharma, you guys are off the hook for Flynn. We let their stuff go and they continue with their criminal enterprise without involving us. Say that all happens. Then what?”
My hand moved over her hip and to her flat stomach. Well, not entirely flat. There was the faintest outline of a six pack there.
“What happens? This. You’re looking at it.”
She turned to look up at me. “After we graduate though. You know Louise said you all might go to Harvard together. Is that true?”
Her question made my stomach flip, despite the calm of the moment, the feel of her warm skin on my palm.
“Yeah, Haze. We’re sticking together. It wouldn’t have to be Harvard, but going there makes a point to the Malones, sends a message. If we go somewhere else, we’re telling them they won, they’re in charge. You know why we can’t do that.”
“Does everything have to mean something though, Cruz? If there’s a truce, who cares? If there’s war, we’ll know who won by who ends up dead or in jail.” Her eyes widened as she said it, like she was admitting something to herself that she hadn’t quite been able to up to this point.
“If there’s war, we’ll win. But it will be ugly,” I assured her. We had the upper hand. They were in the wrong, and we had all we needed to bring them down. The only reason we weren’t doing it now was to avoid the shitshow, be able to move on with our lives without being in the limelight.
She turned her head back to look out at the water. Spike cannonballed from the branch of the oak tree and Moody dove off the dock.
“We want you to come with us too, Haze,” I told her. I hadn’t said it yet. It was too soon. Too much. She was still raw and reeling from everything we’d hit her with. But she had to know, this wasn’t temporary. Not for me, not for any of us. I wanted her at my side like this.
“I know, Cruz. But the same college isn’t necessary to keep us tight. You know I can go to UMass and be close, see you guys all the time.”
My stomach flipped again. “Yeah, with soccer travel and school it won’t be the same, but I get it. If you want the big soccer school, you should do it.” I didn’t think that was what she wanted. I think she only wanted to hold on to a sense of independence. But separating herself by being a thirty-minute drive away on a different campus wasn’t the way to do that, as far as I was concerned. Especially if that wasn’t what she really wanted. It was stubbornness. She’d already found her independence with me, with us, she didn’t need to assert it by going to a different college. But I couldn’t say any of that. Not now.
“You’ll visit Harvard this weekend. UMass in a couple weeks. That will help you decide, right?” I gave her a squeeze and my lips grazed her neck. I watched the goosebumps spread up her arms with my touch.
“When I showed up here for your birthday, that was the biggest thing going on in my life, you know?”
“What? College?”
“Yeah. It seems silly now.”
“It’s not silly. It’s still a big decision. How does it feel right now, not having soccer and school be everything in your world?”
“Awesome. Scary. And also like a vacation. I want to go back to that level of focus. Not now, but eventually.”
“At Harvard you’ll get that choice, you know. At UMass, soccer’s everything. You have to be focused on it, all the time.”
“Yeah. I know. Come on, I’m hot.” She jumped up and I watch
ed her hips sway as she walked down to the dock. I took a deep breath as a rush of possessiveness flooded my bloodstream. I didn’t want that body teasing other guys at some other college. I didn’t want to wait days or weeks between our schedules to see each other. I might only be eighteen years old, but I’d lost enough in my life to know that I didn’t want to waste time without the people I loved right here with me. If that made me a possessive asshole, so be it.
Chapter Eighteen
Hazel
Bodhi and Spike drove me to Harvard after practice on Friday. Cruz had started going home for dinner with his dad every night again and I didn’t want him to miss it. Moody and Dad were going over everything together, I guess. I didn’t really know what they did. Dad was giving Moody lessons in hacking or something.
Emmett actually had homework. We all had homework, but I for one had been doing the bare minimum lately. It wasn’t like me, but so far the workload was minor anyway. I’d study for the big exams when they came, put the effort in for the projects that really counted.
The guys were taking shifts shadowing me at Harvard. This would have seemed ridiculous to me before, but I didn’t want to run into Neil Malone, or any other Malones for that matter, without the guys around. I also wasn’t too comfortable carrying a loaded gun around with me. I didn’t need the girls on the soccer team catching a glimpse of it in my bag and starting a gossip chain. Not to mention, it wasn’t like I had a license for the thing. Sure, Moody and Dad could make a fake of just about anything, but at the end of the day, I wasn’t even eighteen yet. The last thing we needed was me bringing down the entire house of cards because campus security caught wind of a recruit with a gun.
We still hadn’t heard a word from the Malones. Dad was convinced they were furiously trying to find a hacker who was more skilled than he was. He’d been monitoring everything and seen no signs of anyone hacking into the systems he’d set up. Moody said there were no hackers capable of cracking it, so their efforts were pointless.
“You think the girls are still biding their time to turn us in?” Spike asked. “Or the Malones put them up to it and told them to hold off?”
Bodhi was in the passenger seat and I was sitting in the middle of the back seat in Spike’s Hummer.
I hadn’t seen or heard a peep from Kylie or Afua since Tuesday.
Bodhi said, “I don’t think they saw us. That’s bullshit. Malones got to them.”
A song came on, one that unfortunately reminded me of Kai. I’d wanted to ask Cruz about him, but I’d kept putting it off. Things had been so good for us all week. If there was one thing I could keep solid, it was what was happening between me and Cruz. I could count on it in the midst of everything else. I could count on the guys too, and I knew the stuff with Kai would rock that boat, for Cruz especially. With the other guys, it wasn’t as emotional. So I asked them, “What happened with Kai? Is he okay? What did you do to get him not to report Cruz?”
Bodhi and Spike shared a look before Bodhi shifted in his seat to face me better.
“Moody’s mom patched him up. It looked worse than it was. He’s fine.”
Spike said, “I talked to him Friday night, got him to hold off on reporting anything. Said we’d all have to be witnesses, including you. That it wouldn’t be good for any of us.”
“And you paid him a couple Gs,” Bodhi added.
“Yeah, that helped.”
“That was it?” I asked. “He let it go just like that?”
Spike shifted his grip on the steering wheel. Bodhi answered my question. “Uh, no. Cruz had words with him on Monday after practice. Went to visit him at his apartment.”
“What? I thought he went to have dinner with his dad after practice.”
“He did, I think. It didn’t take long. They had a nice chat. Some more Gs were exchanged.”
I blinked a few times. This information confirmed what Cruz had told me, and what I’d admitted was true. Kai was weak. If he really was worried about my wellbeing and thought Cruz was hurting me, he wouldn’t let anyone pay him off. And if he wasn’t all that worried, then he was doing what I suspected – using the situation to play up the good-guy role and paint Cruz as the dangerous one who would only cause me trouble. He wasn’t wrong on the dangerous part, but it turned out that Cruz’s brand of trouble was just my thing, so Kai’s plan was a losing one.
Still, I felt guilty, responsible even, for what had happened to him. It’s not like I wanted Kai all up in our business, I just didn’t want him going to the police.
“I should talk to Kai.”
“Uh, no. You really shouldn’t, Haze,” Bodhi said.
“Why would you do that? It’ll just make him think he’s still got a chance,” Spike said. “The poor guy needs to move on. It’s getting pathetic.”
“You guys! Seriously, Cruz really messed him up just for talking to me. I should check on him, explain things to him.”
“Explain what?” Bodhi asked.
“You know, that Cruz had a lot going on that night that made everything worse. That I’m with Cruz now and he shouldn’t try getting back together with me, stuff like that.”
Spike glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “But Cruz already did that. And then he gave him enough money to cover his rent for a year.”
“It all sounds very mafia-like to me. You guys are like your own little mafia family,” I grumbled.
“Right.” Spike scoffed.
Bodhi put a hand on my knee. “Haze, let me explain something to you.” I fought a smirk. My younger cousin was trying to sound wise. “We all know that Kai was your first boyfriend after Cruz. We listened to what was going on with you guys. We know you two…” He made some movements with his hands and I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or smack him.
“Had sex,” Spike filled in helpfully.
“Yeah. Cruz was a mess, Hazel. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, but you need to get this. He was a disaster. So, you really can’t blame him for beating the shit out of Kai. Especially after he came around you not once, not twice, but three times once you and Cruz got back together.”
“Not cool,” Spike added.
“It was a long time coming,” Bodhi finished.
“Fine,” I said. “I won’t check on Kai. But if you think it will help to explain…”
“No.” That came from both guys.
I huffed and sat back, crossing my arms. I felt like an idiot. But I didn’t have time to dwell on it because we were pulling up to the admissions office. A small group of students was waiting on the front steps. I recognized one of them as Molly Underwood, one of the captains of the women’s soccer team. There were three others, one of them a freshman I’d played against over the years. She was from our neighboring town and was on the same club team as me one age group up.
Spike pulled into a parking spot and leaned forward. “I think I’m going to like this security job,” he murmured as he gazed at my maybe-future teammates.
I groaned. “Great. It had to be you two on duty the first night, didn’t it?”
“Come on Haze, we haven’t gotten any in a while. Give us a break,” Bodhi protested, not taking his eyes off the college girls.
“I distinctly remember the two of you disappearing at Cruz’s birthday party.”
“Yeah,” Bodhi said. “That was what? Like three weeks ago.”
I shook my head and slid to get out while Spike reminded Bodhi about a hook-up he’d had a few days later. I didn’t need to know this. These two had a reputation. Hearing from others was enough. They were like brothers to me. I didn’t want to know the details.
The guys hung back while the girls introduced themselves and got me checked in with the admissions office. There would be eight other recruits joining us this weekend. Jada Miles was my official host for the weekend and I’d be staying in her dorm. It wasn’t until she told me we were walking over to the cafeteria to meet the others that I realized I had a problem. Bodhi and Spike were leaning against the hood of the
Hummer watching us. The others on the team were going to stay to wait for the last couple recruits to arrive.
“Uh, so this is my cousin Bodhi and my friend Spike.” I gestured to the guys. The girls were already aware of them, though they were pretending not to check them out. The guys, on the other hand, were blatantly eyeing the girls. I hadn’t quite figured out a cover story, and actually I wasn’t entirely sure what they were planning on doing once we got here. They couldn’t just follow me around, could they?
“So, they’re going to walk around campus and check things out. They’re not doing an official recruit visit or anything, just want to get a feel for it before they apply.”
Molly Underwood frowned at me. “Right. They already came on their official recruit trip last year. With Cruz Donovan, Peter Moody, Emmett Boyd. We knew you all went to the same school. I didn’t know the twins were your cousins though.”
I shot the guys a death glare. They’d already come on their recruit trip last spring? Now what was I supposed to say to explain their presence?
Bodhi stepped forward. “We’re actually here to meet up with some friends. Hazel didn’t want us to make her look bad, since we’re going to a party, but if your recruit visits are anything like the guys’ team’s visit, you’ll probably be at the same party.”
I was going to kill him. Two minutes on campus and already I was thinking I would have to go to UMass if I wanted any semblance of independence. These guys would be embarrassing me left and right if I didn’t get away from them.
Except I should have known the girls on the team wouldn’t care about the implication that I was trying to make a good impression. They were more interested in Bodhi and Spike, and what this meant for their evening plans. I sometimes forgot that my guys had this effect on women.
“Are the others coming? Cruz?” asked Lucy Rios, a junior midfielder.
I took a deep breath. This wasn’t a time to be bitchy, but I had to make it clear he was off limits. Especially if there was a chance I might not end up here next year to remind them. “Cruz is coming tomorrow.” I thought about my next words, how to deliver them, but Bodhi beat me to it.