Cruel Devil: A Small Town Brother's Best Friend, Enemies to Lovers Romance (Devils of Sun Valley High Book 3)

by Daniela Romero

  Asshole.

  Deacon nods, and I hate that I still can’t see his eyes, so I decide to do something about it. Reaching up, I pluck the shades off his face, folding them down and setting them beside me.

  “So, what did those three knuckleheads do, exactly? I’m assuming threats were involved, or did he go on a power trip and threaten to have you removed from the team?”

  A flash of fear appears on his face, but it’s gone a second later. Shit. Dominique really got to him.

  “No. Not that. I’m still on the team.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he visibly swallows. “He can’t get me kicked off, anyway.”

  I inwardly groan. Why are the pretty ones so dumb? Dominique could absolutely get Deacon removed from the team. All it would take is one phone call to his parents, a sizable donation, and boom. Goodbye, Suncrest U. Hello, community college.

  I decide not to tell him that because he seems a little freaked out as it is. If you didn’t grow up in Sun Valley, then it’s safe to assume you don’t know how big of a deal Dominique’s family is. Deacon probably knows who the Prices are, the same way everyone in the U.S. knows who Bill Gates is. But, if you saw him walking down the street, you’d probably walk past him none the wiser, and it’s not like you’d know who his kids were or what they looked like.

  “Yo, D!” someone shouts, pulling Deacon’s attention. “Is that her? The chick you got your ass kicked for?” He gives me a heated look, biting his fist. “Damn, man. I get it.”

  “Reed, fuck off,” Deacon snarls right as I give the guy a one-fingered salute.

  “Come on, man. No need to be like that. I was just complimenting your girl. I’d tap that for sure.” He makes a thrusting motion with his hips and Deacon groans, covering his face with his hand.

  “I apologize on behalf of my idiot frat brother. You probably won’t believe me, but he’s actually a pretty cool guy when he’s not wasted like he is now.”

  Yeah. Not so sure about that but I leave it alone.

  “He said you got your ass kicked. That was because of me?”

  He sighs. “It’s nothing. Can we drop it?”

  Uh, no. No, we cannot drop it. I told Dominique it was an accident. Obviously he didn’t let it go, but I’d expect him to throw his weight around. Maybe threaten Deacon or try to intimidate him somehow. Physically assaulting him is taking it to another level. Why was he so riled up about this?

  “I’m going to need a play by play. I can get that from you or from some of your brothers who, by the sounds of it, are in the know. Up to you.”

  His jaw flexes, but instead of telling me what happened he asks, “Did you lie and tell him I hurt you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He turns narrowed eyes my way. “I’ve gone over what happened in my head a few times and Dominique said I hurt you. Left a bruise but,” he shakes his head. “I never hit you. I don’t hit women. I’m trying to figure out why you’d tell him otherwise.”

  His nostrils flare and damn, he looks pissed. All over again, I get the feeling he isn’t someone safe. It’s like he hides this dangerous edge about him under layers of confidence and charisma.

  “Well?” he snaps.

  I lift my arm in answer. When he sees the still purple mark, he grabs my arm and tugs it closer, taking me with it since, well, it’s sort of attached. I all but fall into his lap, but he doesn’t even notice. His eyes lock on my skin. Flexing his fingers, he wraps them around my arm in the exact same spot before cursing and shoving my arm away.

  “I didn’t tell him you hit me. I didn’t even say this came from you.” I sit back and tuck my legs beneath me. “He saw us talking when you walked me to the athletics building. Then he saw the bruise. My poker face is pretty awesome. Sorry about that. He asked if it came from you and well …” I trail off.

  “When we collided?” he asks.

  I nod.

  He sucks on his teeth. “I grabbed you. Harder than I should have. I get why you got all jumpy after that when I tugged on your hand. I,” He pauses. “It wasn’t on purpose. I mean, leaving that mark. Hurting you.” He hangs his head. “I am not that guy. I’m trying not to be that guy.”

  “Have you ever been that guy before?” I ask, needing to know if he’s safe. If he’s someone I should be careful around.

  He shakes his head, and I exhale a relieved breath. "No. My old man was. But I won't ever allow myself to become a monster the way he was." There is steely determination in his voice. "I'm sorry. We're getting into deep shit when we barely know each other." He chuckles, but it’s forced.

  “It’s all good. And thanks. For the apology, I mean.”

  He nods.

  “I still want that play by play, though,” I remind him.

  I wait. He tips back his beer, his throat working as he takes a long pull.

  “Stalling will get you nowhere.”

  He grunts and then shakes his head. “We had some words. It’s over now.”

  “Hey, Reed?” I call out. I stand and scan the backyard, looking for Deacon’s frat brother who brought this all up in the first place.

  Deacon hisses. “Kasey, drop it.”

  “Yo!” Reed hollars.

  “I have questions.” I nod my head and indicate for him to come over. He says a few more words to the guys he was talking to before slapping one on the back and heading our way.

  “Kasey—” There’s a warning in Deacon’s voice. It’s cute. I mean if I don’t listen when Dominique gets all growly, why would I listen now?

  “You’re welcome to tell me yourself,” I remind him.

  He presses his lips into a firm line. Alrighty then.

  As soon as Reed is close I say, “What happened with Deacon and Dominique Price?”

  Reed whistles. “Aw, man. That was some rough shit.” He ignores the death stare Deacon is giving him and dives into his recount of Tuesday’s events. Dominique getting in Deacon’s face. Choking him. How Deacon nearly passed out.

  Deacon is quiet the entire time, chin down and shoulders slumped.

  “And then the other guy, what’s his name again?” He snaps his fingers before answering his own question. “E! That’s what all the jocks call him. So Dominique is walking away, point made, am I right?” He wiggles his brows. “When his buddy, E, starts talking in Spanish and punches Deacon while he’s still on the ground. It was fucking savage.”

  Deacon groans. “Thanks for the recount, man. Appreciate it.”

  Reeds misses the sarcasm in Deacon’s voice.

  “Emilio punched you?” I askThat surprised me the most.

  Deacon sighs. “Yeah. I don’t think he or Valdez knew why Dominique was in my face. They were trying to haul him off me at first. Talk him down and shit.” His mouth tightens. “After Dominique made his point, he warned me off you and mentioned that,” he points his beer toward my arm, “Chavez blew a gasket and clocked me. Now that I see it, can’t say I really blame him. I’d be pissed too if someone hurt a girl I cared about.”

  “I’m sorry. The guys can be overprotective.”

  “It’s all good now. Like I said. It’s done.”

  “Fuck no, it’s not. D, you haven’t told her about practices, man.”

  “Shut the fuck up, bro,” he grinds out, but Reed is drunk, making him oblivious to Deacon’s warning.

  “What’s going on in practice?”

  It’s Reed who answers. “Deacon is getting his ass handed to him. All day, every day. Left tackles aren’t protecting him. He’s getting sacked damn near every play he runs. It’s fucking brutal.”

  My eyes widen. “You’re kidding?” Why wasn’t his team watching his back? The quarterback was the most vulnerable player on the field. One wrong hit and he could be seriously injured.

  “Nope. Price’s shoulder is fucked up, right?” Wait, it is? What happened to his shoulder? “So all he’s doing in practice is throwing. Him and Valdez run drills while Deacon starts on the field. Five plays in on day one and it dawns on Deacon that protection i
s bad and it’s staying bad. He starts to scramble when he gets the ball. Man doesn’t want to get hit.”

  Deacon is rigid, every muscle in his face drawn tight. He doesn’t like hearing this.

  “This shit goes on for three days,” Reed says, waving three fingers in the air. “And then out of nowhere, Price takes to the field, smacks our boy here upside the head, and tells him, ‘You’re fast. Play faster. Trust your feet.’ It was solid advice but Deacon isn’t having it. He’s pissed.”

  “Can you blame me?” Deacon snaps.

  Reed lifts both hands in the air. “Nope. I’d be an asshole, too. Maybe not to the dude’s face like that, but,” he shrugs. “Anyway, Hunt is mouthing off. He tells Price he’s playing dirty, fucking with his protection, and damn, you should have seen the look on Price’s face. He told Deacon if he wanted protection, give them someone worth protecting. And if he doesn’t like getting hit, then go play fucking tennis.”

  I wince. Dominique’s never been one to mince words. “That was harsh.”

  “But, effective,” Reed smirks.

  I turn to Deacon, who’s still glaring, but when he sees me looking he nods. “It did the job,” he sighs. “Got my head out of my ass and back in the game.”

  “And made you a damn better quarterback. Deacon learned in three days what takes most quarterbacks years to figure out, and he’s not buckling under the pressure. He’s playing smart.”

  “Has Dom backed off? Is your defensive line helping you out, now?”

  Deacon snorts. “No. I’m still on Prices’s shit list. But now,” he shrugs, “I do my part to not get hit.”

  “So, he’s still getting hit a lot.” Reed supplies and Deacon shoots him another glare. “Hey, don’t get pissy with me, my friend. You’re just mad because that asshole made you a better player and you don’t like it.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” Deacon finishes his beer and stands. “I need another drink. You?”

  “Uh, sure.” He nods and I watch as he heads over to the coolers the girls placed near the pool. Once he’s out of earshot, I turn back to Reed and ask, “What’s he going to do? Getting sacked in practice is one thing, but he can’t be left defenseless in a game. He’ll end up seriously hurt.”

  Reed gives me a sobering look. “I think he’s hoping you can help him out with that.”

  Me? What the hell was I supposed to do?

  Chapter Twelve

  Aaron’s riding the line again. He isn’t sleeping and jumping at loud sounds. I know what’s coming and I’m trying to head it off, but the asshole standing in front of me isn’t making that easy.

  “Bro, we had a deal?”

  Aaron throws on his leather jacket and swipes his keys off the table, heading for the front door.

  “I’m not going to do anything stupid,” he assures me, but we both know that’s a lie.

  “You heard what the doc—”

  His jaw clenches. “I’m going to live my life. Okay? Can you get on board with that, man?”

  I grind my teeth together. This is a bad idea and he knows it, but I can see by the look in his eyes I don’t have a shot in hell of talking him out of it. I never do. Not when he gets like this.

  Henderson is a walking, talking stick of dynamite just waiting to explode. When we were kids, he was always a self-destructive shit, but adult Aaron is on a whole ‘nother level. We’ve all got baggage, but the shit Aaron needs to unpack is traumatic as fuck, and I only know the half of it. But we made a deal. I’m not about to let him weasel out of it.

  “When you stop being a lying sack of shit, maybe.” I shrug and wait to see how he responds. It can go one of two ways. Brotherhood will get the better of him and he’ll back down. Nine and a half times out of ten, he’s true to his word and he hates being called a liar. Addicts are liars and Aaron refuses to be one of them.

  I see the flicker in his eyes. The moment of hesitation at my words and then… fuck. There’s that other half. The times when he decides not to give a fuck because he’s too far up his own ass to think straight.

  “Aaron—”

  “You know me,” he says, and there’s a plea in his voice, so I nod. “You know I’ve been clean. For two years I’ve stayed clean. No missteps. I’ve stayed on the fucking wagon, man.”

  “I know.” Which is why what he’s doing now is pissing me off. It’s like he forgot what the first year was like. The depression. The withdraws. He was so fucking sick back then he had to take a full semester off. And now he wants to risk it all for a party and a piece of ass. I shake my head. This was a mistake.

  “It’s a pool party. There will be booze, but we both know booze was never my problem.”

  No. It wasn’t. Aaron’s issue started as a little recreational weed until he fucked up. Got behind the wheel while high and wrapped his car around a tree, injuring his passengers—Roman, Emilio, and me. Shit got ugly after the accident and we didn’t speak for close to a year after that.

  What none of us knew at the time though, was that Aaron almost went to juvie for it. He was a minor driving while under the influence and had over forty grams of weed on him when paramedics picked us up. Once released, he was charged with a class C felony. His lawyer couldn’t make it go away. Not entirely. But the DA’s office offered him a deal and with approval from a judge and his parent’s consent, they signed off on him becoming an informant for the Sun Valley P.D.

  Big fucking mistake.

  Roman’s dad was chief back then and made the arrangements. If Roman ever found out, there’d be hell to pay, which is why even after shit was smoothed out between us all, Aaron never mentioned it.

  Shit should have been straightforward. On paper, Aaron was supposed to tip the cops off about corner dealers selling to kids at our school, but what really happened was they forced him into the deep end. They had a sixteen-year-old worming his way into the drug world and shit got messy.

  I don’t know all the details of everything that went down. I know shit escalated with drugs. Weed turned into molly and that turned into coke. There was a girl he refuses to talk about. And a drug deal went south that Aaron got caught up in. He hasn’t shared the full story, but on top of the addiction he got a nice case of PTSD. When he’s having an episode things get heavy. The way he reacts, you’d think he’d been to war. I guess in a roundabout way he was.

  Aaron worked on getting clean before we moved in together and I helped get him out of the CI program as soon as I learned he was in it. Fuckers didn’t want to let him go, but I made sure they realized they didn't have a choice. Sometimes it pays to be a Price. This was one of those times.

  But the road to recovery is a long one, and staying clean isn’t the only thing Aaron needs to worry about. “Access to drugs isn’t what I’m worried about. I know you’re good.” The first year was rough but the last two, he’s been solid.

  Aaron lets out an exasperated sigh. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You jumped me when I slammed the back door earlier.”

  He closes his eyes, hands fisted at his sides. “You caught me off guard.”

  Yeah. I’d been doing that a lot lately. It’s why I’ve made it a point to be around as much as possible. I go to class, the field, and then straight home. I've met up with Aaron for lunch between classes all week, and when he’s felt up for it, he kicks it at the field and catches up on his schoolwork while he waits for me to finish.

  It’s not ideal. We don’t do secrets in our crew. But, this … this is Aaron’s damage. It’s not my place to tell my boys. Aaron will do that when he’s good and ready, so for now, this is what works.

  But part of why it works is because we avoid scenes like what Aaron is about to put himself in. Greek parties are loud. Rowdy. People get into stupid shit and no, I don’t think Aaron will slip up when it comes to drugs. He worked too fucking hard for his sobriety. But this week he’s been off and I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “There’s going to be loud music. Probably shit with a heavy bass. People are
going to be shouting. People are going to rub against you when you walk by. How do you think you’ll react?” I’m not his dad. I’m not going to order him around, but he needs to see this for what it is. A bad idea.

  “I’m going. You wanna babysit, be my guest, but I’m climbing the walls here, Dom.” He slams a palm to his chest. “I can’t breathe and I know I’m fucked up in the head right now, but this is what I’ve come up with and I’m seeing it through.”

  I grab my phone and slide it into my back pocket. “Let’s go, then.”

  Aaron’s shoulders relax and we head out. He tells me on the way that the party we’re headed to is at Kappa Mu. Kasey’s sorority house. Shit.

  We haven’t talked since the classroom. I’m a dick. She knows that already. This isn’t some new revelation. But I took shit too far that day. And if Aaron finds out what I did to his baby sister, what I still think about doing to her, I’m fucked.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I see you’re having fun,” Quinn says, a smirk on her face as she moves to stand up beside me. “Any chance your hottie has a brother?”

  I follow her eyes and see that she’s ogling Deacon. “Not that I know of, but he’s not my hottie. We just happen to have English together this semester so, you should go for it.”

  Her eyes bug out and she whips toward me. “Seriously? You wouldn’t mind?”

  I laugh. “Nope. He’s all yours. Deacon isn’t really my type.”

  She looks at me like I just spoke a foreign language. “Have you seen the guy?” she asks. “That fine specimen of a man right there is everyone’s type.”

  “He’s good-looking, I’ll give you that. But—”

  “But? There are no buts.” She places the back of her hand against my forehead. Then my cheeks. “Are you feeling okay? No fever, but I’m worried about you. Maybe you should lie down. All this sun is getting to you.”