by Ali Dean
“No, dumbass,” Bodhi scoffed. “None of us would hurt Hazel.”
“Did you just ask me if I beat up my girlfriend?” Cruz asked, disbelief creeping into that deadly tone. He was not in a good state to be patient or forgiving.
This was like watching a train wreck. I couldn’t tear my eyes away even as a little voice in the back of my mind urged me to do something to stop it. I felt dumbstruck, like I was incapable of logical reasoning.
It turned out to be Dad who prevented what might have ended in more punches. He parked his car beside us and jumped out. After sweeping his eyes over the guys he took one look at me and ordered everyone to go home. I must have looked worse than I felt. My cheekbone was starting to throb as the adrenaline went back down again.
No one listened to Dad, not at first. But then Dad pushed his way through the guys and ushered me to the front door. I was incapable of making demands of my own, because I didn’t even know if I wanted Louise or the guys with me right now. Being alone in the house sounded kind of nice actually.
Dad brought me inside and shut the door, leaving those on the sidewalk to sort themselves out. He didn’t say a word as he led me upstairs, sat me on the edge of the bath, and ran the water.
His voice was quiet, just above a whisper. “The kitchen, living room, and my office are bugged. Bathrooms and bedrooms aren’t, but we need to speak quietly.”
As he spoke, he ran a washcloth under the water and then began to clean my face. “You’ve got blood all over you, but looks like it’s from the other guy.”
“If you’re trying to make a joke, it’s not very funny.”
“What happened?” he asked.
I told him, and as I did, he finished cleaning me up, asking about my cheek.
“It’ll be a decent shiner.”
“What will I tell the coaches? My teammates?” I asked. I wasn’t as concerned about that as I should’ve been.
“You can just tell them the truth. You got caught in the middle of a bar fight.”
“Dad.” I swallowed the lump forming in my throat.
“Yeah, sweetie?’
“What now?”
“I think we’ve got to make the choice yours.” He was crouched in front of me and he lifted his eyes from the ground to meet mine.
My heart skipped a beat at what he was saying.
“But first I need to tell you what the choice means. If we tell you everything, Hazel, your life won’t be the same. Even if you wanted to walk away, you couldn’t. I’m too involved, and so are your cousins, Cruz, Spike and Peter.”
I nodded, and it made my head spin a bit. I’d had a concussion before from soccer, and this didn’t feel like one. No nausea. It was likely just the gravity of the decision that left my head pounding so hard.
“And if I decide to stay in the dark? If I walk away from Cruz and the guys?”
Dad raised his eyebrows. “You can’t walk away from me, Hazel, even if you wanted to.”
“I know that, Dad. But the guys? I’ve been out of their lives for years now. Yeah the twins are family, but that’s different.”
I thought about how to explain what I meant but Dad nodded, like he understood exactly what I was getting at.
“And Cruz? He let you go once before, Hazel. If you want him to do it again, I don’t think he’ll make it easy.”
I huffed, annoyed by his reference to my past with Cruz. “How do you even know about the first time he broke up with me, anyway? I wasn’t allowed to date then. I thought we’d been so secretive.”
Dad pulled his lips together like he was fighting a smile. “I knew, Hazel.” That’s all he gave me on that topic.
I stood up, unable to sit still a moment longer. In fact, I would love to kick around a soccer ball for a few minutes. That thought gave me a touch of peace, the only bit I’d gotten all day really.
I started to walk down the hallway. There was a soccer ball in the entrance to my bedroom and I picked it up and bounced it on my knee.
“Whatever you decide, Hazel, it’s going to be high security for a while. You’ll need to have one or more of the guys with you if you’re not at school, the house, or at Pops and Mimi’s.”
“So if I choose to stay in the dark, I’m still stuck with them?”
Dad gave me a smile. “Yeah. For now, they’re not going anywhere.”
I shook my head, exhaustion sweeping through me. “Night, Dad.”
I shut myself in my room, bouncing the ball steadily on my knee before switching to my right foot, then my left. Eventually I’d get good enough to bounce it on my head in a small space like my bedroom, but for now the risk of knocking into a wall was too high. Plus, my head still hurt.
Did the guys even want me around? I’d thought they’d welcomed me into their world, their space, because I’d been their friend once upon a time. Or because Cruz was their leader and he wanted me. Now, I wasn’t so sure. I still didn’t know what was going on, not really. Maybe my dad had asked them to do all this and Cruz calling me his girl wasn’t real. It was a way to keep me close. That didn’t feel right, my gut rebelled at the idea, but I couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. I had to question each interaction.
My mind drifted to Kai’s incessant texting since Saturday night. I hadn’t responded and I suppose that led him to show up on my doorstep. Relationships were messy. Complicated. Sticky. I’d tried to avoid all of that. All my life, really, the more I thought on it. Friendships and the guys I’d dated. I didn’t want any of it to get into the deep stuff. Was that the way to go or had I been missing out?
Chapter Twenty
My head still hurt when I woke up in the morning, and when I looked in the mirror, I knew why. A bruise had taken over my left cheek. Even though it’d been an incidental elbow that had gotten me, I still felt a little badass. Ridiculous.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and took comfort in the familiar motions of getting ready for soccer. I planned to go to Pops and Mimi’s place before practice for drills and then get to school early to fit in the weight session I missed yesterday.
When I got downstairs, I found Emmett sitting at the counter with Dad. I stopped in my tracks. Emmett didn’t only have a matching bruise on his cheek, he also had stitches on his forehead and a busted lip.
We took in one another’s faces.
“You think this look will help me get girls? I figure if I show up to the first day of school tomorrow looking like this, girls might give me more attention.”
I rolled my eyes. “Right. You did it on purpose. Let the Malones get in a few punches so you could build up your image with the ladies.”
Emmett rolled his shoulders back and cringed a little when he did. “Exactly. I’m sick of being the sweeter twin. I’m tough. Total rebel here.”
“Don’t worry, Em,” I told him as I opened the fridge and pulled out the milk. “Everyone knows you fight your battles. Maybe battles that aren’t yours too,” I added as an afterthought. I hadn’t known the story behind all the fights he’d been in over the years. My knowledge had been based solely on second-hand gossip and the evidence I saw on occasion in his bruised face.
“I like fighting,” Em admitted through a mouthful of cereal.
Dad let out a heavy sigh and rubbed his forehead. He didn’t hide his distress when his eyes met mine. “How you feeling, sweetie?”
I made myself a bowl of cereal and slid into the chair beside him. “Fine. I’m going to head to Mimi and Pops’s before practice.”
“I’ll come,” Emmett said. “I can’t practice. Bruised my ribs. But I can do some drills with you maybe.”
I sent him a skeptical look. “Let me see your ribs.”
He lifted his shirt and I winced at the sight. “Damn, Emmett.”
“Yeah, Neil and Sean got to me. Fuckers.”
“Don’t do drills, idiot. It probably hurts to breathe right now. Dad already told me I’ll be getting a babysitter for a while so it’s fine. You can shadow me all morning. I’m just going to school after to
lift.”
We drove the few blocks to Pops and Mimi’s, and that confirmed that Emmett’s ribs were hurting big time.
Mimi and Pops were there, and we had to endure a major scolding when Emmett explained he’d been in a fight and I’d accidentally gotten hit. Once the scolding was over, I brushed off their attempts to look at my wound, which was minor compared to Emmett’s. Once I spilled the beans on his ribs, they shifted their attention to my cousin and doted on him while I went in the backyard to do plyometrics and drills. I tried to focus on my form, the burn in my quads, the speed of my footwork. I kept switching up the exercises, not sticking to my usual routine, in hopes that something would suck me in and get me out of my head. It didn’t work. I couldn’t shut off my brain or push out all the feelings creeping in, making me breathe harder than I should be.
Emmett finally made it out onto the back porch after an hour. He sat on the edge watching me for a few minutes before saying anything.
“Haze, take a break. Sit down.”
I glared at him. “I’m not in the mood to chit-chat, Em.”
I knew he wanted to talk to me about last night. He’d always loved getting under my skin. It was a challenge to him, trying to get me to open up. Even before all this with Cruz and the guys, my dad, he couldn’t help himself.
Emmett started to laugh but stopped, clutching his ribs. “Fine. We still have the ride to school together. We can chat then.”
I relented, knowing he’d find a way to bug me one way or another. I moved to sit in front of him and started stretching my hamstrings. “Okay cuz, what’s on your mind?”
I made it easy for him, taking pity on his physical state.
“You and Cruz. We’ve all had to stand by watching the agonizing shitshow for years, Haze. It’s brutal. Cruz is finally owning it. When are you going to own it too?”
I switched legs, averting my eyes from him. “Own what?” I was going to make him spell it out.
“That he’s yours. You’re his. You two are made for each other. Like magnets or something, it’s just a gravitational thing. You can’t deny it. You know it. Everyone knows it. So, when are you going to stop trying so hard?”
I wanted to laugh at Emmett’s characterization of the situation. He was exaggerating, romanticizing. Emmett was the more sensitive twin, but this was a bit heavy on the dramatics, even for him. I didn’t laugh though. His words resonated inside me, leaving my heart heavy with the weight of them.
Still, I attempted to diminish their intensity. “That’s awfully poetic, Em. How long have you been thinking of that magnet thing? It’s cute.”
“It’s true,” he shot back.
“Even if it were true, so what? He broke it off years ago. He can’t come waltzing back in telling everyone, including me, I’m his girlfriend now. It’s bullshit.”
I leaned back in the grass, crossing a leg to stretch my glutes. I hated talking about this. It made my heart feel like it was on fire.
“Yeah, well.” Emmett’s voice was soft, almost sad. “You can either trust the reasons for that were good ones and let us handle it. Trust us. Or, you can get your answers. Uncle Jeremy told me this morning that he gave you the choice. You can know everything if that’s what you want.”
I stared at the sky, frozen in my stretch. I felt the gravity of the decision. Emmett didn’t like the position I was in, and I didn’t like it either. “Or, I could deal with the babysitting for a while and go back to how things were before this mess.”
“Could you? Could you really?”
I swallowed against the rising emotions. “I don’t know, Emmett. Sometimes, I wish I could. But it was lonely, you know? There’s a reason I wanted a change.” I sucked in a breath, my stomach knotting at the admission. I had barely admitted this to myself, much less articulated it to anyone else. I knew it was true though.
So did Emmett. “Yeah, Haze. I want you back. I miss you. I know I saw you all the time, we crossed paths at school, soccer, here, but you weren’t ours. Not really. We want you to be ours again. And us yours.”
“Like the gravitational thing with Cruz?” I wondered. It wasn’t the same pull, but there was definitely a rightness to it that I knew we all felt when we were together.
“See? I was on to something there.”
“Yeah, maybe you were.”
Our eyes connected but I shook myself and stood up. I felt lighter, which wasn’t saying all that much. The weight of everything wasn’t crushing me, but it was still a burden I couldn’t carry forever.
“Come on, let’s drive to school so I can pump some iron.”
“You’re crazy, Hazel. I don’t know anyone who trains like you do.”
“Yeah well, I’ve been slacking. Smoking pot, drinking, staying up late. Getting into bar fights. You guys are a bad influence.” It was true if you looked at it through that lens. But I was also living. Feeling. Experiencing the unexpected and unknown.
“We don’t drink and smoke much, Hazel,” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder like this was important. “We probably fight more than is strictly necessary, I’ll admit to that. Spike and Bodhi drink harder than the rest of us, but we’re not total party animals.”
I raised an eyebrow. This was interesting. I wanted to see where he’d go with it, so I stayed quiet, pursing my lips.
“What? It’s true. Yeah, we’re at parties a lot. That’s just because they’re at the Lake half the time. But we’re not trashed or streaking naked or doing dumb shit. We watch others do it.”
“Um, the party I was at you got high, there was stripping to go swimming, and a fight almost broke out.”
Emmett smirked. “It was Cruz’s birthday joint. That doesn’t happen much. And if I remember, you were the one who pushed me in the water first.”
“Whatever. Let’s go.” I almost punched him as I passed but remembered his injuries.
I missed this. Our banter. The teasing. We’d had that over the years, but not with this level of honesty. We’d held back, certain topics we were unable to touch. Now, it seemed, anything and everything was open territory.
Mimi tried to get some intel from me on Cruz when we went through the house. Pops told her we’d been on a “date” to the game on Friday night. Right, one that he arranged. As usual, I was able to use soccer training as an excuse to avoid interrogation about topics I didn’t want to discuss. I didn’t think avoidance would work for long this time around though.
I didn’t talk to Cruz again until the first day of school on Thursday. Well, I saw him watching me throughout practice on Tuesday and Wednesday, and he texted to check in on me and tried calling a couple times. But I was dodging him. I knew my time was running out, that he’d only give me a couple days before he confronted me. I felt a little crazed, a little desperate, and I didn’t even know why or for what.
Word spread about the fight at Blake’s end-of-summer party, and I got some questions but they stopped once people realized I wasn’t going to feed the gossip mill. I still got plenty of stares, the bruise a lovely blend of purple and yellow.
“Hi,” Cruz said, leaning against the locker beside mine. I quickly scanned him and couldn’t find a single bruise or cut on the skin that was visible.
“Hi.” I straightened and closed my locker, reaching down to pick up my backpack.
Cruz beat me to it and slung it over his shoulder. “That’s really not necessary,” I told him.
“Yeah, it is,” he said before leaning in to brush a kiss over my bruised cheek. His eyes met mine for a second before scanning the hallway.
I turned and found Isaiah Cross and a few of his basketball teammates lingering nearby. “I think Isaiah is still looking for an opening with you. I’ll give you space, but not enough to let any other guy pounce in. It’s not fair to give them ideas. False hope. Poor guy.” Cruz didn’t sound the least bit remorseful. Nope, he sounded quite pleased with himself.
“Cruz,” I hissed. I didn’t want to do this here, not with an audience, but I was too p
issed to play along. “This is not a game. I am not a pawn. Not here at school and not with –” I stopped myself before continuing, uncertain who was listening. “Not with anything or anyone else.”
Cruz’s smug expression dropped as I spoke and he stepped in closer until his body was inches away. His head lowered until his forehead hit mine. “No, Hazel. This is not a game. We aren’t playing at anything. What’s between us is real. It always has been.”
“Those are pretty words, Cruz,” I choked out.
“Yeah, and that’s because they’re true. Everything between us matters. I can’t have you and keep you safe. Monday night proved it. But I can’t guarantee your safety without me either. Not anymore. I made my decision. I took the risk. I need you to decide now, Hazel.”
My head swam with his nearness, his full lips inches from my own. He closed that space, swiping his mouth against my own. My lips parted without me allowing it, and I couldn’t think. His tongue caressed mine and I lost my breath, arching into him.
He pulled away just when it was getting good, when I was really losing myself. “Does that help you decide or do you need more convincing?”
“More convincing,” I said on a breathy exhale.
He smiled and I lost my breath. “Stop fighting it, Hazel.”
I almost nodded. I almost said, “Okay Cruz, yes, just be mine, whatever you want.” But a sharp pinching in my chest made me take a step back in an attempt to gain clarity.
It didn’t help. He was right. Emmett was right. Dad was right, even if he hadn’t spelled it out for me. Everyone was talking about a decision I had to make, but there wasn’t one. I didn’t really have a choice when it came to Cruz Donovan, did I? And if I couldn’t walk away from him, then I had my answer about everything else.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Everything is different,” Louise announced as she pointed a carrot stick at me. “We’re at the same table in the same cafeteria we’ve had lunch at for three years but this year, people are watching us. It feels like they are, at least. Are they?” I indulged her and made a big show of sweeping my eyes around the room.