It killed me.
In her eyes, I was going to be another mistake. Someone else who hurt her. A part of me worried that she would go back to the girl trying to handle everything by herself. This version of herself would be gone—again.
I hoped she knew deep down that if I had a choice, I wouldn’t be going anywhere. When Gray gave her the golden charm back, when she found out that the light kiss I was about to give her before she stepped out of the car was actually goodbye, I hoped she knew that, wherever I was, I would be hurting as much as she would be.
I’d never had a tomorrow. But you gave me that. My mind played that soft statement on repeat.
I wanted to be the person who kept giving her tomorrows. Who made her believe in a future.
I just knew I couldn’t be. I didn’t have a tomorrow to offer.
I needed to protect Lizzie and Beth. Gray needed to protect Flash. And I would learn to live with the fact that everyone’s safety was better than Flash and I sharing our dreams.
When we finally pulled up to my bike and she leaned over to brush her lips against mine, I kept my hands clasped tightly at my side. I didn’t reach out.
I knew better than to try to hold on.
The night before I’d experienced the fairy tale. It wasn’t in a castle. It didn’t involve weird singing animals. But I did get to wake up with the princess.
Unfortunately, I was also the bad guy in the room, and no fairy-tale had the bad guy ending up with the princess.
COOPER
WHEN I PULLED INTO GRAY’S driveway, Millie’s absence had already started eating a hole in my stomach. Rather than deal with the pain, I let the anger fester.
It fueled me. I embraced it and prepared for the shit storm ahead.
I was certain that walking into the star quarterback’s fancy apartment, talking about their feelings and listening to them try to problem solve wasn’t going to help. Discussing this crap for even a few minutes delayed the inevitable. It made each step I took toward the front door aggravating.
There was no way to clean up the dirt I had waded into. Not enough ways to apologize for how I’d dragged it through all their lives. I should keep moving. Let Gray care for Millie. Accept my fate.
I planned how my day would go. The conversation should take seconds, and then I’d give Gray the charm and head to my apartment. I’d fill my backpack with the limited stuff I kept close and go to Lizzie. I’d take the girls to Nevada. Al would help me sort my shit out, and together we’d plan how to ensure Anthony Waters regretted his decision to manipulate me.
I wouldn’t let Al cut me out.
When I rapped my knuckles on the door, prepared to tell Gray that I wouldn’t be there long. I was shocked to find Marissa opening the damn thing smiling.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I snarled before pushing past her and locking eyes on Gray leaning against the banister of his stairs.
“Well hello to you too.” Marissa grimaced as she gestured for me to enter.
“Don’t get bent out of shape when we haven't even explained the plan yet,” Gray started. “We’ve got some ideas, but it’s going to take more than the three of us. Thought we’d save some time and bring people in now rather than wait a few hours.”
“I never agreed to a fucking massive plan,” I grunted as I noticed D walk into the room eating a sandwich. “I don’t trust everyone I’ve ever met.”
“Yeah well, we’ll worry about who you choose to trust later. Right now you’ll just have to accept that this shit is both our problems, and we’ve got to handle it fast,” Gray replied before taking a seat at the kitchen table.
D just smiled wide at me before he stated, “Bro, I’m like family. No way shit was going down with Mr. Waters without people cluing me in.” I watched as D took another massive bite of his food and leaned against the kitchen counter. I sneered at him before taking a seat opposite Gray at the table, ensuring the chair screeched across the kitchen tiles. D chuckled, letting me know he was completely unaffected by my hostility.
“He’s also a part of my plan. We won’t be able to fix this without him,” Parker murmured softly as she entered the room and took a seat at the table. “And if you had trusted us earlier, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“My girl’s got a point,” Gray chuckled as he leaned against the bench. “Plus, you have a problem with D, Parker, and Marissa being here, you’re going to be pissed to know that in about fifteen, the whole team is going to be here.”
“What the fuck! We were meant to discuss this shit together. This is not only about your family.”
“Aware of that, bro. Also know we can’t waste time, because I figure you’ve got people to visit after this conversation.”
“Fuck it, just tell me what the hell you think will fix everyone’s goddamn life.”
“Maybe you should show Cooper around your place, Gray, before you all start talking?” Marissa suggested. “Let him settle in. Calm his shit before he hits someone.”
“What is there to show? You can see the lounge from here, and unless you think he wants to see Gray’s jocks on the floor, no point taking him upstairs. Or do you guys finally pay a cleaner now that I’m out of the house?” D asked Parker, smiling.
“Careful, Andrew, your privileged background is showing,” Marissa interrupted. “Not all of us have always lived in nice apartments with cleaners and drive fancy cars. And sometimes we like to look at new places. Not all of us have seen everything there is to see in the world.”
“Rissie, you want me to show you around one of my family’s vacation homes, all you got to do is ask.” D chuckled.
Before Marissa could respond, Gray stood and placed a hand on her shoulder. The subtle reminder of sticking together stopped the venom from spitting off her tongue, but didn't prevent the snide looks Marissa and D continued to throw at each other.
As fucking delightful as it was watching them tease each other, I was so sick of being there already. “Can we just get down to business? Inform me of your phenomenal plan that will save the freaking day. I’d like to point out the flaws quickly and be on my way.”
Before Gray could answer, a succession of rapid knocks sounded at the front door.
“Hold your discussions on the plan. I invited one more for the preliminary meeting.” Marissa headed to the door. The confused expressions on both Parker and Gray’s face suggested that they had no idea who the fuck she’d decided to invite. However, D’s wide grin gave me a clue that even if he had no idea what was going on, he planned on enjoying every minute.
At least one of us was amused by this shit.
“Okay, I’m here. You happy? I just got home and barely had a chance to kiss my little girl’s head before you started blowing up my phone. If this shit isn’t as important as you implied, I’m out of here. I don’t feel right leaving Tahnee watching Jessie all night and now half the day,” Millie seethed as she stepped into the house.
I saw shock coat her face when she noticed all of us in the kitchen.
The anger I was carrying around burst like a water balloon. I was standing in the kitchen, soaked in the remains of my pain and guilt. Unsure what to do with myself, I decided silence was the only reaction I could handle.
Millie looked straight into my eyes and I closed them. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—face her.
“What the fuck is this?” Her eyes moved from mine to Parker’s, to Gray’s, to D’s, and to Marissa’s. She noticed the guilt across Parker’s face, the concern in Gray’s. “Is this a bloody intervention?” she asked trying to come up with a reason as to why we all might be standing in the room together.
“Shit, you told them, didn’t you?” She turned to face me. “That’s why Marissa is here. Why everyone looks so sad and angry. You couldn’t keep letting me work at Poison now that we’ve gotten together, could you?”
My eyes snapped open, moving to hers and then to the shocked expression on Parker’s face.
“What the fuck?” Gray grow
led from the bench.
“You’re wrong. That’s not why we’re here, and I never would’ve told them without your permission. You becoming mine wouldn’t ever mean that I’d stop you from trying to help your girl,” I stated clearly.
“She doesn’t need to do that shit to help Jessie,” Gray snarled.
“That shit is my second business, and if people in this town weren’t so small-minded, they’d recognize burlesque routines as a damn art form,” Marissa replied as she walked in front of Millie to stare everyone down. “But that’s not what we’re here to discuss, so can we all just table your ridiculous feelings about that shit now? We have more serious problems to deal with. Problems that should never have been discussed without all the key players in the room. Now I’ve rectified that, so we can start.”
“This is bullshit,” I muttered, looking at Gray, communicating with my eyes that I never would’ve agreed to this discussion with Millie in the room.
“Dude, I didn’t invite Millie, but Marissa is right. We’re all in this, so we might as well all be here. The way we have to play this for it to work, it’s going to have to be big.”
“If this isn’t an intervention about Poison, then can someone please explain to me what’s going on?” Millie looked ready to pull out her hair.
D moved in front of her, rested both hands on her shoulders, and with a wide grin, told her, “Okay, Millie, I’m gonna break it down for you. Your new golden boy here from the other side of the tracks bumped into the trash we kicked over the train line in a shared prison cell. Our always reliable con man Mr. Waters, who apparently hasn’t lost his touch of being a completely full of shit son of a bitch even in prison, convinced this knucklehead here to help him dish out a little payback on Gray. Apparently, Mr. Waters has been crying that Gray orchestrated Nate’s passing. Now your boy was an idiot in the slammer, but when he met you, your girl, and us totally upstanding citizens, he thankfully saw the light. Not to brag, but I think one of my tackles during training might’ve helped clear his head. Anyhow, Mr. Waters sent your boy a warning that if he doesn't enact some form of retribution, Coop’s childhood friends plus you, my sweetheart, are in danger. Your boy’s plan was for Gray to protect you and for him to leave town after grabbing his childhood friends. We were all to just lie in wait for Mr. Waters to make a move, while losing our best new running back and potential BFF. None of us think this is the best plan.”
Once D let go of her shoulders and took a step back, Millie twisted her body to face me and asked quietly, “You were going to leave today even after last night?”
“Don’t want my shit choices hurting yours,” I responded dryly, ignoring the tears I saw briefly swirling in her eyes.
She exhaled, shook her head, and then turned to the group. “Okay, for everyone else who doesn’t have the desperate need to be a martyr, what’s the actual plan?”
“They fight,” Parker said to the group. “Cooper and Gray.”
The color draining from Millie’s face must’ve encouraged Gray to quickly explain the details. “That’s what Dad wants to see, so we’re inclined to give it to him. It won’t be the first time a fight has broken out during a college football game at halftime. Usually players start swinging at the other team, but I’m sure we can put on a hell of a show, even if it’s just between us. You don’t need to worry though, we’ll take a page from my dad’s book and make it complete pretense. From what Cooper has told us, Dad sounds just as full of himself—if not more so—than he was before he was locked up. We don’t think he’d begin to believe we’d be able to pull off something so big and devious.”
Parker continued, “We make it look like there’s some in-team rivalry. A disagreement over a play, a fight for the spotlight. We have to make it fast and not let it touch our rivals. It goes on for too long, we’re bound to get more than just a slap on the wrist from the coach and the NCAA. We also need everyone on the team in on it, make it look like this is boiling over from practice.”
As Millie got a little color back into her cheeks, I acted as the devil’s advocate, pointing out the major flaws in their plan. “What you’re all talking about sounds like polishing the deck of the damn Titanic, because we’d go to all this trouble and Tony would still be able to take us down. You’re suggesting we pretend to throw our fists at one another, like that’ll be enough? He has fucking minions following my friends. And he’ll be following us. If he knew Millie and I were together, someone has to be watching. Watching closely.”
“Sorry to break it to you, Cooper, but someone is always watching us closely,” Parker said. “Gray is one of the best college quarterbacks in the nation. Millie is the mother of his niece. People like to know about our lives. You’re forgetting that Mr. Walters is in prison.”
“Not to be insulting, but that doesn’t mean shit to him,” I replied.
“Maybe not, but he’s wrong. It means something. Sure, in his head I bet he thinks that his ability to send you a single package and get information snuck to him proves that he's some top dog. He’s not. He’s reliant on others, most likely cheap hires because sitting in a cell, unable to con people out of their savings, doesn’t help him build his fortune. And we aren’t exactly surrounded by goons like when we were up against Mr. Simons. Mr. Waters doesn’t have that many connections. He’s a con man, not a local mob boss. He’s likely paying petting criminals to do his bidding, lazy snitches who I would wager gather their information from the media and the closest family friend,” Parker explained. “They probably don’t bother following us when they see everything they need on ESPN, and more than a few people in this town like talking about Gray and his future. They probably spent a day following your friends and haven’t been back since. I would bet my college degree on it. Mr. Waters is pretending he’s not in a bubble, but he is. We don’t plan on bursting it anytime soon. We just want to cover it with images and information that blocks him from seeing the truth.”
“That’s where I come in,” Marissa informed me as she boosted herself onto the kitchen bench. “I take the photos, sell them to not one but all the local news outlets. Different angles, different poses. With the right lighting, I can make a slap fight between girls look like a McGregor UFC event.”
“I can choreograph it,” Flash chimed in. “The fight will be my best piece of dance yet. I planned enough angst-filled conceptual routines in high school to have it look real enough.”
“I remember. I was always your victim. It’s what gave me the idea.” Parker looked at her friend with pain in her eyes. “Granted, we’ll need you to do something else too. If you really want to help.”
“What are you thinking?”
“The media know who I am, and my reactions will be recorded by Marissa, but we don’t want just one media source reporting on this fight. We want all of them. You haven’t been to a lot of games, but they know who you are. People talk about you. They’ve seen me scream over the most minuscule of tackles, and they usually take notice, but they’ll quickly interpret it as just another game. But if you scream? Everyone notices that you don't cry often. Enough people know what Gray has done for Jessie. Marissa getting a photo of you breaking down on the sidelines—Gray’s dead brother’s girl worried about the only father figure her daughter has—would sell the story. No one would believe you were distraught over a small tussle. Everyone would automatically believe it to be real and serious. The media will eat it up. I think it’ll go a long way to having everyone worried about Gray’s condition and ending in Mr. Waters’s information.”
“No,” I snarled. “We aren’t putting her in front of the media to be picked apart.”
“Of course I’ll do it,” Millie interrupted.
“Trick will play the rest of the game. He’s ready. We’ll keep him and a few select others who could run the game if we get suspended,” Gray continued. “The way I see it, we’ve only got one issue.”
“What’s that?”
“Dad’s got police informants. We need one of those to
pass on this crap like it’s real. We just need one. We know the other snitches will likely believe the news, but if one police officer sees that I've been carried off the field and there’s talk of a career-ending injury, they’ll expect me to press charges. When they go to their system and see that nothing came of it, they might tip my dad off—”
“I guess you figure that’s where I come in?” I questioned. “Because that’s my expertise? Finding the lowest of the low? Knowing someone dodgy enough to turn on one of their own on the inside?”
“Look, if you can’t do it, we’ll find another way.”
“No, I can do it. If we’re polishing the damn deck, I know where to find the oiliest son of a bitch,” I said, raking my fingers through my hair. “And on the upside, the great thing about assholes is that they have no loyalty. They aren’t even loyal to other assholes.”
MILLIE
I LISTENED TO COOPER TALK about his associations. I felt his self-disgust. It was tangible, like beads of sweat dripping down his back. It was obvious that he still thought running was the best option.
I had too many emotions coursing through my own body right then to remind him that his past associations weren’t something he needed to feel ashamed of, let alone begin to explain how running away wouldn’t clean any of this mess up.
“Okay, the plan’s decided, then,” D stated cheerfully before heading to the cupboard and pulling out a new loaf of bread. “I’ll just fuel up and then be ready to get my groove on.”
“Seriously? Another sandwich?” Marissa grimaced as she watched D place a jar of jelly on the counter.
“What can I say?” he replied, knocking her with his hip to have better access to the cutlery. “This body isn’t created through eating that wheat grass shit you love.”
“Don’t knock into me.”
“Don’t stand in the way, then.”
I took a deep breath as Marissa and D continued to throw taunting remarks at each other. Their bickering was a nice break from the heaviness weighing on the room. From the corner of my eye, I saw Parker move to the kitchen to boil water in the kettle, while Gray and Cooper threw pent-up aggressive stares each other’s way. I reached for my cell phone to see if Tahnee had called me, hoping for a small moment of peace by focusing on my girl. When my hands patted my empty pocket, I realized I must have left my phone in the car. I backed away silently and headed for the front door. As I wrapped my fingers around the handle, I felt someone touch my shoulder.
Flash (Penmore #2) Page 20