The Game Series (27 page)

I glare at Braden. “For the tenth fucking time, I did not sleep with Megan this weekend.” But not for a lack of damn well trying.

Braden folds his arms across his chest. “She seemed more pissed at you than usual in class.”

I shrug a careless shoulder. “Probably because I pissed her off more than normal on Saturday night.”

Ryan grins. “She did look like she wanted to wring your balls after you spoke to her at the bar.”

“Yeah well, even if she did wring them, I wouldn’t have been hard pressed to find someone to kiss them better afterwards, would I?”

“Shit, man.” Braden shakes his head and sits down. “Was I really this much of a fucking asshole before Maddie?”

Ry throws his cell in the air and catches it. “Yep.”

“Difference with me and you, dude,” I say, “is that
I
can admit I’m an asshole. You thought you were fuckin’ Jesus or somethin’.”

“That’s because I am – behind closed doors.” He grins like the smug bastard he is. “At least you didn’t try it with Megan.”

“I don’t know why you’re so worried. Megan has more brains than to give the goods to this dickhead.” Ry cocks his thumb in my direction, and I flip him the bird.

“You say this, but I’m the only one here with my freedom left. Your girls have your dicks in the palms of their hands,” I remind them.

“And what magical damn hands they are.” Ryan snickers.

“What? You never felt a magic hand before Lila?” I throw at him. “I guess I’m the blessed one.”

“Blessed with the ability to snake your way into bed with anyone you want to,” Braden continues.

“Because you didn’t have the same ability. I must have imagined all the half-dressed girls doing the sweet walk of shame from your bedroom.”

“One day, Aston, you’re gonna end up just like us.”

“If I ever end up as pussy-whipped as you, please, fuckin’ punch me.” I snort. “But that’s not gonna happen, trust me.”

Being pussy-whipped means feeling – and I don’t do that. I don’t let myself do that. Feeling means remembering, and remembering is a load of shit. Besides, the one girl that could make me is the one girl that’s off-limits.

And that’s a damn good thing. If I can’t have her, I can’t feel for her, and if I can’t feel, I can’t hurt her. Because I would. Eventually. Eventually the walls would build back up, push her out, and I would fall back on the only feelings that matter.

The physical ones. The ones that involve a pair of legs around my waist.

You’re just like her. It’ll be all you’re fuckin’ good for.

“Dude?” Ryan claps his hands once. “You there?”

“Yeah.” I pull myself from my head. “Thought I saw somethin’.”

“You say you won’t find anyone, but you will,” Braden continues. “Trust me. And it’ll be the girl with balls big enough to stand up to you and put your spindly little dick in its place.”

“If there’s a girl that can tame me I’ll welcome the challenge.” I lean back. “I’d like to see someone try. Gotta feel to be tamed, boys, and I don’t feel a thing except for whoever it is in my bed on a weekend.”

“I didn’t feel anything. Then I had to play Maddie.” Braden pauses, running his hand through his hair and focusing on me. “Some things are just too real to be ignored.”

“See? Pussy-whipped.” I snort. “Don’t you two fuckers have something better to do than sit here and tell me I need love in my life?”

“Probably.” Ry grins again. “But this is way more fun.”

“What’s fun?” Lila asks, strolling into the room and looking at Ryan.

“Annoying Aston.” He reaches for her, gripping her hands and pulling her down onto his lap.

She groans. “You do realize an annoyed Aston usually equals sex, which means there’ll be a pissed off girl hounding us?”

“Really?” I sit up straight. “Girls do that?”
Well damn. I knew I was good, but…

Lila’s eyes are as flat as her voice when she turns to me. “Yes. It’s like they think that because I’m Ryan’s girlfriend, I have a VIP pass inside your head. I don’t, thank God, but they don’t get that. They all want to know why you don’t call.”

“Hey, I never promise to call them. I don’t offer and they don’t ask. Half of them don’t even leave their numbers!”

Lila raises her eyebrows, and both the guys laugh.

“They don’t!” I insist. “It’s not my fault. How the fuck can I call if they don’t leave their number?”

“Maybe they want you to ask for it.”

“If I ask for it, then they’d expect me to call.”

“The problem is–?”

“I won’t call. If I ask for it then they have a real reason to be pissed off when I don’t.”

She sighs and drops her head, looking back at Ryan. He fights his smile. “Is there no way to attach a warning to him?”

“Like what, babe?” Ryan sputters.

“‘Sex addict asshole who won’t call, so don’t even bother?’”

“That would seriously damage my reputation!” I protest.

Lila rolls her eyes and shoves herself off of Ryan’s lap. She heads toward the door, stopping and looking over her shoulder at me before she passes through. “You hardly have a stellar reputation, Aston. What you need to do is have one night with a
nice
girl. You never know – you might like it. It might change your asshole perspective on things.”

“Eh, she’s got a point.” Braden shrugs.

“Assholes.” I stand and follow her through the door, taking the stairs two at a time up to my room.

I’m so fucking done with that conversation.

I nearly had one night with a nice girl. That
almost
ruined me because I can’t imagine being with anyone else other than her now. I can’t stop thinking about what would have – and fucking well should have – happened after that kiss. Whenever I look at her now, I picture her lying on my bed beneath me and wrapped around my body.

The guys see the Aston I want them to see. They don’t see the fucked up mess inside – they don’t see the real Aston. I don’t intend to show the real me to anyone. Ever.

You aren’t worth shit.

I let my bedroom door swing shut behind me, pushing back the echo in my mind.

I know I’m not worth shit. I don’t need a ghost from my past to remind me of that.

~

I had shivered in the corner, waiting, wondering. The thin blanket I wrapped around my body did nothing to block out the chill coming from my open window – the open window my six year old body was too small to reach.

She said she’d come back. She’d promised she would, but she took too long and he went to find her. I didn’t know his name, but he said she was gonna get it this time. He was angry.

I rubbed the top of my leg, flinching and trying not to cry at the stinging pain there. It was always my fault. This time it was because Mommy took too long and I cried. I don’t know who he is but I don’t like him. He hurt more than the last one. He had bigger arms to hit me with.

“Mommy?” I whispered into the silent darkness. I was scared. Alone and scared. Where was my mommy? Why wasn’t she home yet? I rubbed at my eyes to stop myself crying.

I wanted Mommy to come home before he did. If he came home first he would hurt me again.

“Mommy?”

“He really is an asshole,” Kay says, spying Aston across the yard.

He’s standing in front of a girl with more highlights than my e-reader, and she’s doing her best to push up her chest into his face. He smiles slowly at her, resting his arm against the tree next to him. She twirls some hair around her finger, attempting what she thinks is a demure smile, and looks into his eyes.

“I see he took the conversation we had two days ago to heart,” Lila remarks.

“What conversation was that?” Maddie asks.

“I told him he needed to find a nice girl.”

“You obviously have different definitions of the word ‘nice’,” I say, harsher than I mean to. “Because the only thing nice about her will be when she turns around and leaves.”

Kay snorts. “I freaking love it when you guys get jealous.”

My head snaps round. “Who said I was jealous?”

“You’re so green you’re practically blending in with the grass.”

“Right. Because being jealous of anyone with Aston is so likely.”

Yet I am jealous. I’m pissed. I’m disgusted. And I’m even more annoyed at myself for the clenching in my chest. I knew he’d be back to his usual tricks straight away, but seeing him this close to another girl when that was me just days ago pisses me the hell off.

Seeing him with another girl when he was mine, even if just for a few minutes, is like a clawed hand reaching into my chest and ripping out my heart. Even if I walked away from that kiss.

And that’s all it was. A kiss. When will I get this into my thick damn head?

Aston nods to the girls, smirks, and walks across the yard. He drops onto the ground next to me and looks at me.

“What?” My eyes flick over his face.

“Nothing.”

“Did Barbie have to go get her implants adjusted or something?” I snap, shifting away from him. Ugh.

Hello, irrational Megan.

It would be easier if I could get a little box to stuff this jealousy in. We’ll bundle it in with the rolling stomach and clenching heart. What a tidy little package that’d be.

“She’s not my type.”

“Are you gonna call her?” Lila asks.

“Yep, we’re going.” Maddie grabs Kay’s arm and pulls her up and after her.

Aston snorts and glances at me. “No.”

“Does she think you are?”

He shrugs. “How am I meant to know?”

I disguise my snort by covering my mouth with my hand. My half-annoyed, half-amused snort.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing.” I shake my head. “You get with stupid girls, y’know.”

“I do, huh?” He turns his face toward me slowly, his gray eyes challenging me.

“Yeah, you do.” I run a thick blade of grass between my fingers, focused on him. “If I were them, I’d be shocked if you
did
call – hey, I’d be shocked if you even text. I mean, the girl who speaks to you the day after sleeping with you would have to be something, right? Hell, the girl who speaks to you after kissing you would have to be someone pretty damn special.”

“Depends when I spoke to her,” he replies evenly.

“The morning after?” I vocally challenge what’s in his eyes and silently send him one of my own.

You told me it meant something. I call bullshit.

“If I spoke to her the next morning, then it’d mean she’s more than a fuck – or a
mere kiss
. It’d mean she meant something. That she was someone pretty damn special.”

Throw my words back at me, you bastard.

I guess I lose this round.

My heart pounds painfully in my chest, twisting and scrunching as what I can never have is dangled openly in front of my face.
We
are being dangled openly, for everyone to see, but they’ll never know. An open secret, a complete contradiction of itself.

“Then it’s a good thing no girl has ever got that morning chat, huh?” I ask quieter, forcing the hard edge into my voice.

Gray eyes flick to my lips, making me part them and draw in a breath at the intensity in his stare. Every time. Every damn time those eyes get me.

Aston rubs his chin, studying me carefully. “Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” he replies just as quietly as I did.

Lila coughs and I look away from Aston. Her eyes flick between us and I grab my bag strap.

“I have to get to class. See ya later.” I get up and leave without looking back.

Lila is the teenage girl version of Sherlock Holmes. If she has any suspicion someone is up to something she’ll follow your ass around until she’s got to the bottom of it. If we’re not careful, she’ll have us figured in a heartbeat.

But, as I walk back onto the main campus, I can’t stop thinking about what he said.

He said I meant something. A kiss meant more than the endless stream of one night stands he’s had over the last few months. How is that possible?

Huh… It doesn’t matter anyway. It can’t happen. That mind-blogging, knee-quaking, heart-pounding kiss shouldn’t have happened, so anything else definitely shouldn’t happen.

But what if “anything else” is sex? I walked away from that once. Stupid or smart, I don’t know. Yet … what if we both want that more? And what if sex turned into more? Like a relationship … Or love. What would happen then?

Psh. Love and Aston in the same sentence? If there was such a thing as too many books, I might agree with Lila when she says I read too many. People don’t just change and neither do their actions. I don’t believe for one minute he could flip a switch and go from man-whore to a one woman man.

Knowing this makes it all the easier to fight my want for him.

But in the slim chance something did change – and we’re talking very freaking slim here … There just isn’t a chance on this Earth I’d be able to fight anything if he wanted me the way I do him.

~

Maddie and Lila loop their arms through mine, and I’m not surprised when we begin to head in the direction of Starbucks.

“Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like whatever conversation we’re about to have?” I groan.

Maddie shrugs. “I have no idea.”

“It could be, oh, I don’t know … Maybe the fact you’ve both grabbed me and directed me toward the ‘chat room’ of Starbucks?” I deadpan, looking to Lila. “And the fact Lila has that grin on her face means she’s up to no good.”

“Okay.” Lila sighs as she pushes the door open. “Go sit down. I’ll get coffee.”

“This is not good,” I mutter to myself. “What did she do? What did she break? Oh, hell. Don’t tell me she deleted my essay from my laptop again.”

“Nothing.” Maddie pushes me down into an armchair and sits opposite me. “She didn’t
do
anything. And you know that was an accident.”

“Mmph. Well she’s about to do something, and if she’s buying me coffee I don’t think I’m gonna like it much.”

“Well, it’s a ‘maybe baby’ situation.” She taps her chin. “You’re either gonna love it or hate it, but I don’t think it matters–”

“Because I’m gonna do it anyway,” Lila sings, setting a tray on the table in front of us.

“I’m not going to lie to you, I’m starting to get a little scared.” I look between the two of them, from Maddie chewing her lip to Lila’s sparkling eyes.

“Just tell her, Lila!” Maddie cries. “Before she takes that coffee and throws it on you!”

I grab my coffee and point it in Lila’s direction. Nothing like making a point.

“Okay! So, I’ve been thinking,” she begins.

“Which is never a good thing,” I interrupt.

“Whatever. I’ve noticed you’re the only single one bar Kay – and I’d never dream of doing this to her.”

“Damn, you noticed I’m single?”

“She’s always off with some, er, someone, I’m with Ryan, and Maddie with Braden, leaving you all alone.”

“Oh no.” I know exactly where she’s going with this.

“So I was thinking you need a guy–”

“No.”

“So then you won’t be all alone. Obviously Aston is out of the question …”

Obviously. “No.”

“And Braden will kick your ass if you try and set her up with anyone in the frat house,” Maddie points out.

“But the frat house is only a small portion of the incredibly yummy guys in this campus. I mean, come on.” Lila looks around a little and leans forward, lowering her voice. “Have you seen James Lloyd lately? Holy shit! He’s in my math class and he really is hot as hell.”

“Boyfriend,” Maddie reminds her with a sigh. “Point is, Megs, we don’t want you to feel left out.”

“Have I ever said I feel left out?” I look at them both again.

“Well, no …”

“But I feel like you are,” Lila presses. “And I don’t want you to be. Y’know, in the name of friendship and female loyalty everywhere, it really is in your best interests to let me set you up with some hot guy.”

“In my best interests or in yours?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Yours, definitely yours.”

“And what if I say no?”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter.”

Oh no. I sit upright and my hands grip the arms of the chair as I stare at her. “You haven’t, Lila. You haven’t.”

“She has.” Maddie nods her head.

Lila grins. “You have a date tomorrow night to Mark’s party.”

~

I can’t think of anything worse than Lila setting me up with someone. Her taste in guys is questionable. Very questionable. I’ve been here twenty minutes and I’m starting to feel like Harriet in Jane Austen’s
Emma
. God knows Lila’s matchmaking skills are on par with Emma’s. They’re both crap. The only thing Lila has going for her is Ryan – she figured her love life out way before Emma did.

I know every single date Lila sends me on is destined to crash and burn because of the way I feel about Aston. Of course there’s no way to explain that without digging myself a giant hole. There’s no way to explain every guy will pale in comparison to his cocky, self-assured smirk and forceful, needing kiss. Goddamn that kiss …

Six days, and I’m still here grasping onto a memory of what could have been. Six days, and the knowledge I did the “right” thing is slowly turning into regret for not doing the wrong thing. Knowing I did the right thing is twisting my stomach.

But who is it the right thing for? Braden?

Something might be the right thing for someone else but that doesn’t mean its right for you.

Right thing or not, I’d still be here having this date. I’d still be sitting mere meters from Aston sweeping into the kitchen, pretending to give a crap about something that isn’t his eyes burning holes into me.

I slam the shot glass down on the bar after emptying it. Christ, I’ve become that girl. Alcohol to tolerate a date.

“So,” the guy opposite me says. “You look a little bored.”

I laugh lightly. “No, I’m sorry. I just had a rough day, y’know?”

He nods. Shit. What’s his name? Ugh, stupid frat boys are rubbing off on me. I sweep my hair to one side, smoothing it away from my face, and lean in close. “Why don’t you tell me more about yourself?”

And your name. Please.

“Well, I’m majoring in Biology …”

And I’ve switched off. I don’t mean to, I really don’t, but science is pretty much Chinese Mandarin to me. It’s too realistic; I deal with fiction. I do swoon-worthy scenes, heart stopping declarations of love, and incredible guys that give girls like me unrealistic expectations.

Disney, I’m looking at you.

I pull my glass toward me and take a drink through my straw, nodding my head and pretending to be interested in Mr. Biology. Pretending because my attention is on the dark-haired girl in standing in front of Aston. Closely. Very closely.

He picks up a bottle of beer and looks up. As if he can feel me looking at him, his eyes slam into mine. They’re flat, almost emotionless, almost dead, and I go cold. Nothing. That’s what I get from this. Nothing.

I smile but I don’t feel it. I only feel an irrational annoyance bubbling in my stomach and that coldness from his gaze spreading through my body.

“Hey.” I lean forward and place a gentle hand on Mr. Biology’s arm. “I’m so sorry, but I’m not feeling great. I’m gonna head to my dorm.”

“Oh. Um, sure. I can walk you back.” He makes to move.

“No!” I take a deep breath. “No, I’m okay, thank you. It’s not too late.”

“Oh, sure.”

“Thank you for a nice evening.” I smile weakly and get up, spinning around.

Nice, Megan? Is that all you have? God.

My lack of convincing adjectives aside, I need to get the hell out of this frat house.

He – Aston Banks – is taking me over. He’s grabbing hold of me and shaking me like a martini.

I push open the front door and step into the mild California evening air. I take a deep breath, heading back to the dorm room with a hasty step.