The Game Series (80 page)

“It probably doesn’t bother me nearly as much as my attraction to Roxy bothers you.” So I’m bluffing. I’m the one who has a poker face – Iz couldn’t bluff her way out of a kindergarten class. They’d figure her out in seconds.

“Whatever. What do you want?”

I tap my fingers across the table. How do I ask her what I haven’t even fully thought about myself?

“How…” I pause and, crap… Spit it out. “How do I convince Roxy to come to Berkeley with me next month?”

Iz stops with her mouth still full and stares at me. Slowly, she chews and swallows. “Did I hear you right?”

“I dunno. What did you hear?”

“You want Roxy to move to Berkeley. With you.”

“At least you don’t need your ears cleaning out.”

“Goddammit, Kyle! This shit is serious.” She slaps the table.

“I know, Iz, alright? I know.” I run my hands through my hair. “I just… I can’t leave her here. Not now.”

My sister sits opposite me, her eyes flicking over my face, and smiles.

“Fuck off with your psychobabble.” I glare at her.

“You love her.”

Goddamn psycho body language skills.

“You do.” Her eyes widen. “You actually do.”

“No need to look so surprised,” I say dryly.

“I’m not. I don’t think. I just.” She tilts her head slightly. “I dunno. You really want her to go to Berkeley with you?”

My head bobs slowly. “It’s Roxy, y’know? How am I supposed to go back there without her?”

“It’s not that far.”

“If I can’t walk there in half an hour, it’s too fucking far, Iz.”

She sighs and rubs her face. “I don’t know. Have you tried asking her? See if she’ll apply there when she decides she’ll go. She’d get in – she’s smart, Ky. She’s just a little off course.”

“I know. And of course I haven’t asked her – if I had would I be asking you?” I raise my eyebrows, and Iz shrugs. “Exactly. I just… I love her, Iz. Fuck. I don’t even know. I just want her to come to Berkeley with me.”

“Well, you have to ask her,” she reasons. “But what if she doesn’t?”

I say nothing. Let her use her psycho-shit and work this out herself.

“Kyle Michael Daniels.” Iz says my name slowly and carefully, injecting as much question into it as she can. “Don’t tell me you’ll stay here if she doesn’t go.”

I tap my fingers against the table again and whistle.

“You’ve wanted to be a doctor since… well, forever. You can’t seriously say you’d give that up? I know it’s Roxy, but… Seriously? You would?”

I meet her eyes, the ones that are the exact shade of mine. “I know I have, but she’s more than a dream, Iz. Roxy is everything and she’s real. Without her there is no dream. So, yes. If I have to I’ll stay here. With her. For her. I’d do anything and everything for that girl.”

I start my laptop and open my internet browser.
What undergraduate courses do you need to be a vet?
On impulse, I type
Berkeley
after the question. UCLA was on my original list… I know its Southern California, and Berkeley is Northern, but whatever. This is only research, after all.

Basic science courses and advanced courses in animal biology and behavior among other things. Easy pickings. Science has always come naturally to me – and these science classes would lead to working my dream job.

But I don’t have to make any decisions now. In fact I should go back to Google and look at other colleges around the country. I don’t. I put the computer in sleep and get up.

The house is always quiet when Mom and Dad are at work. I wander across the hall and my hand hovers over Cam’s door handle. Slowly, I turn the handle and walk inside. My feet take me to his bed and I perch on the end of it. The smell of him is almost gone. There’s no lingering trace of his Davidoff, and my stomach twists. His room should smell like it, so I get up, grab the cologne bottle, and spray it. The fresh scent brings a smile to my face.

This is comfort. This is where he’s alive the most. This is where I remember most of him and Kyle.

“You’ll get caught,” I’d warned them. I was perched on Cam’s desk with my legs swinging beneath me.

“Who cares?” My brother shrugged carelessly.

“Everyone will know it’s us anyway,” Kyle muttered. “No one else has the balls to pull the crap we do.”

“Okay, you have a point. But how do you expect to change out all the whipped cream for shaving foam?”

They just grinned.

“Okay, one, I feel the need to tell you that you two have an unhealthy obsession with that stuff. And, two, I am not being a part of this stupid plan.”

“Roxy,” Cam whined. “You have keys to the café.”

“Mom will kill you!”

“No, she won’t.” Kyle grinned and tugged on a lock of my hair. “You’ll be the one switching them.”

“Uh, hello? Did you miss point two? I’m not doing it. No. Chance.”

“Fine. But you can get us in, right?” Cam gave me puppy dog eyes. They were so shit but I could never resist them.

“I can’t get you in. Mom will fire me then kick my ass. Publicly,” I stress.

“Then how—”

I got up and walked to his door. My hand rested on the handle as I peered at them over my shoulder. “I can’t get you in but I can’t stop you stealing my keys. The ones I just happen to keep in the top drawer of my nightstand when I’m not working.”

Kyle and Cam looked at me, their smiles wide enough to break their faces and their eyes dancing with mischief.

My lips twitch now with the memory. They did steal my keys and did it without getting caught. I never asked how they got the shaving foam in whipped cream cans and they never offered. They took the shit for it though, maintaining I knew nothing about it. And if I’m honest, I didn’t actually know when they did it.

They really did steal my keys.

I was like their silent partner in everything they did – unless I was their victim – and no one ever found out. I think I miss the three of us together almost as much as I do Cam himself. It’s so hard to have such a huge part of your everyday life ripped away from you.

It’s so hard to say goodbye to someone you thought would be there forever.

~

Some people are devils in disguise.

They’re all too willing to tempt you into something you have a weakness for. They seem to know when you’re having a bad day and just creep up on you with a solution. An antidote. An escape.

But it’s always the wrong one. They’re always short term and they don’t ever make it better. Nothing about a short escape from a devil can help you move forward in the way you need.

And this is how I feel right now looking at Layla.

“C’mon, Roxy. I need the money and you need this.”

I look at her red hair and her wide, brown eyes. She looks desperate. I’m not.

“I don’t want it, Layla. I don’t need it, okay? You’ll have to find someone else to buy it off you.”

“Roxy!”

“Here.” I pull out my cell and give her the number of a guy I met in Portland a few months ago. “He’s always looking for drugs. Call him.”

“He’s in fucking Portland.”

I shrug and turn. “You either want money or you don’t.”

You either want the escape or you don’t. Right now, I don’t. I don’t need them to make me forget how much it hurts. I need to grit my teeth and bear it.

My family deserve more than what I’ve been doing to them.

I walk in the direction of my house, dragging my feet. I’m finally noticing the true hollowness of Verity Point without my brother and the jokes he used to play with Kyle. And I’m wishing I hadn’t blown my chances of going to college in September. Now I’m stuck here for another year.

I put my key in the door and twist it. Hands land on my shoulders and I scream.

“It’s me.” Kyle laughs.

“Oh my god. You dick. You scared the crap outta me.”

He laughs again and follows me into my house. “Sorry. I thought you would have heard me coming.”

I shake my head. “No. I was in my own little world.”

His head bobs as he nods. “Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask.”

“Did you get any?”

I stop. “Any what?”

“You know what I’m on about.”

“No, I really don’t.”

“Ben just saw you with Layla.”

Of course he did. And of course he had to tell Kyle, because why wouldn’t he?

My lips thin and annoyance spreads through my body. “And you naturally assumed I bought alcohol or drugs from her.”

“No… Kind of. I just wondered,” he says warily.

That annoyance quickly changes to anger, and I chew on my lip. I stare at him for a second before turning away from him.

“It’s nice to know you have so much belief in my ability to say no.” I storm up the stairs to my room, and they creak as Kyle follows me.

“Hey, I didn’t say that!” He puts his foot between the door and the frame to stop me closing it in his face.

“You meant it.”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Bullshit.” I turn to look at him. “You knew I’d been with her and thought I’d give in. Well, I didn’t! She said she needed money, so I gave her the number of someone else who’d buy drugs from her. Ben conveniently left out that part, didn’t he, huh?”

“He was just telling me what he saw.”

“He obviously didn’t see enough then, did he?” I’m almost shouting. I can’t believe he really thinks this. I can’t believe he’d assume I’m so weak I have to give in whenever temptation is dangled in front of my face.

It actually hurts he thinks I’d go and do that after I promised him I wouldn’t.

“I said I wouldn’t do that. I told you I’d try my best not to do all that shit and you don’t even think I can stop, do you?” My eyes meet his and he steps forward.

“Rox.”

I move my arm away from his outstretched arm. “You don’t think I can, do you?” I repeat. “Admit it. You didn’t believe it so you rushed over here to ask if I bought anything. You didn’t ask if I walked away. You automatically assumed the worst.”

Kyle’s shoulders slump and he runs a hand through his hair. I’m right. We both know it.

I take a deep breath, my stomach clenching. “You can go now,” I whisper and turn away from him.

“What?”

“Please go,” I whisper again. “I don’t know if I can be around someone who thinks so little of me right now.”

“Is that what you think?”

“At least I can admit what I think.”

“Yeah, let’s ignore the fact I thought that because I care about you, shall we?”

“Don’t throw that in my face. You don’t believe I can stop drinking and shit and that’s that.”

“How many times? I didn’t say that!”

I cover my face with my hands and a lump forms in my throat. “No, you didn’t, but you meant it. So go. Please.”

“This isn’t over, Rox. Call me when you’ve calmed the fuck down.”

He leaves my room and his footsteps are heavy on my stairs. I cross my room and slam my door, falling against it, and tears build in my eyes.

One week ago he asked me to stop the way I’ve been acting, and already he’s given up on believing in me.

I don’t want to listen to him talking reason. I don’t want to listen to him trying to dig himself out of what he
didn’t
say, because what he did say is enough.

He knows me better than anyone – maybe even better than Iz and Selena – but he doesn’t know me well enough to trust me to keep my word.

Tears drip down my cheeks and I lean my head back against the door.

“Fuck you,” I whisper.

Three days.

It’s been three goddamn, stupid days since she made me walk out on her and I’m running out of options. I’m running out of things to do to make her stop and keep her that way. I don’t know what else I can do. I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do.

Whatever progress I’d made, whatever convincing I’d done, I’ve fucked it all up by speaking first and thinking after. I’m back at square one, except this time I have a lot more to make up. I have to convince her I believe in her and that I know she can do his.

Shit, I need her to do this. For her. For me. For us. She has to do it. She has to accept Cam’s gone so she can move on. Every time she drinks she’s holding onto something that doesn’t exist. She needs to step back from it and hold on to what does exist.

The memories. The good times. The future.

I know she’ll never forget that night. She watched him crash and watched him die only an hour later, but she can’t let be that be her focal memory of him. The only way she’ll be able to ease the pain is by thinking of the good times we all had together. She’ll only ease the pain by remembering.

I’m the person that could help her remember.

And I’ve fucked that up.

I’ve destroyed everything we’ve had between us. I should have known better than going round there and asking like that. Roxy’s temper is as short as Snow White’s dwarves and flares up without a seconds warning. I should have known she’d react that way… The same way I did.

Speak first, think later.

Impulsively.

But everything about us has been impulsive. Every fight, every kiss, every time we’ve had sex… They’ve all happened in a crazy spur of the moment that wrapped us up before we’d even had a chance to think about it. So of course this would be too.

I shouldn’t have expected it to be anything but.

Si walks through my front door and smacks me round the head. “Get your fuckin’ ass off your sofa and in my car.”

“What for?”

“Party. We need to cheer you up you miserable dick.”

“I don’t need cheering up. I’m chirpy as fuck. See?” I fake grin.

He laughs. “Look, man, Roxy will be there. Go see her, chat a little then go wherever you guys go when you sneak off and do whatever.”

“It’s gonna take a bit more than a damn chat to get her to go anywhere with me willingly right now.” I lift myself from the sofa and follow him out to his car.

Hey – she isn’t coming to me anytime soon, so I’m gonna have to go to her.

“Ben really starred, huh?” Si glances at me.

“Nah, it was me. He was just telling me what he saw – I’m the one that assumed shit. I should have just asked her properly instead of half-accusing her, or better yet, not said a fuckin’ word.”

He shrugs. “You only did it ‘cause you care about her.”

“Yeah? Do me a favor and tell her that will you?”

“I would if I didn’t think she’d rip my balls off.”

“Nice to know you value your balls over our friendship.”

We grin at each other but mine is still half-hearted. Dread is settling in my stomach and I know why. Roxy and party go hand in hand too well, and I’m afraid of what I’ll find here. I’m afraid I’ll find her drunk, maybe high, or maybe even with another guy.

And I wonder why she thinks I don’t believe in her.

Fuck.

Music booms from the house Si pulls up to and I don’t even care enough to see where we are. Seeing her is all I care about. I push my way through into the house and look in each room as we go past. Si does the same, and we find her in the kitchen.

She glances up as we enter and her blue eyes crash into mine. They’re heavy. Sad. Soft. Angry. Hard. They’re a mixture of so many things, making my stomach twist in guilt for a moment before she turns away.

“Ouch,” Si mutters.

“Thanks for that.” I take the beer he hands me.

“Anytime. What you gonna do?”

“Same thing I did before when I wanted her to talk to her. Piss her off.”

“Don’t be a prick, Ky,” Iz says, coming up behind me and standing next to me. “I think she’s pissed off enough at you.”

“Hey – she told
me
to go. I fucked up, alright? She just didn’t listen to me when I tried to explain.”

“You two are both stubborn as shit and that’s your problem. Neither of you will listen to the other nor will you give in. You’ll just stand here on either side of the kitchen, mad and upset, until the other one leaves.”

“Thanks for your evaluation. Do I pay you now or later?”

“Sometimes I wonder why I bother helping you, you ass.”

I rest my arm over her shoulders and squeeze her. “I know, Iz. I’m sorry.”

She shrugs out of my hold. “It’s not me you need to apologize to. It’s the girl over there who’s wondering if she should just give up on you.”

Hit me where it hurts why don’t you, sis. Just punch me in the gut. It’d be easier to deal with.

Until I see her throw a shot back with Selena.

“Yeah.” I nod in her direction. “Really looks like she’s wondering. Looks like she already fucking has.”

“No,” Iz muses, leaning against the wall. “She’s given up on giving up. She thought you believed in her, now she thinks you don’t, so in her eyes she has nothing to give up for.”

“She should give up for herself,” Si interjects. “She should do it because if she doesn’t, she’s gonna go the same way as Cam.”

The truth hurts. Like a fucking bitch.

Iz looks round me. “You’re right, but that doesn’t mean she can see that.” Her voice gets quieter. “Kyle was her reason. He was her rock. He’s the only person that knew Cam the way she did, the only person that could understand even a fraction of her pain. We all know that, Si. We’re not stupid. None of us can do for her what he can.”

“Still here, y’know.” I watch as Roxy does yet another shot.

“And now…” Iz trails off, ignoring me. “Now, she thinks she’s lost him.”

A guy approaches her and she smiles at him. I chew the inside of my cheek as they start up a conversation, and I can feel Iz and Si watching me carefully. Even Selena is glancing me at me across the room.

My jaw tightens when he leans in to her. Every part of my body goes on high alert. Who the fuck does this guy think he is hitting on my girl this way? Because she is. No matter what she says, she’s fucking mine.

My fingers tighten on the side of the counter at that thought. There isn’t a part of me that doesn’t want to go over there and kiss the fuck out of her in front of everyone here.

“I think this is my cue,” Iz mutters. She crosses the room and steps between Roxy and the guy. He moves back and lets Iz take him into the front room, and a bottle slams on the side next to me. I glance at Si.

Seems I’m not the only one that has issues tonight.

My eyes travel back to Roxy. They burn into her back, following her wherever she moves in the kitchen, tracing the lines of her body. They shoot daggers at any guy who looks like approaching her and eventually they get the message.

She’s off limits. She’s off limits to every motherfucker that isn’t me.

“Here we go,” Si says with too much amusement.

I look away from the guy approaching where Selena is standing and see Roxy storming toward me. Wordlessly, she grabs the front of my shirt and drags me after her. I shoot a look to Si over my shoulder, and he’s laughing.

Roxy pushes the back door open and pulls me into the yard. She looks me over angrily, her hands on her hips. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s meant to be my line, isn’t it?”

“I’d tell you not to be so stupid but you obviously came out with your jackass hat on tonight.”

“Rox.” I sigh. “Can we go and talk about this? Away from here. Please.”

Her shoulders drop and she shrugs a little. “I don’t know if I want to. I’m so fucking mad at you.”

“So mad you decided to drink tonight.”

She looks up at me. “I figured you had so little belief in me anyway it wouldn’t matter.”

The hell? “Wouldn’t matter?”

“Yep. You think I’m gonna go do it anyway, so who cares?”

Who cares?
Who cares?

“I fucking care!”

I want to grab her and shake her. I’ve tried everything and if this doesn’t work, if I can’t make her believe me, then I have no choice but to do the one thing I thought I could avoid. I want to beg her not to make me do it, but as every second passes without her speaking, I know I’m gonna have to.

I’m gonna have to take the biggest risk of my life.

I’m going to be walking away from her by the end of the night.