I nod. Conner knows all about my haunting dreams, because he stopped by to check on me the other night.
“Come on, sneak me in and you can sleep.”
“Conner, I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking.” He gives me a small smile. “I’m offering.”
“But—”
“Hey, it’s no strings attached, okay? You shouldn’t be alone right now, and lucky for you, I don’t mind taking an afternoon nap.”
“Thank you,” I say, because the thought of getting some decent sleep is everything. “I might snore.”
“I think I’ll live. I’ll even let you hog the covers.”
“Conner...” I pale.
“Relax, I’m joking. I just want to help, I promise.”
“Why?” I ask. “Why are you doing this for me?”
“Because I can.” He shrugs. “Because you shouldn’t be alone. And because my brother can’t be who you need him to be right now.”
“It’s that simple, huh?”
“It only needs to be complicated if you make it complicated.”
I hesitate, because I know this is a bad idea. But I need to sleep. I need to close my eyes and know that someone is watching out for me. And Conner is a good person. He’s kind and funny and he doesn’t take life too seriously.
“Okay,” I blurt, forcing all my reservations to the back of my mind.
“Atta girl.” He grabs my hand and pulls me around the side of the building.
“Thank you.” The words fall from my lips.
“For what?” He frowns as we approach the back entrance.
“For being you. You’re a good person, Conner.”
His brows furrow, just for a second, and then his expression morphs into a grin. “I think there’s a compliment in there somewhere, Hadley, baby, but you know what they say about the good guy, right?”
“No, Conner. What do they say about the good guy?” I find myself grinning back. But then his expression hardens again.
“He always finishes last.”
Chapter Eight
Cole
I close my eyes as she walks away from me, her scent filling my nose and my muscles aching to reach out to stop her.
She’s like a fucking angel. So good, so pure, yet so untouchable.
Unable to resist, I turn and watch her walk away.
Like this, I can imagine that everything is as it once was. That things are our usual brand of fucked-up, and I can let myself into her dorm later to do wicked things to her. But I can’t.
I lost that right when she told me she loved me and I threw it back in her face.
Stumbling back against the building, I watch her hips sway as she makes her way toward the dorms. I pull a cigarette from my pocket, wishing it were more than just nicotine. Even more so when I watch Conner catch up with her and wrap his arm around her shoulder. My teeth grind and my fingers clench with my need to walk over and rip her out of his hold.
She’s mine. Motherfucker.
But I can’t. I can’t claim her. It’s too late for all that.
It’s game night. The only reason I turned back up at school. And I can’t stand here watching them, going after them, when I’ve got a job to do. I might not have listened to many people in the past few days, but the threat from Coach that my already questionable position on the team would be gone if I didn’t get my ass to practice, to get ready for tonight was one thing that got me moving.
It’s an away game. The last thing I want to do is get on a bus and leave Sterling Bay for a few hours. The only thing that makes it better is that I know she’ll be there. We might have barely said two words to each other this week, but just knowing she’ll be in the stadium, unable to leave, to walk away from me, settles something inside me.
The second I walk into the locker room, Hayden is right there, just like he was when I appeared for practice the other day.
The moment I locked eyes on his smile, I knew it was him. He was the motherfucker who was in Hadley’s room. He’s the one who’s been keeping her company.
How I didn’t wrap my hands around his neck right there and then was a fucking miracle. But Coach’s warning rang loudly in my ear and I barge past him, hardly satisfied with the smarting of my shoulder where we connected when it should be my fists aching from teaching him a lesson about going near my girl.
Practice is brutal, although I’m not sure if that’s because I’m off my game or Coach has stepped it up a level. I’m not exactly with it, even I know that I’m not in top form.
“What?” I bark at Hayden as he stands there with his arms crossed in front of him. Aaron quickly joins him.
“Can you handle tonight?” Aaron asks.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I hiss.
“You’re a fucking mess, Jagger. How Coach hasn’t benched you, fuck only knows. You’re a fucking liability.”
I take a step forward, my muscles tense, ready to fight. There might be two of them, but it wouldn't be the first time I’ve started something where the odds weren’t in my favor.
“Ladies, get your asses ready for the bus. We have a hard night ahead of us,” Coach barks when he finds the three of us ready to go at it.
Aaron backs down almost immediately, but Hayden holds his ground.
“I’m fucking watching you,” I grate out.
“Me?” he asks with a laugh. “That’s fucking rich. You’re the one who needs to watch their back.”
A smile curls at my lips. He has no idea who he’s dealing with here. I could snap him in two before he even saw it coming.
“Fuck. Off.”
He looks me up and down, his lip curling in disgust, but he does take a step back.
The journey is fucking torturous. Everyone around me seems excited, whereas all I can think about is the fact that I’m sober, which means the memories come thick and fast. And it’s not just of that night now. All sorts of memories hit me, from that first night Hadley found me covered in Charlie’s blood, to our ‘date’ on the beach where I opened up for the first time in my life and, for a very short time, let her in.
Pain lances through my chest as I remember that night. The way she looked down at me, the passion, the hunger, the awe, the… love that poured from her eyes.
I rub at my chest. The pain gets worse with every day that passes.
Glancing back at the minivan behind us that’s filled with our squad, I wonder if she’s back there as miserable as I am right now.
I can’t imagine she’d be anything but. Hadley hates those girls on a normal day, let alone now. I rest my head back and close my eyes, but I don’t sleep.
I can’t.
The game is tough, and, in the final minutes, we lose. I watch as the home team and their crowd cheer and celebrate their last second win, but all I can do is stand and stare at our disheartened cheer squad. A squad that is minus Hadley.
Why didn’t she come? Is it because of me?
My mind takes me back to her door room the day we found her missing. “She might be pregnant.” Remi’s words slam into me like a truck.