I wasn’t getting a good feeling here. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sabrina glanced my way, saying quickly and almost rushed, “She’s from Fallen Crest.”

  Fuck.

  Miller went still before turning my way. He was real even-keel when he said, “She came in with a friend of mine. Zeke Allen–”

  Jesus.

  I’d heard enough.

  I was up from the table with my phone in the next half second. I was dialing and the line was ringing by the time I got outside.

  I hoped she wasn’t going to ghost me tonight. I hadn’t called all week. She hadn’t called either, so I was hoping that was the extent of it, but me actually calling–fucking pick up, Mara.

  “Hello?”

  She sounded tired.

  “I’m at Pete’s. You got at least one Fallen Crest friend here and judging by the look of her and Miller, I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy shows up–”

  “Who?”

  “Kit Carlson. Hanging with Burford, a Kappa girl. Miller’s here, talked about a guy named Zeke Allen.”

  She was quiet before she swore, low and under her breath. “They’re idiots who think they’re friends.” She swore again. “I’m coming.”

  “You need a ride?”

  “No.” But she hesitated before saying that. That told me she somewhat wanted me to come and get her. That said a lot. A whole week. We’d not had sex in a whole week.

  “Hey. Uh.”

  I frowned, hearing the change in her tone. Self-conscious.

  “What?”

  “Is Zeke alone?”

  I cursed but answered. “He ain’t even here, yet. There someone you’re expecting with Allen?”

  “God, I hope not. I’ll be there in a second.”

  “Mara.”

  “What?”

  “Do you need backup?”

  She swore a third time. “Funny thing is, both of them are supposed to be my friends. But I have no idea how to answer your question because the sad fact is, I might need support.”

  We ended the call, but I lingered, leaning against the bricked wall.

  Did not like how the one girl was looking at me, and really didn’t like how Miller looked away when I called the ‘friend’ out. He knew. That said everything.

  The door opened. Barclay and Atwater came out at the same time a Jeep pulled up. There were shouts, laughs, some curses. A guy who thought he was something special had just pulled into Pete’s parking lot.

  The driver was muscular. Built, probably five eleven. Blond hair. There were a few other guys with him, but one drew the attention. Blaise DeVroe. I would’ve recognized him no matter what because his face was splashed over the NCAA soccer news every other day. I did not like how he moved forward. Lean. Muscled. With intention. His eyes were intelligent. As their friends went inside without a second thought, he drew up short.

  His gaze was on me.

  I saw the spark of recognition.

  He knew who I was. He also knew I was fucking his ex.

  I gave a small nod before straightening from the wall. “Know you.”

  Barclay and Atwater shared an uneasy look.

  I played hockey. He played soccer. One of those sports leaned heavily on the violence whereas the other didn’t.

  He raised his chin up. “Not here for you.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  He gestured inside. “You’ve not met Zeke yet. I have a dumbass friend.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

  “Look, I have no problem throwing down if that’s the situation here.”

  “Is it the situation?” I was facing him square because I also had no problem throwing down. He was registering that, and he was doing it with some surprise.

  He nodded, slightly, edging back a step. “Not here for that reason.”

  “Also aware of that.”

  His eyes flared again.

  The subtext was that he just told me he wasn’t here to get back into Mara’s pants, or to keep someone from not getting in there. I let him know that I was aware. That’s what surprised him.

  “Not sure of our problem here.” His head cocked to the side, a glimmer of a frown there.

  “Our problem is that you’re here. I don’t want you here.”

  I was mostly an easy-going guy. Mostly. Here was the other side of me. Get me on the ice, and I was a dick of epic proportions. This guy, he was being introduced to the hockey side of me. Mara was already messed up because of her mom, because of me, and now an ex here? It wouldn’t help.

  A car pulled into the lot, parking in a spot near us.

  A second later, Mara was hurrying for the door, but drew up short seeing our situation. She stuffed her hands in her pockets. “Seriously, Blaise?”

  He stepped back, his gaze skirting from her to me and back again. He held his hands up. “Not here for you.”

  She moved so she was standing directly between us, her back to me. Her tone was cold. “I told you that I’m not going to hurt your sister.”

  His gaze skirted from her to me. “I believe you. Or I believed your message. Again, that’s not why I’m here.” He kept looking at me, a new assessing look coming over him.

  That surprise was still there. He was reassessing me.

  “Why are you here then?” Mara asked.

  His hands lowered, and a grin appeared. “You do know Zeke, right? You were the one who called me when he was arrested in Cain. Can you imagine the shit he’ll get into here? End of the day, somehow his jeep will get confiscated and I’m not driving three hours to pick his ass up from jail. I’m here to keep him out of trouble and also to see my sister. That’s it. Season is over, and I thought why not a road trip?”

  She didn’t answer right away.

  Mara was one of the strongest girls I knew. She could stand alone. I was here anyways, and she knew it. This guy knew it too, and he seemed somewhat transfixed by the undercurrents going on.

  Then the door opened. The music from inside blew loud before the door slammed shut again, quieting it.

  The muted silence didn’t last long.

  The driver from the jeep came out, frowning, but that changed the second his eyes fell on Mara. “Daniels!” He took three steps and swooped her up in his arms.

  “Agh! Zeke! Put me down.”

  He went in a circle, his arm clamped around her legs over his shoulder. “Not on your life. Hell yeah, Daniels! Your roommate inside is being all shady, not letting us know where you live. Came out to collect my boy, was going to have him GPS your phone so we could roust you up for some fun tonight, but no need. You’re already here!” He was still circling, going a little faster each time.

  She pounded on his back. “Put me down.”

  He kept laughing, until a growl erupted from me.

  He stopped, glancing back and did a double take. “Oh, shit. It’s the guy you’re banging.”

  That earned a second growl from me.

  He put Daniels down, a wide smile on his face, and held his hand out. “Hey, man, hey! I’m a huge fan. For real, I am. My frat does fantasy hockey, and I snatched you up as soon as you joined the team. Dude. You’ve made me so much money. You have no idea.”

  This guy was…interesting.

  Mara grinned at me, relaxing a little. “If it helps, I think of him as Cain’s equivalent to our Gavin Miller.”

  I cast her a sideways look. “That doesn’t help.”

  She shrugged, sidling more to the side.

  I shook the guy’s hand and his grin widened. “Awesome.”

  Blaise DeVroe moved up. “You should know that Zeke’s got a tendency to be borderline stalker when he zeroes in on an idol.”

  Atwater stifled a snort.

  Zeke didn’t seem to care, gesturing to his friend. “Yeah. Mason Kade got me through junior high and high school. The guy’s a fucking legend. You follow the NFL? Know who Kade is? I keep hearing rumors that he’s going to transfer out, but I don’t believe it. Not for a bit. Nah, man. He won’t go until his last year or two playing. Free agent, and his team will fuck up. They’ll let him go. What a bunch of dumbasses, if you ask me.”

  Mara’s eyebrows rose. “Zeke.”

  “What?” He cast her a frown but shrugged. “I’m a lot of things, but I’m not ashamed of my fanboy idols. Mason Kade is legit. He kept me on the straight and narrow until your ass came back to town.” He slapped his friend’s chest with the back of his hand.

  “Straight and narrow? You were a douchebag bully until your dad handed you your ass this last summer.”

  Zeke shot his friend a disgruntled frown. “Let’s not talk about that. I’m trying to block that out.”

  Blaise coughed, his head lowering. “Taz told me you were a bitch to her. What’s that about?”

  Mara’s head jerked backwards. She looked like she’d been slapped.

  Zeke’s eyes closed. His head folded down. “You really need to work on your segue abilities.”

  Mara was blinking a few times, but she edged back. “I apologized. That’s between me and her.”

  “Taz?” Barclay spoke up.

  DeVroe nodded. “My sister.” He gestured to Mara.

  “Oh yeah! Race Ryerson’s girlfriend. She’s super nice. That’s your sister?”

  “Yeah.” He said the word slowly, and his voice dropped down, to a whole more warning level.

  Barclay caught on, lifting his hand and moving back a step himself. “Ryerson’s a friend of the team.”

  I went back to watching Mara, whose gaze was downcast, but she edged closer to me another step. And she did it again. At the same time, her gaze was skirting to the door… Like she didn’t want to go in there.

  Or there was someone in there she didn’t want to see.

  Back to me.

  An inch to me.

  To the door.

  She paused but repeated until I’d had enough.

  “Okay.” I had my keys, everything on me. I went to her front and bent over. Fitting my shoulder to her stomach, I straightened with Mara slung over me.

  She gasped. “Cruz!”

  “Right on!”

  I ignored the Zeke Allen guy and said to Barclay, “I’ll be at Mara’s. Can you get a ride back?”

  “Oh yeah! I can get a ride back. Don’t forget we got a game tomorrow.”

  I lifted a hand up in a wave.

  29

  MARA

  “Who were you hoping to avoid back there?”

  After Cruz deposited me in his truck, we left the lot, but I hadn’t said a word. Neither had he. He gave me four blocks.

  I appreciated those four blocks.

  I let out a sigh and sat up a little bit more in my seat, stuffing my hands into my sweatshirt. I just now noticed it was his. I’d pulled it on as soon as I got home, had been wearing it when I was at my place, and I forgot to switch it out.

  “My friend Kit was inside.”

  “You weren’t worried about the guys?”

  I shook my head. “They’re fine or I think they’ll be fine, but they know something about my mom that I don’t want out.”

  “They’ve met her, huh?”

  I gave him a faint grin. “No. You’re the only one who’s met her, and maybe I’m being dumb. I mean… I don’t know. The drama from that night is only half of a percentage of what she’s been all my life.”

  God.

  My insides were turned inside and out, and my outsides were the opposite. One visit from her twisted me all the way up. “I’m so messed up. I–everything made sense in high school. Get through it. You know? No one knew about her back then. I always knew, even when I was little, that my friends couldn’t come over. We lived in town so I could walk.”

  “How’d you keep her away from your school?”

  Gah. A sad laugh ripped from me.

  He really did understand. So many would have no comprehension.

  “The school had her banned from their property. Things were different in elementary school. She’d come in, and you know, your classmates don’t see that stuff. We’re just focused on recess or hanging out at the cute guy’s desk, stuff like that, but my mom kept showing up to the administration office. I don’t even know what all she did, but they banned her from their properties. I think she tried taking them to court.”

  “CPS get called on you when they did that?”

  “She always kept her shit together when they came. They kept sending the same worker, and my mom had her snowed. But the school doing that, helped me. I told my friends that there was always fighting and drama at my house, which wasn’t really a lie. I had a few friends who got peeved at me because I never let them come over, but guys like Zeke helped. He overheard a couple of our friends giving me shit, and he butted in, giving them shit instead. It happened a few times until they shut up.”

  “You’re not worried about him or your ex?”

  I shrugged. “Not anymore. They won’t say anything about my mom, but Kit…” A sick feeling started in my gut. “My mom tried to kill herself.”

  Cruz let out a soft curse and pulled the truck over.

  He kept the engine running but turned to me. “I’m really sorry.”

  A lump was in my throat, and I started to shrug that off, but I couldn’t. I was crumbling, and fuck! I closed my eyes, trying to numb this, but it wasn’t coming. Not this time.

  I couldn’t stop whatever storm was coming over me.

  “I was supposed to get a semester off, but to do that, we lied to my mom. She was told I was going to school in Oregon. Then I got the call from a nurse in January about my mom and what she did. I took off. Didn’t think about it. The hospital was back home so it’s a three-hour drive. I got there and found out that–the nurse and my dad think she did it to find out how far away I actually go to college. The cuts weren’t severe, and she got a nurse who knew me to call me. Otherwise there’s an order on her file not to contact her daughter.

  “A part of me was pissed that’s what they’re saying. An attempt is an attempt, but the other part of me was just as mad because it could be true. I don’t know. I’ve asked my mom, but she won’t answer that question. I, just, I want to know. I don’t know why, but I do. I can’t stop not knowing. The diagnosis she has, they say they’re not usually violent or suicidal. That’s not true with her. She’s been violent in the past. She defied their diagnosis then, who’s to say she wouldn’t do that now?”

  It was all coming out.

  All of it.

  Every fucking sad and sordid fact.

  I never said all of this to anyone.

  “She manipulated the nurse. Literally every fucking thing she does is manipulation, but that nurse who called me was also the one who let it out. Fallen Crest isn’t that big. Gossip spreads fast, and now everyone back home knows about her. My old friends weren’t the greatest people, and one of them is here. Kit’s a bitch, but she helped me out with my thing with Burford so she’s here expecting me to do what? Come in and kiss her ring? I have to ask her not to say anything and… I never wanted to owe anyone anything. Ever. Learned that when I was six, not to owe anyone. And now you know, and you’re hearing me, and you’ve met her. I feel like my world is imploding and I don’t even know why.”

  Panic. Fear. Anger. All of it was lit up in me. I couldn’t hide.

  Old Mara would be a bitch. Push him away. Slam the walls down. Protect myself, protect myself, protect myself. That’s what it was all about. Keep everything separate, but nothing was separate anymore. And gah. I couldn’t bring myself to cut this tie off to him.

  I could push everyone else away. But not him. Not Cruz.

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I have no idea.” I looked over, seeing his face in shadow and for some reason that tugged at my heartstrings. He wasn’t freaking out. He wasn’t making this about him. He was sitting here and being present with me. He was letting me talk. “I don’t want to go back. I don’t have the energy to pull a wall around me, but going back to my place or your place and having sex feels like hiding.” A hard laugh ripped from me. “Can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I don’t want to hide either.”

  “You eat?”

  “What?”

  He reached for the gear shift. “Did you eat yet?”

  “No.”

  “We’re getting pizza and heading back to my house. Pizza and a movie. We’re not going back, but also not hiding either.”

  I considered it, and he was right. It was a perfect option.

  That’s when I said it. “Thank you for the apartment.”

  He glanced my way, held my gaze, and gave me a slight nod.

  That was it. That was perfect.

  We were a third of the way into the movie, the pizza half eaten in the box on the coffee table in front of us when the guys came home. They were loud, and as soon as the door opened, we saw why. Gavin and Zeke had come with them.

  So had Miles. “Roomie!”

  He opened his arms wide, his coat falling off from the motion. He left it where it fell. He half flung himself toward me but must’ve thought differently because instead of landing on me, he folded in on himself and ended up on the floor right in front of where I was sitting. Cruz and I both had our feet stretched out on the coffee table, the pizza box moved aside, and each of us had our own individual blankets. “Oooh, pizza!”

  Gavin scooped up the box, grabbing a piece and handing it over to Zeke, who was coming in right behind him.

  “How are you doing tonight, roommate?” Miles had turned his face toward me, blinking his eyes so many times that it was obvious he was two seconds away from passing out.

  I reached forward, half shoving his shoulder backwards. “Fine. Go pass out in a room somewhere.”

  “Hmmm.” It was meant as a protest. It came out like he was eating in his sleep.

  Gavin dropped the box, taking us in before ending on Miles. “Come on, Gaynor.” He went over and half-picked him up by grabbing his arm and yanking him upright.

  “Hey…”

  He took him to the hallway as Labrowski yelled from the kitchen, “Do we have more pizza?”

  AJ wandered in, munching on the last piece from our box. He sank down in one of the lounge chairs and smiled drunkenly at us. “Hey you two. How’s it going? Whatcha watching?”