Broken and Screwed

  “It’s no big deal.”

  “No big deal? It’s a huge deal. That decides it. Shoo. Go pack a bag for the weekend. We’re all going to Vegas.”

  I folded my arms over my chest and dug my heels in. “I’m fine being alone.”

  She snorted again.

  “I am. I have a whole day planned tomorrow.”

  “What? Eating? Maybe sleeping? Whoop de doo, Miss-Party-Girl-That-You-Used-To-Be.”

  She wasn’t far off, but I puffed my chest out and ignored the painful reminder of my old self. “No, I was going to watch Jesse’s game tomorrow. It’s being televised.”

  “Well, guess what?” Her eyes gleamed at me with purpose.

  I was suddenly nervous.

  “You can actually go to his game. They play in Vegas, and Marissa’s already got tickets for us. She said Cord owed her and he’s on the team, so what’s your next argument with that?”

  She’d beaten me. Or the idea of seeing Jesse again had done the trick. I swallowed over a knot from anticipation and tried to tell myself that I was going to pack a bag because Angie had won this argument. Then I shook my head and my heart picked up its pace. I couldn’t lie to myself. I was going to see Jesse. The idea had my hands sweating already.

  “Fine.” But I said it slowly and oh-so-reluctantly.

  She smirked. “And don’t even try to pretend that you’re not excited about seeing your guy again. We all know differently.”

  I froze. What did she know?

  Then she admitted, “I’m a little excited to see him play. He’s our hometown celebrity. Maybe we should ask for his autograph.”

  Justin frowned. “I don’t like that idea.”

  Angie laughed before she draped herself over him and fluttered her eyelashes at him. Then she pressed a kiss to his cheek and hugged tight. “Oh, come on. I love you, but Jesse Hunt is gorgeous.”

  A small grin escaped his frown. “I have a little bit of a man crush on him. I’m man enough to admit that.”

  As I went up to my room, I couldn’t hold back my smile. I was excited. I wasn’t even going to try and stuff it down. It was the first time in a long time I’d felt that emotion. When I checked my cell phone, I got even more excited. It was a text message from Jesse, but then I read it.

  ‘U in Vegas? Your folks are here, said they stopped in for a few days before some trip? U here? Call me.’

  I plopped down on my bed.

  Everything went numb. The phone fell from my hand and I couldn’t do anything. I sat there. And I didn’t know how long I was there until Angie poked her head around the door. She had a wide smile on her face, but it vanished in a heartbeat. She pushed through the door and sat beside me. “What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t speak.

  Then she bent and lifted the phone from the floor. After she read the text message, she studied me for a moment. Her voice was so small when she asked, “You didn’t know they were going there?”

  I shook my head. I still couldn’t speak.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  Everything in me throbbed. My heart ached. My head hurt. I couldn’t get my fingers to work, but I rasped out, “What?”

  She lifted my phone. “Your parents. They upped and left you. Now they went to see Jesse and you didn’t even know. Or did you?”

  I shook my head. Why did everything hurt? It always hurt.

  She sighed. It was a soft sigh, one that spoke of so much emotion. “I’m sorry, Alex. I really am.”

  I jerked a shoulder up. What did it matter?

  Then she asked the question I’d been dreading. “How long have you and Jesse been texting?”

  My eyes closed.

  She watched me. I felt her gaze. And I shook my head. Now wasn’t the time to push that button. And she expelled a ragged breath. “Okay. I’ll leave that one alone, but I’m going to ask you later. You know I will.”

  I nodded as I bit my lip. Even that slight bit of pain was welcomed. It distracted from the other pain inside of me. I was helpless against that form.

  One of Angie’s hands caught the side of my head and she pulled me against hers in a side-ways hug. We stayed there, with her arm around my shoulder and then she said, “I’m sorry, Alex. I really am for what I can’t even imagine has happened.”

  My eyes clasped shut. The tears were there, they wanted to cascade out, but I couldn’t let them. It’d be over if I did. I’d been holding everything in so well until then. I couldn’t let it happen now. Not now.

  But my hand grasped her arm and I held on tight. I didn’t want to move away, not in this lifetime.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  My stomach was in knots the entire time in the plane, so when we landed in Vegas, I was barely able to stomach the idea of food. Angie and Justin suggested food, but I shook my head and they grabbed something on the way from a food cart. It didn’t take long to get our bags and then we were in the taxi and headed towards Marissa’s hotel. As we got closer to the Tropicana, my heart was pumping louder and louder. I couldn’t believe Angie or Justin hadn’t heard it.

  When the taxi got to the hotel and we walked into the lobby, Marissa and Eric were waiting for us. She jumped up and down, waving her hand. As she lifted her arm each time, her white dress inched down a centimeter with each wave. As we started in their direction, she grabbed Eric’s hand and dragged him towards us. We were met halfway. Marissa kept bouncing up and down, hugging each of us. When all of us had been greeted, she repeated the process and repeated it again.

  “You’re here! You’re here.” Marissa clapped. “Yay, yay!”

  Eric looked green around his mouth. He held a hand to his stomach, but tried for a smile. “Hey, guys.”

  Angie’s eyebrows went high. “And she’s drunk.”

  Justin chuckled and clapped a hand on Eric’s shoulder. “Been drinking since you got here?”

  He nodded, and gulped for breath. His cheeks swelled suddenly.

  Justin’s laugh grew in volume. He swatted him once again. “Yep, sounds like Marissa’s influence has done its job. Good job.”

  Eric jerked forward, clapped a hand over his mouth, paled, and then fled down a hallway.

  “Honey!” Marissa followed after him, with clumsier movements.

  “Hey! What about us?”

  “Oh.” She put the brakes on and skidded back. A key card was flung at us from her purse before she turned back around. “You’re all in room 5214, right next to us. You’re checked in and everything. I’ll come over in a bit.”

  “All of us?”

  A distracted wave was her response.

  Angie sighed in disgust. “I can’t believe she did that. We should’ve gotten a suite with three separate rooms. That would be less awkward then.”

  “Uh…” Justin glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “Um, honey. We’ll be fine. It’s no problem.”

  “No problem?” she seethed. “This is all Marissa’s fault. She called us at the last minute and demanded we all do this, and then she doesn’t think things through. Honey, we’re in Vegas and we can’t—”

  Then she stopped and turned to me. Horrified.

  The knots in my stomach had dropped like stones, but I swallowed my pride and shrugged. “It’s fine. I can get my own room somewhere.”

  “Oh, my God. I am so sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean—” She balled up her fists and pressed them to her forehead. “None of this is going the right way. I can’t believe I said it like that. I’m really sorry, Alex. I really am. I’m mad at Marissa, not you, never you.”

  But, I was the problem. And she knew that I knew that. A deep guilt started to settle in when Justin threw his arms around us both and pulled us tight. He squeezed us together and said in a cheerful tone, “No worries, Alex. Me and Ang can have daytime sex if you’re not around.”

  “Justin!”

  He grinned at me as he was swatted in the back of his head. “I prefer sex during the day anyway, so you’re kind of helping me
out here.”

  “Shut up, Justin.”

  But he hugged us tighter and turned both of us towards the hallway. “Come on, ladies. Let’s go find our room.”

  Angie glared at him. “I’m going to make you pay for this, you know.”

  “Yeah, but that’s another reason why having Alex around is a good idea for me. You can’t fillet my ass.”

  She opened her mouth, ready for another seething retort, but then she jerked in the air and gasped. She whirled around, red in the face and eyes, as a hand reached around to her butt. Her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish’s for a second and then the scathing look intensified. “You pinched my ass!”

  Justin hooted before he burst ahead of us down the hallway.

  “Justin!”

  He waved the card in the air. “Good luck getting into the room. I’ve got the key.”

  “AH!” And she took off after him.

  I stayed back and watched as the two chased each other down the hallway. Justin was giggling, Angie was growling, but right before she turned the corner, I saw the smile on her face as well. I sighed on the inside. They were in love. They had been for such a long time.

  I wanted that. I did, but then an old feeling inside of me triggered again.

  People didn’t find the love they had. Not really. And if they did, they were lucky, incredibly so.

  With that thought, I knew I had to get my own room. I was the fifth wheel on this trip. When I went back to the front desk, a worker told me that there were no empty rooms. I needed to have a reservation at least a few weeks in advance. After she told me all this, with a blank expression on her face, I wondered if Marissa had booked two rooms from the beginning.

  “Street girl?”

  And then I stopped wondering about it.

  Cord Tatum stood behind me with his arm around a girl’s waist. He was dressed in Grant West University gear, with athletic pants and a sweatshirt that looked like it might’ve cost over a $200. Two other guys were with him, dressed the same. The girl wore a skimpy red top and jeans that were like a second skin.

  He flashed me a grin. “Marissa’s friend, right? You bitched me out on the street by Benson’s house.”

  I gave them a wry grin. For some reason, I was uncomfortable that he remembered that. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  His gaze flicked past my shoulder to the front desk worker. “What are you doing? You getting a room?”

  “That’s cute, thinking you can get a room here.” The girl flicked her red hair over her shoulder and laughed. She trailed a hand down his arm and rested it on his chest.

  My eyes narrowed at her, but I responded to him, “My friends already got rooms, but they’re coupled up. It feels weird, you know?”

  “Ah. Got it.”

  One of the guys nudged him from behind. Cord’s eyes lit up. “Hey, we have a few empty beds with the team. You could bunk with one of us. We’d have to put you with a decent guy.”

  “Or one that’s neutered,” a buddy snickered behind him.

  My smile strained at the ends. “Uh…” But I remembered the front desk’s snippy words and my fingers let go of my bags. They dropped to the floor. “Sure.” I was desperate at that moment. But then I remembered all of his words. “Wait, you said your whole team? Your whole team is staying here?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, we have a game tomorrow. I ran into Marissa at the airport and she badgered me for tickets.” He shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I figured I owed her for what a jackass I was before.”

  I nodded. I had guessed that was how she’d gotten those tickets, but some excitement sparked in me at the idea of watching Jesse play again. It’d been too long. It’d been too long since I had felt him too.

  Cord’s eyes were thoughtful on me. “I think Hunt got his own room.”

  The same guy snickered again, “Golden Boy ain’t going to share a room, not unless he’s banging the chick.”

  Cord turned on him and sneered, “The Golden Boy was best friends with her brother.”

  His friend’s smirk vanished and his eyes widened. The girl straightened and reassessed me. I ignored both of their reactions. “I don’t want to bother Jesse. I’m sure he has other things to worry about.”

  A third guy snorted from the back. “The only thing he’s got to worry about is if he gets enough sleep.”

  Cord’s eyes grew hard. “Shut up, Kaseys. We’re damn lucky to have Hunt on our team and you know it. He’s our best damn player, so show some respect.”

  The girl had detached herself from his side and migrated over as he had turned towards his buddies. She gave me an intense look now and her voice came out husky, “So you know Jesse Hunt?”

  Cord snorted and hauled her back to him. A hand cemented her against his side. “No way, Mel. This girl is off limits.”

  Her lips stuck out in a pout. “Come on.”

  “No.”

  And then one of the guys shouted, “Hunt!”

  He was coming in from the sliding doors with a bag over his shoulder. As he looked up, a polite grin was on his face, but then Cord stepped aside and his eyes landed on me. He froze. I watched with a pounding heart as his hand tightened on his bag strap and his eyes went wide with some unnamed emotion. But then a mask came over him and he approached us. “Hey, guys.” His eyes zeroed in on me. “You’re here?”

  I swallowed over a painful knot in my throat. “Yeah.”

  He frowned. “But your folks are—”

  Cord clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, buddy. So this little beauty here is looking for a room to share. She’s here with friends, but they’re all coupled up and the front desk bitch made it clear that there aren’t any empty rooms available.”

  The worker’s mouth flattened at her mention, but shedidn’t say a word.

  Jesse’s eyes had narrowed on me. He didn’t wait a second. “Yeah, she can stay with me.”

  My heart skipped a beat and I forgot to breathe for a second.

  “Sweet. It’s all worked out. See you around, Street girl.” Cord winked at me as he led his friends to the elevator.

  Jesse waited until they had gotten into one before he touched my arm. He asked quietly, “You’re not here with your parents?”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t speak. Tears threatened to spill.

  “They’re at The Four Seasons.” He had grown so quiet. “You don’t want them to know you’re here?”

  My head wrenched from side to side. I couldn’t tell him they had left to escape me and now we were in the same city. It wouldn’t have been fair to them. So I choked out in a whisper, “They’re doing a second honeymoon thing.”

  “Who did you come with?”

  “Marissa and her boyfriend. Angie and Justin.”

  He settled back. “Got it.” His lip twitched at the corner. “Marissa’s got another boyfriend? I pity that guy.”

  “Eric Nathan.”

  He went still. “What?”

  “She’s dating Eric Nathan.”

  His jaw clenched. And then he clipped out, “Good. He’s not your problem anymore then.”

  “Jesse,” I sighed.

  “Come on.” He reached down and grabbed my bag. “I’m tired. We had an early practice and the guys are going out for something to eat, if you want to come with.”

  “You had a practice?” I checked my phone. “At six in the morning?”

  He flashed me a grin. “Yeah. And it was at five this morning,