Page 69 of Wicked Minds
I shake my head, forgetting that she can’t see me. “Hate is the farthest thing I feel for you.” I sag further into the wood as the alcohol courses through my system. “You’ve had all of my attention from the moment you stepped into my house all those years ago. And I wasn’t the only one who noticed you. I had to declare you off limits to the guys on the team because they’d keep saying they were going to ask you out, and I couldn’t fucking handle it.” I sigh wearily. “You’ve always been mine, even if I could never have you.”
Turning, I press my forehead against the door, the weight on my eyes becoming too much as they drift closed, and I release a long exhale. “Ican’thate you, even when I want to. Even when I know I should. For a while there, I’d convinced myself I did, but all it took was one look at you on that stage…” My teeth grind, my pants growing tight. “And the last thing I felt for you was hate.”
The world grows black and silent around me. Actually, I think I pass out for a bit, only startling back into consciousness at the sound of Riley’s soft, tired voice. “Go home, Grayson.”
I nod, my forehead rubbing against the rough wood of her door, but I can’t seem to feel my feet, so I continue to sit there slumped on the worn carpet outside her apartment.
I’m not sure how much time passes. I’m pretty sure I doze some more, but finally, a voice in the back of my head nags at me that I can’t spend the night sleeping out here, and I stumble to my feet, somehow managing to make it down the treacherous stairs without breaking my neck and stagger into the frigid night.
Making the ten-minute walk to my house seems to take a lifetime. Probably doesn’t help that I keep forgetting where I’msupposed to be going and can’t seem to remain upright unless I use a building to prop me up.
Fucking finally, home sweet home comes into sight, and I internally rejoice. “Mwahaha, I win this time,” I sneer at the door after spending a good five minutes attempting to get my key into the lock before slamming the door behind me and lumbering up the stairs, all the while cursing them out. Stairs are the worst invention ever. We should get an elevator.Mental note to self: contact someone about installing an elevator in the house.
I don’t think I run into either Royce or Logan as I make my way to my bedroom, but honestly, my vision is so tunneled and blurry at this point that I dunno if I’d recognize them even if I did.
As the darkness sweeps in and consumes me, I fall face-first onto my bed and pass out fully clothed.
I wake in the morning to sunlight stabbing me in the eyes. It tastes like something died in my mouth, and I wrack my brain trying to put together the pieces of last night. I remember getting home from visiting Dad. Waiting like a sad-sack for Logan and Royce to get home… only for them to smell ofher.A fresh wave of hostility courses through me as I remember storming off to my room and downing the rest of the bottle of whiskey. I’m guessing I passed out at some point after that.
Scrubbing a hand down my face, I groan into my palm. Alcohol had sounded like a good idea last night, but this morning, my problems are as stark as the morning light currently blinding me.
Turning my face away from the window, I decide my problems can wait another couple of hours while I try to sleep off this hangover, except my phone chooses that moment to ring, the obnoxious noise like the slamming of cymbals against my ears.
Groaning, I roll over and reach blindly for the blaring device on my bedside table. Finding it, I squint through gritty eyes, cursing under my breath as the caller ID notifies me that it’s my father calling.Ugh, what can he want? I only spoke to him yesterday.
My lips purse as I glare at the phone, undecided whether to answer. I’d wanted to talk to Royce and Logan before having to speak to my dad again, but after last night, I realize now that I’m alone in this. Just like I have been in everything else in my life.
With a bone-weary sigh, I collapse back on the bed and accept his call. Perhaps it’s better this way. Better to ignore the likely paranoid ramblings of an Alzheimer’s patient and the manipulative tactics of a liar. Better to ignore the uneasiness in my gut. The rapid uptick of my heart inherpresence.
Better to shut down everything and remind myself that I can only rely on myself. I don’t need to fall down the rabbit hole, questioning my entire childhood, my entireexistence. I don’t need to depend on friends. And I sure as fuck don’t need to be thinking ofher.
22
RILEY
My eyes are gritty when I wake the next morning—thanks in part to Grayson for waking me in the middle of the night with his drunken breakdown. What was he even thinking coming here in the middle of the night and spouting shit about how he doesn’t hate me and I’ve always been his?Ugh, I can’t even with him.I scrub a hand down my face as I roll onto my back.
However, even without his disturbance, my sleep was broken. I tossed and turned, replaying my conversation with Royce and Logan last night. Seeing Logan’s face in my dreams the moment he put the pieces together.
Not yet ready to get out of bed, I stare up at my ceiling as I process the knowledge that Logan now knows everything. Every dark secret I’ve tried to keep hidden these last four years.
Beyond the initial shock, he seemed to take the news in stride. He didn’t pull away or treat me differently, but I worry that today will be different. Now that he’s had time to sleep on it, he’ll realize what a colossal disaster I am and that I’m more trouble than I’m worth. I mean, most twenty-two-year-olds aren’t interested in pursuing single mothers. We’re a complex package. Anyone who is with me will never have all of my focus.Never be the pinnacle of my life, because Aurora already has that position, and even when she’s in her forties and has her own family, she willstillbe the most important person in my life.
And because I’m crazy, I worry that if Logan hasn’t pulled away… that if he behaves the same way today as he did last week, he hasn’t considered that. Hasn’t realized the significance of dating someone with a child.
I’ve given myself a headache stressing over the entire thing when I finally force myself out of bed to get ready for the day, and by the time I’m heading out the door, I can’t figure out if he’ll be waiting for me outside or not. If Iwanthim to be waiting for me.
I can’t stop myself from scanning the street for his car the second I step onto the sidewalk, my heart plummeting through my chest and into my stomach when I find the street empty.
Well, I guess that’s that then.
“I know it’s a Monday, but the week can’t be off to that horrible of a start already, can it?”
At the sound of his voice, I spin around, finding none other than Logan Astor leaning against the side of my building, one foot kicked up against the wall, and a recyclable tray containing two coffees in his hand.
“I… What are you… Where is your car?” I finally settle on, deciding that’s the question that will make me look the least unstable.
Pushing off the wall, he prowls toward me. “Since it’s a nice day, I was hoping we could walk to campus together.” He looks so hopeful, and the fact that he left me open to say no, even though he had already walked here, has me nodding in agreement.
