Page 55 of Composed
“Yeah.” Saint laughs. “Don’t know your name, gotta call you something.”
She rolls her cube twice. “Riley.”
“Saint,” he says, mirroring her tone.
“Do your parents hate you too?” she asks.
His brows furrow. “What?”
“Your name.” She looks up, gaze flicking between me, Axel, and then back to Saint where she trains it past his ear. “Hendrix, Axel, Saint. Not great names for kids. I can’t imagine any of your parents liking you much.”
Axel roars with laughter. His shoulders shake and he jumps out of his chair, dives over the table, and drops to the empty cushion beside her.
His arm slides across the back. Not encroaching on her at all, but close enough to just exist in her space.
Interesting.
“My parents loved me,” he says, tapping his fingers along the leather. “They just loved Guns N’ Roses more.”
I shuffle in my seat.
My relationship with my parents is something I always kept well hidden from the guys. I didn’t want, or need, their pity.
The only one who had a hint of any tension in my home was Saint. And only because he stayed at my house sometimes when he needed a place to crash if Cole wasn't around.
He climbed into my window one night right as my dad was throwing some shitty words at my locked door.
I brushed it off to him as a bad day, and not a bad life. He never once pressed, but both know I was lying.
I force a smile on my face. “You know my life story, Riles.”
Saint watches her closely, assessing almost. He flicks his tongue over his lips and swipes a tattooed hand under his nose. He doesn’t speak of his mum to many. Or any, really. Pretty sure Cole, Theo, and I are the only ones who know the true sordid tale of his upbringing.
I expect him to wave her off, give a half-arsed story about the nature of his name. Only he surprises me. Shrugging, he says, “My mum just loved the heroin she was smoking when she had me.”
“Oh, I'm sorry,” Riley says, the cube spinning faster now. “I don’t always think before I speak.”
“Don’t even worry about it. I get it, Saint is a weird name. My mum said she saw a halo above my head one day and she just knew I was a gift from God.” Saint says, waving her off.
I catch Cole’s gaze from the corner of my eye.
He looks floored, but there’s a glimmer in those honeyed eyes. Pride, maybe, that his friend didn’t shy away from something for once.
My lips flicker. His too.
My pulse skitters.
Then, like all good moments do, the door slams open, and it’s gone as quick as it came.
Carter looms in the frame, a hand carding through his hair as he takes in the scene.
I go to stand, but forest green eyes ghost over me as if I’m invisible.
My spine locks.
Out of all of them, Carter is the one I expected to be mostly okay with me.
“Sorry I’m late,” he grumbles, pressing his back to the wall. “Shit to do.”
