Page 54 of Ruse
“Nowhere!” I mumble under my breath, shifting my gaze back to the cup in my hand. The fucking asshole knows exactly what he’s doing and how my friends will respond.
Olly decides now of all times to snap out of his daze and jump into the conversation. “No really P, what happened last night? You said you would answer all our questions today.”
“Yeah, P, what were you up to?” Maverick adds, mocking the whole situation.
“Out,” I shout at him, pointing to the front door, but the bastard laughs it off.
He stands up straight and leans toward me, whispering into my ear. “Tonight, we’ll continue where we left off. This isn’t over. I haven’t had nearly enough.”
My face pales at his forwardness, and I feel like slithering down to the ground in embarrassment of what he’s implied. Fucking asshole.
“Okay what the hell was that all about P?” Donovan shouts the moment Maverick retreats upstairs with his coffee in one hand, a Bloody Mary in the other, and my dignity neatly tucked into his back pocket.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I groan, side stepping her and heading toward the glass sliding door leading onto the backyard deck. “Is the food here yet?”
Dee runs behind me to catch up, her heels clicking against the marble floor. “Oh, no you don’t Phoenix.” Before I can reach the handle to slide the door open, she blocks my path, slamming her back against the glass.
“Shit Donavan, you’re going to break the damn thing,” I cry out, but it doesn’t seem to faze her. No, my bestie is on a mission. Remember when I said she was the most inquisitive soul I’d ever met. Add persistence to that resume too.
I roll my eyes and give in to her badgering knowing she won’t stop until she gets what she wants. “Nothing happened okay. I was drunk, ran into him down at the beach on my way out, saw something incredibly unpleasant, and I came home.”
Dee places her hands on her hips and skeptically raises a brow. “Try again.”
“Fine, he walked me, more like followed me home, and when I was struggling to unlock the door of my room, he helped me. The problem is when I stepped in, I was confused, asking him why everything inside was rearranged.” Dee laughs hysterically while Olly comes to join us, bewildered by the story, nearly dropping the tray of drinks in his hands.
“It’s not funny Donovan. I walked intohisbedroom, not mine. Can you imagine how humiliated I felt, all while he laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world.”
She nods her head still blatantly laughing at the turn of events. “Oh, if only I’d been there.”
Yeah, if only, then maybe she would have stopped me from indulging in my stepbrother, especially after what I caught him doing with Tate not twenty minutes prior.
I grab a champagne flute from Oliver’s tray and gulp it down in one drink, while Donovan slides open the door and follows me out.
“It was awfully nice of Maverick to tend to your drunk ass,” she says, as we walk over to the lounge area under the deck patio. “Are you sure that’s all that happened?”
I set my empty flute down and refill it with the ice cold Veuve Clicquot. “Of course, I’m sure, Dee. What are you insinuating?”
“Nothing, just be careful P. He may be as hot as they come, but he’s got a rep.”
A rep I’m aware of. Nobody here is more informed about my stepbrother’s notoriety. The rumors floating around about his violent and aggressive tendencies, not to mention his father’s infamous acquaintances and illegal extracurriculars, are more than rumors. They’re hard cold facts about the life he led before returning to Malibu Cove. A life I know very little about. But maybe that’s for the best.
“Maverick sees me as an annoying, spoiled brat. Besides, he's always calling me sis. We’re practically family, you have nothing to worry about.”
Her tone suddenly turns serious, as does the look that washes over her face. “I wish I could get you to see the way he looks at you P. Or even the way the tension in the room builds the moment the two of you are within fifty feet of each other. It's palpitating, heated, and almost suffocating. If you saw that, then maybe you’d realize Maverick Carter does not, in any way, shape, or form, see you as his sister.”
ChapterEighteen
MAVERICK
“So, Maverick, I hear you were caught down by the beach with your tongue down Tatum Mortimer’s throat,” Ryan states more than asks, as he approaches the table the “Cool Kids of MC High” occupy, underneath the sycamore tree in the main senior courtyard.
He places a tray of food, packed with two cheeseburgers, crinkle-cut chili cheese fries, and a tray of buffalo hot wings drenched in ranch, on the table in front of him. It never ceases to surprise me the amount of food a high school football player consumes during preseason. Of course, instead of your typical gross cafeteria food, everything in the Malibu Cove Dining Hall comes directly from the five-star restaurants in the area, or you get to leave the campus for lunch, but I rarely see the guys do that.
“Or was something else caught down hers?” Cole jokes as he joins us, high-fiving Ryan before he sets an equally full tray of food in front of him. I ignore the two of them, not because they annoy me, but because I have no interest nor intention of answering either of their questions, again. Instead, I blow out a ring of smoke toward them and take another hit of the neatly rolled up joint I lit up, choosing to skip the lunch line.
“I’ll say exactly what I said to you guys during first period earlier when you asked me. Nothing happened. I was interrupted, more like distracted, before I made a mistake I'd surely spend the rest of my life paying for.”
Brooklyn joins the three of us, and I can’t help noticing the tray of food, like the full one in Fitz’s hand beside him, is missing. The two co-captains find their seat on the bench across from me, easily joining in on our conversation. “Oh yeah, and what distracted you?” Brooklyn asks.
