“Where is she?!” The door slams open and in walks a storm cloud of a man in the shape of none other than Ryan Santiago-Jones and usually I’d be happy as hell to see myfuturebrother in law, but him walking in making evenmorenoise has my blood pressure rising.
“Aye. Calm that shit down, Cleo just went to sleep and doesn’t need to be woken back up because you can’t enter a house without being loud as fuck,”I say through gritted teeth, eyeing her brother up and down as he rolls his eyes at me, entering further into the apartment like a raging bull.
“I can come in here however the fuck I want. My sister is hurt!” He pushes me, and the action has me stumbling a bit due to his athletic nature but I could givethreefucks about that.
“And you will be too if you don’t shut the fuck up! Let her rest or so help me God, I’ll–”
“Or you’ll what?” He asks, stepping up to me as if ready to battle and I ain’t a bitch so I take a step closer.
“I’ll beat the dog shit out of–”
“ENOUGH!”
To my surprise, it’s Denver breaking us up; my cousin forces herself in between us and faces Ryan. Ryan visibly calms down as his eyes wander over Denver’s serious expression. He nods at her and the two seem to communicate without speaking because he pats me on the shoulder, takes Denver’s hand and walks the two of them out the front door.
“What the fuck…” a person, presumably Jace, mumbles from behind me as I stalk back towards my seat on the couch.
“That was hot as fuck, now wrestle with your shirts off…Pants optional.” Georgia chuckles as she looks between me and the door where Ryan had just exited.
I can’t help the small laugh that escapes my mouth just as Jace, the guys, and Sienna’s conversation filter back into my mind.
“Once we track down the IP address and user info, I think it’ll be a piece of cake to sue the poster,” Sienna suggests as she gathers all of the plates and bowls the guys had.
Derek and Braxton each offer to help her with cleaning up, Sienna pauses looking them both over.
"Braxton, you can help me. Put these in the sink please?"
Derek’s face is stone cold and impassive like the true goalie he is as he stands, grabbing his own keys.
“I need to get Deli from my mom’s place, I can drop you three back off if you want,” He offers to Alec, Jace, and Charlie. Jace waves off the offer as the other two rise to their feet.
“Tell Cleo we’re all on her side. The whole team, I mean. She’s a sweet girl and no one deserves to go through what she’s going through.” Charlie frowns, patting my shoulder as he follows the others out.
It’s only when the front door closes that Denver and Ryan re-enter the house and Braxton stumbles out of the kitchen area.
“Did he just leave me?” Brax asks with a baffled chuckle as he looks around for an answer. When he realizes there won’t be one, he chases after the guys leaving just the six of us in the living room.
We sit in silence for what feels like forever as the weight of our reality settles onto our shoulders. The one thing that Cleo had wanted to prevent the most is happening and all we can do is hope and pray our plan to get this fixed, works.
“We play against Brighton in two weeks,” Jace grumbles, rolling around a toy fidget spinner, his usual form of stress relief, in his left hand.
I nod, my eyes trained ahead on the photo of Cleo and the girls hanging above their TV. They’re all posing inside of The Sugar Hole, holding donuts, beaming with joy and it hurts to know that those smiles will never be the same because of someone else’s ruthlessness.
I could just strangle him for eventhinkingof her in such an intimate way, let alone actually doing the act with her.
Fuck–
“Wilder. Dude, pay atten–”
Without thought, I speak, eyeing each person in the room, alerting them of all of my seriousness. “I’m going to make that piece of Brooklyn trash wish he was dead.”
“Not if I kill him first.”
forty-four
Cleo
It’s been three dayssince my world turned upside down, 72 hours since I’ve had a donut, and 4,320 minutes since I’ve left my bed.
