Page 82 of Play The Game

I swallow roughly and Avery sighs. “Can you not freak Lips out? She gets twitchy the second one of you are in trouble and I don’t feel like making a cross-country trip on the fly. I never pack what I need under those sorts of pressures.”

I try to focus in my classes, but my mind keeps wandering away. I’m so far ahead it doesn’t matter, but I know it freaks Harley out when I space out. He keeps touching me, just little brushes of his fingers on mine, to try to pull me back into the real world, but nothing works. Those three words keep circulating in my head: pine fucking box.

I decide it’s an ice cream for dinner sort of day and Avery brews me a perfect cup of coffee, perching on the couch with me while she texts Atticus. Their flirting has been taken to the next level, constant and consuming. The little smiles and giggles she gives her phone make me so freaking happy but just as terrified.

What if he’s a dick? Or a rapist too? What if he hates me and I have to pretend to like him? Ugh. When I say this to Avery, she laughs at me.

“Don’t be stupid, Lips. He has no choice but to love you. You’re nonnegotiable.”

I sip my coffee with a little smile as Ash stomps through the door and gives me a look that spells fucking trouble.

“What now?” I groan, and he grabs the remote, flicking through the channels until he lands on a news station.

There’s Blaise standing outside a hospital in New York with his dad at a press conference. He looks fucking miserable and the smug satisfaction on his dad’s face makes my jaw hurt from clenching so fucking hard.

“My son was born in the early hours of this morning. He’s healthy and my wife is now resting in the capable hands of the hospital staff.”

Even his voice pisses me off. I cut a look to Ash and he murmurs, “Wait, he’s about to sign his own fucking death warrant.”

My eyes snap back to the screen.

“Yes, we’ve made the decision to remove Blaise from the family business and trust. He is old enough now that he can make his own decisions on these matters. He has a… flourishing career ahead of him in the music industry and the Kora board has moved to sever all ties to him.”

Sever all ties to him?

This dickhead has just publicly announced he’s disowning his fucking kid?

“I’m going to gut that motherfucker,” I snap, and Ash nods at me.

“Only if you get to him first.”

Blaise texts to say he has business meetings all week with his agent about the new album he’s been putting off releasing. I tell him he has seven days to get his ass home before Ash and I charter a flight to come drag him back ourselves. He sends me a bunch of hearts and laughing emojis.

I’m not joking. Ash texts him the same thing and I think he finally gets that we’re dead fucking serious. Five days later, while I’m alone in my room after classes, a little lost without our tutoring sessions, my door opens and Blaise stumbles in, drunk off his ass. I groan under my breath as I move straighten to him.

“I think I need to lie down, Star. Just give me a minute. I need—I need a minute,” he slurs, and I get him over to my bed.

A man walks in behind him, but I ignore him as I help Blaise strip down to his boxers then tuck him into my bed. I rummage around in the kitchen until I can find a bucket to leave on the floor for him. I pray he doesn’t need it.

The man is so quiet I almost forget he’s there until he says in a lecherous tone, “So you’re the pussy he’s tied himself to then? I was hoping it would be the little dark-haired one, the icy bitch. She would be fun to have on tour.”

My spine snaps straight, and I look over at the fucking perverted dickhead. “Excuse me?”

He smirks at me, stepping toward me with a swagger like he thinks I’m into forty-year-old guys with thinning hair and dopey, drugged-up eyes.

“I heard you like to be passed around. I would’ve preferred the other pussy, but I’ll take yours.”

I look down at Blaise but he’s passed out. I’m guessing this is his agent, David Fyre. I don’t want to fuck up his career by killing the dickhead, but I’m never going to accept being spoken to like this. I also know for a fact Blaise would lose his fucking mind if he was sober enough to hear it.

I palm my knife. “I’m assuming you’re the agent. You have ten seconds to get out of this room before I remove you myself. I’m only asking once.”

The smirk on his disgusting face only gets bigger as he takes another step forward and the gods smile on me because the sound of the door unlocking stops him in his tracks.

Ash storms in and stops when he gets a look at the expression on my face and my hand in my pocket. His eyes cut to the agent and his lip curls.

“Fyre. You should leave,” he says, cold and no-nonsense.

The fucker tips his head at him like they’re such good friends and leaves with a little sleazy wave in my direction. Ash opens his mouth and I cut him the fuck off.