Playing for Keeps (The Game #2)(39)
Author: Emma Hart

“I’m your best friend! What do you mean, you can’t tell me?”

“Exactly what it says on the tin. I can’t tell you.”

“What are you? Romeo and Juliet having a secret romance? Forever destined to be star-crossed?” She snorts, jumping back on her bed. I bite my lip, and she looks at me seriously. “Megan.”

“Um.” Is that really all I have? Freaking “um?”

“Oh my god. You’re not …?”

“Um.” Again with it! I study English every day and I can’t think of a better word than that? This is going from bad to worse.

“No. Oh God,” Lila mutters. “Oh God.”

“I have a right to remain silent, right?” I pull my knees up and release my lip, replacing it with my thumbnail. I chew on it for a moment as she stares at me in shock. “Like in a police interrogation? I don’t have to answer without a lawyer.”

“You are! You’re babbling. You’re such a bad liar.” She takes a deep breath and shakes her head. “I don’t know whether to hug you or slap you.”

“I plead the fifth.”

“Megs, are you and–”

“Please don’t ask me anything, Lila,” I whisper, looking at her earnestly. “I don’t want to lie to you anymore.”

Silence stretches. I swallow. Chew my nail. Tap my foot. Lila stands and paces. I chew my nail. She paces.

“Aston,” she mutters, sitting back down. “When? How?”

I shake my head.

Recognition dawns on her. “When Braden took Maddie home. And since … He hasn’t slept with anyone. He’s always with you, isn’t he? The weekends – when I’m at the frat house – he’s here. That’s why no one has seen him. Damn.” She shakes her head. “You’ve really pulled this off without anyone finding out?”

She’s not going to drop this. I know it, but this is all my fault. Time to face the music.

“Somehow. But, Lila, you can’t tell anyone,” I beg. “I mean it. No one can know. You are the only person that knows.”

“And it’s the real thing? Not just sex?” She tilts her head to the side.

I nod and trace my finger along the pattern on my quilt. “There’s more to him than meets the eye. We’re not just sex. I …”

“He’s your Darcy,” she says simply. “He’s the rain to your drought. The every to your thing. Your soul mate decided by the universe, right?”

“And that’s why you can’t tell anyone,” I insist. “No one. Not even Ryan.”

“And Braden really doesn’t know?”

I snort. “Do you think we’d be secret if Braden knew? Braden would flatten the house with his anger.”

“Why? You’re both his best friends. Y’know what? I don’t damn well understand him.”

“Because I’m like his sister and Aston is a playboy incapable of feeling anything than what’s inside his pants. At least that’s the case in his mind.”

Lila sits back on the bed, letting out a long breath. “But you know Braden will find out, right? Sooner or later, Megs. He will know.”

“I know. I just hope it’s later.”

“Why not? Why not get it over and done with?”

Because I’m a chicken. I’m a wimp. Because I know I’ve f**ked up majorly and I can’t bring myself to admit it. And finally …

“Because I’m gonna need a freakin’ good excuse as to why we’ve kept it quiet for so long.”

Chapter Eighteen – Aston

Gramps’ house has never looked more daunting. The house I really grew up in and the only home I’ve ever known is now one of the scariest places I’ll ever have to face.

Inside this happy place is a box full of demons ready to be unleashed on the world, and that’s something I can’t think about. I can’t think over whether or not it’s a good idea for me to be here. I can’t decide if this is the right decision for me right here, right now.

I just know this conversation has to happen. I can’t stay locked in my past but I’ll never be able to move on if Gramps can’t. I won’t be able to get past it if it’s my own damn ignorance keeping him locked in place.

“What you doin’ here in the middle of the week?” Gramps grumbles as I push the door open and walk into the house.

“Come to talk to you,” I reply, dropping onto the sofa next to him.

He drags on his cigar, the smoke swirling, and pierces me with his eyes. “You’ve been sittin’ out there in that pretty boy car for long enough. Whatchu wanna talk about?”

I take a deep breath and look away, knowing that the next word will change everything. “Mom.”

He doesn’t say anything. He exhales, blowing out smoke, and I see him shift slightly. “Thought you didn’t care about her.”

“Maybe I want to know, now. Maybe I’m ready to listen to what you have to say.” I turn my face back to him slowly. “Maybe it’s time we were both honest about the shit inside our heads, Gramps.”

“Megan’s a good one, for sure. She made you come here didn’t she?”

I shake my head. “She made me realize I can’t live in the past forever but she didn’t make me do anything. I came here on my own.”

“She knows you’re here?”

“No.”

Gramps shifts again and sits back, leaving his cigar to rest on the ashtray. His elbows rest on the arms of the chair and he links his fingers in front of him. “What do you want to know?”

I tuck my hands under my legs the way I used to when I was a little boy and he was about to start a lesson or read me a story. In many ways the conversation we’re about to have is both. The naked truth of the story and a lesson in that truth.

“Whatever you have to tell me. Whatever you think I should know.”

“The first thing you need to know is that your mom wasn’t always the person you knew. Until she was sixteen she was the perfect daughter. A first grade student, polite, friendly … I couldn’t have asked for a better baby girl. She was the kinda girl that would bake you sugar-free cookies if you told her you couldn’t have sugar. Then she hit junior year and got mixed with the wrong people.

“Now that ain’t no excuse for what she did, but they were a big influence on her. I know I can’t blame them – she made the choices she did. They weren’t forced upon her. There’s no excusing the life she created for herself – or for you.