Page 6 of Their Cruel Play
“Problems sleeping, sweetheart?” I lead her to the sign and lean back against it, positioning her to lean against me. My feet are on either side of hers and my arms wrap around her waist.
Luke has her backpack. He gestures with his head.
“We need somewhere less exposed to talk.” He heads in the direction of the field.
The guys all follow him.
“Guess that means us too.” I straighten and wrap my arm around her shoulder, leaning over and kissing her head. “You okay today, sweetheart?”
“Yeah,” she breathes out and nestles into my side as we follow behind. “Just more shit to worry about.”
“Tell me about it.” We have one more year. One more year to leave our mark on this high school and one more year to get into the university we want. We all want to play college ball, but not all of us want to be professional players.
The ones who do want to go pro need to go Division I, which means not all of us might play in college if we want to go to the same school.
I’d like to say I’m not worried about it, but the fact is, I want to stay with my friends, my brothers. These guys are family tome. Sure I’ve got my parents and my little sister, and I’ll always have them, but these guys are my ride or die.
Harper remains silent next to me as we climb the bleachers and sit in a makeshift circle. Caden sits on Harper’s other side, but she’s apparently still mad at him. He took her punishment for keeping a secret too far probably.
She shifts closer to me. Not that I’m going to complain.
“Last night someone broke into Harper’s house and went to her bedroom. He was around my height and weight, not scrawny, but dressed head to toe in black. MacKenzie hit him with a lamp, and he fled.” Luke meets all of our eyes. “I chased him down the stairs, but he waited for me in the kitchen. I tackled him against the island, but?—”
His gaze lands on Harper, and she tenses next to me.
“He got away before I could unmask him,” Luke finishes.
“Why didn’t you call last night?” Eli leans back with his elbows on the bleacher behind him. His dark eyes trail Luke’s every move.
“We all were out late. We needed sleep and we couldn’t do anything about it last night. The girls and I secured the house and went back to bed.” Luke lifts an eyebrow as if begging one of us to challenge him.
“Luke came over late.” Harper leans forward and clasps her hands between her knees. “If he hadn’t been there, the guy might have done whatever he came to do. As it was, Kenz broke my lamp to get him to leave.”
“We agreed to not—” Eli begins.
“But I did.” Luke runs a hand through his hair. “I went into her room and picked her up. She didn’t even know I was there until we woke up to MacKenzie screaming. Do we really want to argue over whether or not I should have slept with her? Because that’s all that happened. Sleep.”
Eli’s eyes narrow, but he relaxes back into his coiled position.
“Who was it?” Caden’s voice is low and dangerous. Harper shivers against my arm.
“I’m guessing an asshole who has a beef with us.” Luke shrugs. “Whoever he is, he’s smart. He opened the back door and waited to see if I’d fly by. Either to knock me out or lock me out so he could get to Harper.”
“I can check the street cams, maybe someone’s ring caught him. But someone at school has to know something,” I suggest.
Eli nods. “I’ll ask around, find out if anyone knows anything. Do we know what Tanner was doing last night?”
“What about Grant Perkins?” Harper looks around at us. “He’s been angry and has that bet. I don’t think Tanner would be stupid enough to threaten me and then follow through that night. He seems more of a long game kind of guy.”
“Grant was a little tied up last night.” I cough to cover my laugh.
When Harper looks at me like I’m being strange, I pull up the video and show it to her. Her cheeks flush, and her hand covers her mouth.
“You guys did that?” Her wide brown eyes meet mine.
“We couldn’t let him get away with using you as a bet.” I brush a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re ours, not theirs.”
When she drops her gaze from mine, it’s like a cloud floated in front of the sun.
