Page 19 of Beautifully Broken

Mace

I thought I was having a fever dream last night when Conrad Hoyer came into my room last night to tend to me.

This morning, though, I saw Conrad’s Nissan GTR parked outside the house.

It was confirmed that he was in fact in my house with my sister in her bed.

Now he’s standing in front of me, hair mussed and a smug look sitting firmly on his ugly mug.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I demand.

“Let’s go talk on the porch. Enid needs the rest.” He calmly and quietly requests. The nagging voice in the back of my head tells me that he does care about my sister, but that just pisses me off.

“Fine.” I huff, crossing my arms over my chest and following him out front.

“So, pipe up, Hoyer. Why are you in my house?” I demand again once we are seated in the seats Enid meticulously chose and placed on the porch when we moved in.

“I’m in your house because I care about your sister. We were supposed to go on a date last night, but you got sick. She naturally forgot to tell me, so when I showed up, I stayed to help you both.”

“You… Were going on a date?”

“We were, yes. Despite what you think of me, I do want to get to know Enid better. Not get into her pants.”

“She didn’t tell me.” Hurt strikes my chest. Was she planning on telling me at all?

“Well, Bud, she was more worried about making sure you were okay than telling you about the date and me that it wasn’t going to happen.”

“I’m not your Bud.”

“Alright, man. Sorry.” He defensively waves his hands .

“You really want to date Enid?” I ask again; I can try for my sister, but there's no way I'm not going to get anything out of this.

“I do. I’d also like to get to know you better because you mean a lot to her. I think you’re pretty cool, too.” He’s just sucking up, he doesn't mean that.

“If you want to date my sister, then you have to do something for me before I’ll let it fly,” I say casually, crossing my arms again.

“Anything.”

“I want to go to a game, sit behind the box, and meet Maverick Hart after a practice or something.” No way will he be able to make that happen. Maverick despises him; I could see it on his face when Conrad got traded, and they broke the news during a press conference.

Checkmate, Hotshot.

“Done.”

“Done?” I narrow my eyes at him.

“Yep, I can make that happen.” He smiles at me. “Let’s get back inside.”