Page 76 of Dark Little Game

I shake my head. “No. One of his friends.”

It already feels strange to mention anything about emotions to another person.

Long ago, I trained myself to stop doing that.

Nobody gotaccessto me.

Nobody could be trusted with that.

“Do you need me to kick somebody’s ass for you?” Briar asks, giving me a wicked grin.

That’swhy we became fast friends.

“Trust me, I’ll happily do the ass-kicking myself. I just need something to distract me.”

“How about your search for a no-strings hookup? Any prospects?”

“I never should have mentioned that to you,” I tell her, and she laughs. “I’ve found a person for that. But it’s… problematic.”

“The problematic ones are the hottest ones.”

“Always.”

“Is he cute?”

I glance up at her. “How’d you know it was a guy?”

She has a guilty look on her face. “I caught a vibe. And… I may have also seen one particular guy staring right at you the other night, the entire time we were in Colossus.”

“Fuck.”

“Hunter, when were you going to mention you were hooking up withRayne Colson?” Briar asks. “Do you have any idea how many people at Crimson wish they were you right now?”

“We aren’t exactly open about it, so keep it quiet for me, okay?”

She waves a hand through the air. “No shit. I keep to myself most of the time anyway. Your brother doesn’t know?”

“Weston doesn’t have a fucking clue. He already hates me. He’d literally never speak to me again if he knew I was hooking up with Rayne.”

“He’s going to findout eventually.”

“I’m surprised some snitch hasn’t told him already,” I tell her, raking my hand through my hair. “Rayne walked up and kissed me in the middle of the Stone and Flame party. I just don’t think anybody close to Weston happened to see it.”

“I’m sure your brother doesn’thateyou,” Briar says. “Maybe you need to be the one to bridge the gap first. You were off in London for two years. Maybe he missed you.”

I puff out a bitter laugh. “Trust me, he didn’t miss me.”

Her eyes seem sad suddenly. “My brother was the only friend I had for a long time. Our parents shipped us across the planet to go to school here in the States when we were 11. Him first, then me a few years later. Kai was the only family I had on this side of the globe.”

“Where is your brother now?”

“He graduated a couple of years ago. Has a penthouse in the city. Kai Zhang is New York’s hottest young Wall Street broker, now. And I really fucking miss when neither of us were so busy all the time.”

I nod. “Sounds like you and Kai were a lot closer than me and Wes have ever been.”

She frowns as she looks at the swords along the wall. “We just have to make the time we spend together count, these days.”

Briar and I break off into separate locker rooms to shower off.