Page 45 of Let the Game Begin

“Xavier! Off the premises!” shouted the new arrival, whom Logan informed me was the owner of the restaurant and knew those guys very well. Apparently it wasn’t the first time they’d tried something like that here.

Xavier smiled insolently, gesturing to his friends with a jerk of his chin. “Let’s get out of here, before I bust up this poor asshole’s place,” he said, shoulder-checking the owner as he moved past him. Alexia and the others followed immediately behind him.

Because we could tell his path was going to take him right past our table, we all sipped our coffees, pretending we were oblivious to what had just gone down. But then my whole body tensed up when I realized that Xavier was slowing down and looking straight at me.

I could feel his eyes on me, but I tried not to react. I kept my head down, swirling the spoon around in my cup until an unfamiliar tobacco smell wafted into my space. It was powerful and pungent.

“Look who it is: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Xavier laughed, and I looked up abruptly only to feel some small relief when I realized he was looking at Logan and not at me. But my relief gave way almost immediately to worry, because I’d come to care about Logan.

“And how are you doing, princess?” The bully rested his hand on the back of Logan’s head, and Logan went still beneath him. His jaw clenched and he stared up at Xavier with a bottomless hatred. I was feeling much the same way, though I didn’t really even know the guy.

“Please leave,” Logan said quietly in his usual refined tone, though his resentment shone through in each word. Xavier shot a sideways glance at our friend group and grinned with delight.

“Fuck, you really are a little bitch, Miller.” He patted Logan on the back of the neck before letting go and staring down our entire table.

You could have cut the tension with one of the table knives. Nobody dared to speak, not even Cory, who always had something to say.

Xavier grabbed Logan’s coffee cup and raised it to his nose. He sniffed it, gave a groan of mock-appreciation, and took a sip. What happened next left me stunned. He spat right into the mug and placed it back down in front of Logan.

“Drink up,” he demanded, pressing his palms against the table. I held mybreath. He was blatantly harassing Logan in public. Weren’t we supposed to be past this kind of bullying as a society?

“No, thanks. I’d rather gnaw off my own leg than ingest any of your secretions,” Logan said steadily, giving him a disdainful look from under his eyelashes. As far as I was concerned, I’d had about enough of the Krew pretending to be all-powerful. We were human beings, not dolls to be pushed around for their amusement. Plus, every moment I spent doing nothing and remaining still was another moment I was complicit with these assholes.

So I jumped up and stared down the idiot in front of me.

“Knock it off!” I blurted out, and only then did Xavier’s black eyes turn to me. I was hoping he wouldn’t recognize me. For a moment, he examined me minutely like he had no idea who I was. Then, a threatening smile spread across his face.

“And who might you be? Beauty come to save her friends from the beast?” he asked sneeringly. I knew what I needed to do; guys like Xavier put on a front like they were these fearless warriors so they could take their own internal frustrations out on everyone around them. But what they really were was weak.

“You seem to have a weird fixation on fairy tales,” I pointed out and my friends laughed.

Xavier glanced around with the aggrieved air of one who was firmly convinced that no one would ever dare to make fun of him.

“Sure I do…” he said in a sinister whisper. “Especially on those little lost princesses whose legs fall open the minute Prince Charming snaps his fingers.” He gestured obscenely at me and then winked. For a moment, I thought he was alluding to what had happened with me and Neil, but then I shook myself. He knew nothing about my life and was just talking to me the way he’d talk to anyone else.

“Xavier!” someone thundered in a raspy, angry baritone. Xavier glanced over my shoulder, and his back immediately straightened.

“Neil…” he murmured, his attitude transforming. I didn’t bother turning around, because I knew he was behind me. I stood there just observing Xavier. Still, Neil’s proximity made me feel those electric sensations in the bottom of my stomach.

“We were just asking your little brother where you were,” added Luke, who had remained silent up until now, just enjoying the show.

I felt Neil approach until he was beside me, also facing Xavier. He stared, scowling at the other man for a few seconds.

All around us was this insane silence. Fear and anxiety about what was going to happen next hovered in the air. Neil’s golden eyes shifted to the cup of coffee and then to Logan, who had remained motionless all this time, his face twisted in rage. He also gave me a quick look, so brief that I didn’t have time to decode it before he looked back at Xavier.

“Drink up,” he ordered, grabbing his brother’s coffee and handing it to the other man. Jennifer and Alexia exchanged looks of surprise, while Luke wore a disappointed expression that I couldn’t parse. Xavier himself looked alternately from the cup to Neil’s face and then shook his head with a sly smile on his face.

“We’re your friends; we’d never lay a finger on the princess here,” he answered, irritation in his voice.

Nice. Were all of Neil’s friends like these ones? Xavier gave Logan a smug look. He was bullshitting Neil in the hopes of not provoking him, because Xavier feared Neil and not just a little bit, either. “We know she’s protected,” Xavier added with a bit more hostility in his tone.

Neil, however, said nothing. He simply continued to hold the cup up in front of Xavier’s face, silently demanding that he drink it.

“Drink up,” he said again, softly. There was a genuine threat in his voice, as sharp as any blade. Xavier huffed nervously through his nose, considered it for a few moments, and then, with a growl of anger, he snatched the coffee and drank it. He slammed the empty mug back down on the table with a thud that made us all jump and glared disdainfully at Neil.

“Let’s get out of here,” he ordered his friends, who were standing motionless behind him. Then he slowly squared up with Neil. “Come find us when you remember who your real family is. I’m gonna make you pay for this, asshole.”

After one last tense moment, Xavier shoved his way past Neil and stormed off. Neil sighed, and I suddenly exhaled the breath I’d apparently been holding the whole time. I pressed my hand to my chest, trying in vainto calm my pounding heart. Then, I sat back down and gripped Logan’s hand, which was still pulled into an angry fist. Neil turned and gave his brother one of those silent, mysterious looks that were so characteristic of him.