Page 52 of Love Me

“It’s different for him and you know it,” Creed had argued. “He’ll stay on the team no matter how much he hates it. He needs to drop the golden-boy act and just be who he wants to be instead of what others expect him to be—or if we’re being transparent, what Dad wanted him to be.”

“Creed,” Keelan had chastised.

“You know it’s true,” Creed had snapped. “For as long as I can remember, he has bent over backward to please Dad. He was afraid Dad would check out again like he did after Mom died if he disappointed him. To an extent, I was guilty of that, too, because I also had that fear, but in the end, it didn’t matter. Dad’s gone. Yet Colt still acts that way. It’s like he’s been doing it for so long, he doesn’t know any other way to act. And it’s eating him up on the inside.”

As they had volleyed back and forth, I’d sat there silently, piecing together the information.

After we parked in the school parking lot, I overheard Creed mumble to Colt as I climbed out of the car, “If you want to quit, then quit. No one is—”

“Don’t,” Colt snapped. After he climbed out, he slammed the car door shut and stormed for the school’s entrance without us.

Frowning, I glanced at Creed as I rounded the car. He rolled his eyes at his twin and held out his hand to me. “Let’s go.”

Once inside, Creed veered off toward his locker and I caught up with Colt by ours. His body was stiff as he pulled the textbooks out for our first class. Feeling unsure, I reached out to touch his back, and as my fingers brushed his lower spine, someone behind me coughed, “Whore.” Laughter echoed off the hall walls.

I spun around to find Cassy, Amber, their friend Sam, Gabe, and a few of his teammates standing in a group a few meters away. All of them were staring in my direction.

Colt wrapped an arm around my middle and his chest pressed against my back. “Ignore them.”

Creed joined us, with Ethan and Isabelle right behind him. Creed’s stare was indifferent as he eyed Cassy and the rest of them.

“It is way too early to be dealing with their shit,” Ethan said, blocking my view of them.

Isabelle came to stand next to Ethan, also blocking my view. “They’re miserable and have to make everyone else miserable as well.”

I looked from Creed to Ethan to Isabelle and realized that they had formed a wall between me and Cassy’s clique. I smiled, despite the uncomfortable situation that stood on the other side of them, because I truly had amazing friends.

* * *

We were ordering food tonight. Knox was working late. Apparently, a good number of people had applied for the front desk position, and he had scheduled a bunch of them to come in and interview today, Isabelle included. So it was just four of us eating together tonight. Keelan had put in an order to the diner after Colt had texted, telling us that he was on his way home from practice.

Creed, Keelan, and I were sitting in the living room when Colt walked through the door. Right away, I could tell he was upset, and it was more so than he had been after practice yesterday. “Hi,” I greeted with a hint of hesitation.

Colt dropped his keys in the bowl by the door. “Hey,” he said in a sullen tone.

“Food will be here soon,” I said as I watched him head toward his and Creed’s side of the house.

“I’m going to go change,” was his response. With how detached his voice was, I could tell he was fighting to sound calm. I wasn’t the only one who noticed, either; the guys were eyeing their brother, too.

Colt didn’t utter another word as he disappeared down the hall toward his room. The sound of Colt’s door shutting was loud. Not like he slammed it in a fit of rage, but it sounded like there was a little bit of force behind it.

Creed and I stood at the same time.

“Let me go,” I insisted, and Creed sat back down.

When I came to Colt’s door, I tapped lightly, “Colt?”

“You can come in, babe.”

I went inside, shut the door behind me, and leaned against it.

Colt was in the middle of changing out of the clothes he’d worn to school. He was standing before his dresser in only his jeans. Without looking at me, he pulled out gray basketball shorts and a white shirt.

The temperature in the room rose very quickly as he unbuttoned his jeans and shoved them down his legs. He caught me watching and a tiny smile softened his tight expression. In nothing but his briefs, he walked across the room and tossed his jeans in the laundry basket. “Did you come to watch me?”

I’d seen him naked, yet there was something about seeing him or any of my guys in their underwear. Maybe boxer briefs were to me as lingerie was to a man. I cleared my throat. I had a reason for being here. “I came to see if you wanted to talk.”

Instead of returning to where he’d left his clothes on top of the dresser, he moved for me with angry heat in his eyes. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he said tightly as he reached for the doorknob.