Page 11 of Playing Dirty

Theo

December

The entire week since returning to campus, my mood has been in the toilet. I’ve done my best to appear unaffected by everything happening back home, and seemingly, putting it out of my mind and pretending those issues don’t exist. Not the healthiest option, obviously, but getting through senior year kind of depends on it.

And I thought I was doing a pretty good job of keeping up the pretenses, but with the guillotine of impending doom hanging over me, my friends are starting to notice the shift.

“Uh, you good, T?”

I glance up at the sound of Phoenix’s voice just in time for him to drop onto the couch beside me. His dark brows knit together at the center while he frowns at me, and I return his expression two-fold.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because he called your name multiple times before you realized he was even talking to you,” Wyatt supplies, chuckling softly from where he just materialized on the other end of the rec room sectional.

Oh, shit.

“Oh, my bad, man. Guess I was zoning.”

Phoenix doesn’t buy it for a second, cocking his head to the side. “It’s your dad, isn’t it?”

Drawing in a long breath, I nod. “Just got off the phone with him, yeah.”

“How’d that go?” he asks slowly, though from his pained expression, he already knows the answer.

“Besides wanting to commit patricide by the end of it? Fucking peachy.”

A screaming match with Adam Greyson—one ending with the ultimatum of getting my ass to Vermont for this family tripor else—isn’t something I’m equipped to handle. And the more I stew in the frustration and anger I feel toward him, the shittier my mood seems to get.

“Things are still that bad back home, huh?” Wyatt asks, shooting me a look of sympathy.

Wyatt knows the sordid details of my home life. Having been down in Florida last winter when I found out my family was falling apart at the seams, then also being around during the process of their divorce, he got a front row seat to the toll all of this has taken on me.

But I haven’t seen him since Thanksgiving, so I give him a quick run-down of the holiday events.

“Walking into that house and seeingherthere was…” I pause and blow out a breath. “Surreal and infuriating don’t begin to cover it.”

He nods, his nose scrunching up in distaste before asking, “And I assume the same can be said for having the enemy under the same roof?”

Yeah, you can say that again.

“We got into it a bit after dinner.”

I’m still kicking myself for forgetting my bag in my room while leaving in my blaze of glory. Had I not stormed out like that, I wouldn’t have needed to return to the house, and the entire run-in with Madden would’ve been avoided.

There’s a chance I said some shit I shouldn’t have, especially the bit about his dad, but I try to push away the guilt for that. It’s not like I knew his dad passed away, otherwise I would’ve never made the comment to begin with. I might loathe Madden’s presence in my life—both asfamilyand a rival—but he’s still a human, and nobody deserves something like that thrown in their face.

“Hey, it could be worse,” Phoenix says, pulling me from my internal musing.

“Oh yeah? Wanna enlighten me?” I ask while arching a brow.

His lips pull into a shit-eating grin. “At least he’s pretty to look at.”

Wyatt shakes his head and chuckles ruefully. “God, you’re lucky Holden wasn’t around to hear you say that. He’d probably end up pissing all over you just to remind you you’re his.”

“Please, he’d say the same thing if he were here.”

“That’s true, he would,” I agree before tacking on, “But you’re also forgetting I don’t swing that way.”