Page 15 of Playing Dirty

Scoffing, I roll my eyes at his overexaggeration. “Remind me again whyyou’renot the theatre major instead of Vaughn?”

“Because he can’t sing for shit,” Torin supplies, to which Miles flips him off.

“No, but Icancome up with some pretty theatrical narratives. Like stepbro breaking both his legs on the ski slopes.” Miles’s grin widens and he snaps his fingers before pointing at me excitedly. “Ooh, or maybe you could push him off the lift on your way up the mountain. Take matters into your own hands.”

From the look on my roommate’s face, I’m not even sure if he’s kidding.

Torin hums softly before he murmurs, “That would be the captain-ly thing to do.”

“One, can we not call himstepbro?” I laugh, shaking my head. “And two, there will be no attempts at sabotage, all right? Besides, I have a feeling we’ll be doing our best to avoid each other as much as possible.”

Torin runs his fingers through his dark, shaggy hair, clearly in thought, before he drops his hand to his lap and shrugs. “We can always fake an emergency if you need an escape plan. Your mom would understand if you left to come and rescue one of us.”

Miles snorts and shakes his head. “That’d never work. I wouldn’t put it past Carla to come busting down the door alongside him if she thought one of us was in trouble.”

The comment has the two of them diving into all their favorite Carlamoments from our high school years, attempting to back up either of their stances on this hypothetical situation.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I make a quick grab for it while chuckling at the ridiculous picture the two of them continue painting. Only, the second my gaze lands on the screen, it’s like a bucket of ice water, sending my mood straight into the toilet.

Theo: If you aren’t out here in the next two minutes, your ass can find your own way to the airport.

Releasing a long, frustrated sigh, I shove my phone back in my pocket with every intention of using those 120 seconds just to piss him off. I only get through about ten of them, though, before the sound of a car horn blaring outside instantly grates on my nerves.

The horn cuts through Miles and Torin’s conversation, silencing them both and drawing their attention back to me.

“That him?” Torin asks, nodding to the door.

“Sure is,” I mutter with a tight smile. “I’ll text you guys if we manage to both make it there alive.”

“Maybe this will turn into a tale of fratricide after all.” This comes from Miles, and I shoot him a look of annoyance.

“We’d have to actually be brothers for it to be consid—”

Another blare of the car horn cuts me off, and a sharp maniacal laugh falls from my lips. One of those true, crazed Joker laughs that no doubt makes me look certifiable to both of my friends. But, God, how am I supposed to go into this with any kind of positivity when Theo manages to antagonize me without even being in the same room?

I have to try, though. I don’t have a choice.

By the time Theo steers our rental car beneath the resort’s awning, my sanity is barely hanging on by a thread. In the six hours of traveling we’ve done together—both on the plane and in the car—I think he’s spoken all of four sentences to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been the person who needs to fill silence with meaningless small talk—I’d rather shove a rusty needle in my eyeball. But spending that long in someone’s presence without exchanginganysort of conversation is just painfully awkward…and definitely not my idea of a good time.

Needless to say, this wholefamily bondingshit is going terribly.

The temperature has dropped well below freezing since we landed, and flurries began falling only ten minutes into our hour-long drive to the resort. They’re still whipping around in the icy wind while the valet unloads our bags from the trunk, making me wonder if I’d have been better off sticking around Chicago with Miles and Torin after all.

It’s too cold for this shit.

We head directly for the front desk once we’re inside the lobby, and a tall, red-haired guy, who’s likely in his thirties, greets us with a warm smile.

“Hello, welcome to Snowline Resort.I’m Jeremy. How can I help you this evening?”

“We’re checking in,” Theo says, already digging through his wallet for his ID and credit card before setting both on the counter. “Last name is Greyson. The reservation is likely under Adam, but he could have put it under Theodore.”

My lips twitch at the sound of Theo referring to himself by his full name, though I’m quick to school my features before he notices.

“Ah, yes. Mr. Greyson mentioned you’d be arriving later in the evening when he checked in this afternoon. Just one second,” he says, quicklytapping away at his keyboard. “Yes, looks like we have you in a king room, mountain view, for seven nights.”

Theo’s brows pull down in confusion, and his gaze darts from the receptionist to me. “King room? That can’t be right.” Pulling out his phone, he taps on the screen a couple times. “My father told me he booked us a double queen.”