Page 28 of The Deception You Weave

"One time, Ez. One fucking time."

I roll my eyes at him and snatch the pizza box from his lap, lifting a slice to my mouth.

"You fuck—"

"Eat shit."

Ellis smothers a laugh, but Devin throws his head back and laughs at the dejected look on Ezra's face.

I spend the night shooting the shit with the guys and beating Devin's ass on the Xbox.

No one mentions the elephant in the room that is Letty and the cameras and I couldn't be more grateful, not that it means she's far away from my mind.

She's always there. Always has been.

But the less I think about the fallout from all of this with Victor, the better.

We still have no idea what he was trying to achieve with his little spying mission so I guess we can only hope that he got what he needed and has fucked off for a while.

Dread sits heavy in my stomach that whatever it is has something to do with Reid and his questioning of the guys but I don't want to bring that up with them. Devin told me he's having issues with shipments, whereas Reid thinks there's a supply issue here at MKU.

Whatever the problem is, it's really none of my fucking business.

Only it is because he got Letty involved.

I shake the thought from my head, excuse myself before I let my mouth run away with itself, and head up to bed.

"You know, your bed would have been nice and warm had you let her stay."

"I'd rather sleep in the fucking yard," I mutter, dumping my glass in the kitchen sink and heading for the stairs.

"You're pissy when you're not getting laid. You should call Let—ow. For fuck's sake, stop doing that," he bitches at Ellis.

"Well then stop running your fucking mouth. Kane knows what he's doing. And if he needed to get laid, then he fucking would. It's not like he's short of offers."

"Unlike you."

"Shut the fuck up."

I walk away before they start fighting and Devin and I have to drag them off of each other. I don't have the energy or the patience for that shit.

Despite the fact I'm exhausted, I spend hours staring up at my ceiling, every inch of my body aching like I've spent the day in the ring with Devin, or worse, Reid.

I should have taken the painkillers and allowed them to knock me out, but I hate feeling out of control.

I run the events of the day through my mind, remembering the look on Letty's face when she pleaded with me to hear her out, to let her tell me the truth.

But what good can come of the truth?

Our baby doesn't exist because she didn't deem it worthy enough to live. Didn't deem me worthy enough of being its father.

The sun is almost up when I do finally crash and when my alarm goes off for class, and then Ellis pops his head in to see if I'm ready, I tell them both to shut the fuck up and turn back over—albeit slowly—and pass back out again.

When I finally surface, I'm in more pain than I was when I woke in the hospital and I have no choice but to take some of the medication prescribed to me in order to just get my ass in the shower.

I skip both my lectures on Tuesday, and knowing I've got no classes with Letty on Wednesday, I find I'm unable to drum up the motivation to get my ass out of bed then either.

When I finally leave the house again, it's for our statistics class Thursday morning, and thankfully, I'm beginning to feel a little more alive by then.