Page 14

Kota

A fter the boys won their second game of the weekend last night, I was the only one in the apartment who didn’t make an appearance at the hockey house.

Bridget went for a while with Mitch; Lane and Crew were obviously there. But I preferred to go grab dinner and drinks with Bobby, because I didn’t need to spend any extra time around Crew, or the rest of the hockey team for that matter.

Bridget and I had already recapped our nights to each other, and now, we were fixing breakfast for ourselves, knee deep in The Bachelor gossip.

This was exactly the kind of Sunday mornings I had envisioned when Bridget and I signed our lease to what we thought was a two bedroom. I had imagined us making breakfast together, chatting about one of our favorite shows and listening to the faint echo of Taylor Swift playing in the background.

It would’ve been perfect if there wasn’t a dumb hockey player sprawled out on our couch.

When Crew didn’t politely ask, but instead, insisted that we turned our music down, I turned it up just to spite him. Of course, he turned the tv up as a result, which made me turn the music up more.

We’d been playing this petty game for fifteen minutes. Both things were so loud at this point that I was surprised it hadn’t woken Lane.

I caught Bridget glancing at the clock a few times, and when eleven o’clock came rolling around, her brows furrowed. “Hey,” she said towards the living room, “where’s Lane at? He’s usually up by now and I haven’t seen him since last night.”

“Yeah, um,” Crew answered so quietly that I had to pause cardigan just to hear him, “you probably won’t be seeing him today.”

Trading glances with B, she asked, “Why?”

Crew’s chest expanded with a heavy breath. “Well...”

He was starting to freak me out a little. My first thought was that maybe Lane got hurt bad at their game last night, but he went to the hockey house afterwards, so I doubted he had any injury serious enough to keep him in bed all morning.

“Crew?” B pushed, and we both scooted closer.

Crew roamed into the kitchen, leaning across the island. His voice dropped from quiet to a full-on whisper. “Don’t make a big deal about it or say anything, okay? Trust me.”

It was hard not to notice that he was practically only looking at Bridget as he spoke. A sassy comment was itching in my throat, but I was worried about Lane, and that overtook all the annoyance that was sitting in my bones.

“Is he alright?” I warily let out.

Eyes acknowledging me for half a second, Crew then peered down the boy’s hall. With a slight gulp, he said, “It’s his birthday—”

“It’s his birthday? ” B practically shouted, hands slamming down on the kitchen island.

“Shh!” Crew hushed. “Keep it down.”

“Why?” I wondered, a bite in my tone.

“Just trust me.” “Why would we trust you? ”

Crew rolled his eyes before going back to pretending like I didn’t exist. His attention turned solely onto Bridget. “Trust me. Just let him be today.”

A striking contrast to my venomous tone, B’s sounded sweet like Strawberry Shortcake. She even had the hair to match. “But if it’s his birthday, we should do something nice for him.”

“Oh!” I squealed, my face lighting up. “Let’s bake him a cake.”

Crew’s frustration was becoming tangible, traveling like smoke throughout the air. I couldn’t tell if I loved it or hated it. “That’s a horrible idea. That’s the complete of what I just told you to do, and he doesn’t like cake anyway.”

My face scrunched. “Who doesn’t like cake?”

“Just fucking listen to me,” he hissed, eyes shut. “I’ve known him for years. He wants to be left alone.”

B tipped her head innocently, and once again, it was just another startling moment of an angel and devil standing next to each other. “But why?” B asked. “Why doesn’t he like his birthday?”

Sighing, Crew pushed away from the island. “He just doesn’t, okay? Trust me,” he repeated before sauntering into his room.

Concern and curiosity were searing into my skin, and I wished that Crew had given us more information. Clearly, whatever the problem was had to be super personal to Lane, and I respected that, but all Crew did was leave us with questions.

After a few moments of silence, I ran a hand through my hair. “Alright.”

“Alright what?” Bridget asked.

“We’re baking him a freaking cake.”

***

It’s the thought that counts.

The cake didn’t turn out as pretty as I wanted.

I’d had a picture in my mind of a cute birthday cake with blue frosting along the sides and happy birthday written on top.

But unfortunately, we overestimated our baking skills, and instead of presenting Lane with a cake that he couldn’t refuse, we presented him with one that had happy birth slathered across the top because I ran out of room halfway through doing the frosting.

I’d been hoping that regardless of the horrendous delivery, the cake would still be delicious enough that Lane would love it and I’d have bragging rights to tell Crew he was wrong.

But that didn’t happen either.

Lane hated the cake.

Bridget and I could tell he was trying to force feed it to himself before we finally told him to stop because it was painful to watch.

After listening to Crew say I told you so on repeat for ten minutes, he finally shut the hell up a while ago, letting me clean up the kitchen in peace.

Even though Lane didn’t like the cake, the gesture was enough to lure him out of his room. Bridget and I still hadn’t asked questions. There were a few times I had to bite my own tongue just to keep myself from doing so. I’d always been known for being nosy.

“You know,” Lane finally said, seated beside Bridget on the kitchen stools, “today hasn’t been that bad so far.”

“And why is that?” Bridget asked.

He nodded to Crew and me, “Because those two have gone a full hour in the same room without trying to kill each other.”

Had it really been that long since Crew had been blaming me for ruining Lane’s birthday with a shitty cake? A lightning-fast glance at the clock above the stove verified it, and I whipped my head towards Crew, immediately sickened when I saw him already glaring at me, eyes narrowed.

Jaw shifting beneath my skin, my eyes thinned to slits. “I can stir up something good if you want.”

“No thanks,” Bridget and Lane said in unison.

Crew looked like he had a million and one rude thoughts right now, his eyes hardening to stone. More than anything, I wanted to dare him to speak his mind, to even say one of those virulent thoughts and start a fight, just so that I could say I didn’t start it this time. I was itching for an argument; the peace was overrated.

But I was also trying to prove a point. That I had self-control. That I was mature— sorta. And that I wasn’t always the one starting shit.

So, instead of egging Crew on, I gave him a cold shoulder, going straight for my Oreos in the pantry. Hearing a strange giggle coming from my arch nemesis, I instinctively spewed, “Shut up. I hate when you make noise.”

So much for not starting shit.

Surprisingly, he didn’t give a snarky response. All he did was shrug and sit there quietly with a questionable smirk.

He kept giggling under his breath as I shoved a cookie into my mouth, and the more I chewed, the more repulsed I got. Were these cookies bad? They were relatively new, so they should’ve been fine. Plus, they weren’t stale; they just tasted like a freshly cleaned foot.

Gagging, I swung around myself and dove straight for the sink, spitting it out. “Why the fuck do these taste like ass!”

Crew spoke steadily, unwavering confidence soaring out. “Maybe because I replaced the filling with toothpaste.”

Vision blurring red, I shot him a glare so sharp and deadly that it could’ve cut glass. My body shook through anger, and heavily, I breathed out, “You what?”

He shrugged again, nonchalantly. “I told you I was gonna get you back.”

“Apparently, I spoke too soon,” Lane said.

I could hear Lane and Bridget exchanging responses, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Crew, as if there was some unsaid hope that staring harshly at him long enough would kill him right then and there.

With each passing millisecond, my chest expanded with deeper, more ragged breaths. I couldn’t believe he fucked with my snacks. “You have no idea what you just started.”

Leaning across the kitchen island, Crew grinned. “Oh, but I do.”

“I’m going to make your life a living hell.”

“Good luck,” he challenged. “This is war.”

As if it were planned, we both glanced at our friends at the same time. They shook their heads, frowns galore.

“Don’t look at us,” Bridget announced.

“Yeah,” Lane added, “we both already said before we don’t wanna be involved.”

Huffing, Crew looked like he’d just been punched in the gut, and my interpretation of that was that he wasn’t confident he could take me on alone.

“Fine,” he said firmly, but I still wasn’t convinced. “One-on-one then.”

Mr. Ego had absolutely no idea what was in store for him. He just signed himself up for a life of misery. If he thought there was any chance in hell that this was all going to end his way, with him victorious, he had a rude awakening coming.

I couldn’t control the criminal smirk that touched my lips and I stared at him, smothering him with my tenacity and hoping he’d crumble to dust from the feeling. “Fine,” I grinned bigger.