Page 7 of The Players We Hate (Rixton U #2)

Wren

By the time Alisa and I made it back to the dorm, I was a billboard for guilt and bad choices. My hair, once twisted into a loose knot, had mostly fallen out, curls tumbling in a mess my mom would’ve scolded me for, and the smudged mascara sealed it.

I barely made it two steps inside before Alisa clocked me.

She paused, heels in hand, brow arching high. “Okay,” she said slowly, giving me the kind of once-over that only a friend with zero chill could deliver. “You wanna tell me where you disappeared to?”

I tried to play it cool, setting my purse on my desk while I fought to keep it together. “I needed some air.”

She scoffed, slipping off her shoes. “Air doesn’t do that to your hair.”

I avoided her gaze, heading straight for the bathroom. The moment I clicked the door shut behind me, I exhaled hard and leaned over the sink, bracing my hands against the porcelain .

My reflection stared back at me—lips swollen, skin flushed, hair a mess of waves that hadn’t looked that tousled when I left for the party. The neckline of my blouse was wrinkled, and in the bathroom light, a faint pink mark stood out along my jaw.

I looked wrecked .

Not messy-cute. Not post-party tired. Wrecked in a way that screamed someone touched me like they meant it .

If my mom could see me now, she’d absolutely flip.

Probably launch into a tirade about how “public image is everything” and “the risks this could cause my father’s re-election campaign.

” God forbid I looked like a girl who lived a little .

Besides, I was used to being invisible in our family.

Aside from Alisa and Talon, I doubted anyone else saw me.

I let out a dry, bitter laugh and turned on the faucet, splashing cold water over my face as if it could somehow undo what had already happened.

The damage was done. No matter how hard I scrubbed, I still felt his hands on my skin.

When I came out a few minutes later, barefaced and damp-haired, Alisa was already curled up on her bed, arms crossed, waiting.

“You’re always so put-together,” she said, voice light, but her eyes locked on mine. “Tonight, you looked like someone rocked your world. Twice.”

I froze for a second too long.

Alisa tilted her head. “Wren.”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“So you’re saying something happened. ”

I dropped my dirty clothes into my hamper, now dressed in my sleep shorts and tank top, and climbed into bed. “Good night, Alisa.”

She smirked, flicked off the light, and tossed a neon pillow at me. “When you’re ready to spill, I’m ready to hear it.”

I didn’t say anything. Not that night. Or the next day or even the day after, because I didn’t have the words. I didn’t know what it meant, or how to explain it, or what it would change if I did.

It’d been a week.

Seven days since Talon kissed me and pulled me apart. Since his hands mapped my skin like he wanted to memorize it. Since I gave him something no one else had touched—and he never asked for anything in return.

And not a single day had passed when I hadn’t thought about him.

Every night since, I’d tossed and turned in my sheets, restless with memories that came uninvited.

My body still hummed when I thought about the way he growled and told me to let go.

My heart still stuttered when I remembered how gentle he was when I needed it.

He grinned when I fisted the longer hair on top and gave it a hard pull.

I couldn’t stop replaying it—every glance, every breath, every second of that night.

The worst part? He hadn’t texted.

I knew he had my number. I watched him take my phone, smirking as he typed something into it and sent himself a message. I found it when I got home—a dumb emoji and a smug little line that said: Don’t pretend you won’t think about this later .

I’d thought about it every night.

But he hadn’t called. Not once.

The silence made it pretty clear that night didn’t mean the same thing to him. Maybe I was just another fling, another body he wouldn’t think twice about.

It stung, sure, but I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.

Not the way his hand curved around the back of my neck, careful as if I were breakable. Not the way he whispered my name, savoring it more than anything else in the world.

Yeah, the silence burns, wondering if I’m stupid for thinking it could be more. Still, I can’t regret it.

Not even close because, for once, I wasn’t the girl chasing perfection. Not the governor’s daughter. Not Wells Perry’s sister.

I was just me.

And with Talon, for one night, that was enough.

The buzz of my phone on the nightstand broke the silence, pulling me out of the spiral I’d been stuck in all week. I blinked, heavy from another restless night tangled in sheets and memories. Rolling over, I glanced at the screen, and the name flashing there knotted my stomach instantly.

Mother: Dinner tonight. 7 sharp. Driver will pick you up at 6:15. Please be ready.

A follow-up landed almost immediately.

Mother: This is a reminder. Not a suggestion.

I exhaled slowly, her words pressing in until my chest felt tight .

Right. Friday.

Dinner.

The one I’d spent the past six days trying not to think about. The one that guaranteed I’d be seated at a long, glass-topped table for a family dinner while they were in town for my brother’s game.

With the election around the corner, it wouldn’t just be a meal. It’d be another round of strategy dressed up as small talk, with a mother who treated emotions as weakness and conversation as a campaign.

And now I had less than six hours to pull myself together and play the part I was born into.

Daughter of the governor. Sister of the star defensive end. The well-behaved Perry.

Of course, she was sending the driver.

They didn’t want me moving around campus on my own anymore. Not when people whispered and the press still circled like vultures waiting for the next soundbite or slipup. It wasn’t about protecting me. It was about control—over me and over the narrative.

So now I had security. Not official Secret Service level, but close enough. A black SUV. A rotating list of names I was expected to check in with. A reminder that privacy was a prettier word for surveillance.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, hand dragging through my tangled hair. My pulse stuttered against my ribs, my stomach sinking as though it already knew what my mind wouldn’t say out loud.

While I’d spent every night replaying Talon’s voice saying my name, the way he held me as if I might break, he’d given me nothing but silence .

Tonight, I didn’t have the luxury of dwelling on it.

By 6:15, I was waiting outside my dorm in the soft blue sweater my mother once claimed “photographed well.” It was safe, polished, and predictable.

Just what she expected. My hair was pulled into a low twist, my makeup neutral, my expression unreadable.

Right on schedule, the sleek black SUV pulled up to the curb. The driver, one of the rotating stone-faced men assigned to me for “protection,” stepped out wordlessly and opened the door.

I slid into the leather seat and settled in for the drive to the cabin, trying not to let my nerves show, even as they clawed at the inside of my chest.

The lake house looked as it always did this time of year, wrapped in gold leaves and filtered light, tucked into the woods like a secret you couldn’t quite keep buried. My parents’ SUV was already in the driveway, parked at a perfect angle as if the image alone mattered.

The second I stepped out of the car, Lincoln and Teddy barreled down the porch steps. The goldens were all wagging tails and floppy ears, tongues hanging as they raced straight for me.

“Hey, boys,” I murmured, crouching down to rub their ears, letting them nudge my knees and lick my hands.

For a moment, the easy welcome calmed me—until I realized no one’s come to the door.

No mom on the porch with a tight smile and a comment about my shoes. No dad stepping out of his study, phone in hand, giving me a distracted nod inside.

They knew I’d be here.

She texted me .

Still crouched beside the dogs, I glanced at the front door, then up at the windows glowing with warm light. It was too quiet. Too staged.

I stood, brushing the dog hair from my sweater. “Great. Now I look like I rolled in it,” I muttered, before heading inside and letting myself in.

“Hello?” I called, stepping inside and setting my bag down in the entryway.

No answer.

The house smelled of pinewood and my mother’s faint floral perfume, the kind of trace she always left behind. Inside, it was warm and quiet, the fire in the hearth burning low. I glanced into the kitchen and the den. Both were empty.

The silence stretched.

I was halfway to texting my mom when I caught the low hum of a voice coming from deeper in the house. I followed it slowly, each step sinking heavier than the last as I neared the familiar door at the end of the hall. My father’s office. The door was cracked enough to let his voice slip through.

“I’m aware of the risks,” he clipped. “But it’s being handled. Athletics is our biggest donor draw. If we lose credibility there, we lose influence.”

I froze outside the doorway.

There was a weight in his voice I recognized from boardrooms and press conferences, from family dinners where image was everything and emotion was unwelcome.

“The hockey program is strong this year,” he continued. “Pierce is the standout. Stats like that carry weight if we keep distractions to a minimum.”

Pierce .

The name echoed like a warning bell. My chest tightened.

Talon Pierce.

I took a step closer, holding my breath.

“I know who his sister is,” my father said, voice tightening. “We were past it. Or we should’ve been. But Wells couldn’t let it go. He made it personal, and I had to step in.”

Silence stretched between his words. I could hear the quiet clink of ice against glass as he swirled his drink.

“He was furious, but I did what had to be done. She kept quiet—no headlines, no scandal. That was the agreement. I never expected her to leave town. That was pure luck. Now Wells can keep his focus where it belongs.”

I didn’t realize I was gripping the doorframe until my fingers ached.

The girl.

Left quietly.

Is he talking about Tatum?

And suddenly, it all clicked. The weight in Talon’s voice when he brought up my being in his house. The way he said my name, and how I dismissed it. The look in his eyes, every Perry at his door another reminder of a wound that never closed.

I thought it was only about who my father was and the weight of my last name.

I didn’t realize it was personal .

Because I never connected the dots. I never realized the girl my brother hurt, the same one he dated and my father protected to save our image, was Talon’s sister .

And Talon ?

He knew exactly who I was. And he still kissed me. Still touched me. Still let me bring down my walls without him ever saying why it was complicated.

I staggered back a step, something sharp and bitter crawling up my throat. The door creaked under my weight, but my father kept talking, too absorbed in the call to notice.

“If Pierce starts making noise,” he said, voice lower now, colder, “we may have to reassess. There’s only so far talent will carry him if he becomes a liability.”

The air was sucked from the hallway.

“He wants to play professionally? Fine. Then he needs to keep his mouth shut and stay focused. If he doesn’t…

” A pause followed. “Let’s just say it’d be disappointing if he ended up injured.

I know people who can make sure his season ends sooner than expected.

Injuries happen. Eligibility reviews can always be reopened.

No one asks questions when it looks official. ”

I swayed where I stood. My body reacted before my brain did, nausea curling low in my stomach, sour and sharp. I’d spent years studying PR and crisis management, believing this program could let me change things from the inside out one day.

And now I was in the hallway of my family’s lake house, listening to the governor of the state— my father —talk about sabotaging a college athlete’s future as if it were a favor he could trade over cocktails.

Talon’s name wasn’t just mentioned.

It was targeted .

My father saw him as a threat, and the truth was, he wasn’t wrong. Talon had every reason to want to burn his world to the ground. Wells hurt his sister, and my father covered it up. Just like he covered anything that might crack the image he was desperate to protect.

I pressed a hand to my mouth, and the wall suddenly became the only thing keeping me upright. My pulse hammered behind my ribs.

Talon didn’t tell me who he was. He didn’t spell it out. Maybe he thought I already knew. Perhaps he thought I was complicit. As if I had gone there with full awareness of what my family had done and still wanted him anyway.

God, he must hate me for it.

I needed to find him. Now.

I needed to tell him the truth. I didn’t know. I never would’ve let it happen if I had. I wouldn’t have let him touch me or let it get that far. I’d understood what I was walking into.

And more than that… I needed answers.

What exactly did Wells do? What else did my father bury, and how much deeper did it go?

I needed the truth, but I also needed time.

Time to figure out what my father’s planning, to get close enough without getting burned—and to make sure he never found out about Talon. If my father did, he’d find a way to hurt him.

The questions pounded louder than my heartbeat, and for the first time, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the truth.