Page 20 of The Trouble with You (Rixon Raiders 1)

“I know you think he doesn’t want you, Hails, but you have to admit, it seemed a little bit like he was protecting you.”

“Protecting me?” I sounded incredulous. “Two minutes earlier he was saying goodnight to his little fuck piece.”

“Little fuck piece?” Flick exploded with laughter, rolling onto her back, but I wasn’t laughing. I didn’t know what I was anymore. Senior year was turning out to be more confusing than I anticipated.

I rolled over too, lying shoulder to shoulder with her. We both stared up at the ceiling, letting the events of the night settle over us. “Did you have fun?”

“Fun?” she balked. “Getting chased off Asher Bennet’s property by Cameron after you tagged Jason’s car, isn’t my idea of fun, Hails. Why?” Suspicion dripped from her question. “Did you have fun?”

“I think I’m wired wrong,” I admitted. Because while I’d been terrified coming face to face with Cameron, I couldn’t deny a part of me liked it. The danger, the heart-pounding thrill as I stickered Jason’s car with his rival’s logo.

“You’re not wired wrong,” Flick sounded sad. “You’re just so used to being on the defensive, to playing these stupid games with Jason, that it’s altered your perception of what’s fun and what isn’t.”

“You mean I’m hardened?” I flinched, remembering the word she’d called me earlier at Ice T’s. It already felt like a lifetime ago.

“Yes… and no. I do think you're hardened, Hails, but you’ve had to be, I get that. But this thing with you and Jason, the constant back and forth; you don’t have to prove anything to him.”

Prove anything?

She thought I was trying to prove myself to him?

“That’s not what I’m doing,” I said, but as the words came out, I realized maybe she had a point. Jason had been so quick to write me off when our parents first got together. He never even gave me a chance. And maybe part of me engaging in this battle of wills with him was about more than knocking him off the pedestal the school, the town, put him on. Maybe deep down, I wanted him to realize I was a good person. A person worth knowing.

A sister worth having.

Ugh. I hated feeling like this. Weak and at his mercy.

I hated feeling like Jason’s opinion of me mattered at all.

Rolling onto my side, I turned away from Flick. After a couple of seconds of silence, her voice drifted over me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s fine,” I choked out, swallowing the tears threatening to fall.

I wouldn’t cry.

Not over this.

And definitely not over my asshole of a step-brother and his friends.

“I just don’t want to see you get hurt,” she said, rolling behind me. Flick slipped her arm around my waist and tucked herself against my back. “I know you, Hails, and I know you’d never let things go too far, but Jason? I’m not so sure about him. He has to be the best, come out on top, whatever the cost. You should know that by now.”

I did.

He was cold. Focused. Determined to succeed no matter what.

And for as much as I talked a good talk, even walked it sometimes too, I wasn’t like him. I was hardened, yes, but I still had feelings. I still hurt. Cut me open and I was pretty sure I’d still bleed red, unlike Jason who would bleed blue and white. Or maybe even black to match the color of his soul.

My best friend was right. If I wasn’t careful, this game between me and Jason was going to chew me up until nothing was left. It’s

what Cameron had been warning me about too. Jason wouldn’t stop. He’d keep pushing, keep coming at me, until I surrendered.

But even knowing he might hurt me, that in the end, Jason might successfully smash through my walls, I still didn’t know if I could do it.

I didn’t know if I could walk away.

Cameron

“After Thatcher talking shit on Twitter and Snapchat all week, my money's on him.” Asher took a long pull on his beer, slouching down in one of the La-Z-boy chairs in his games room.