Page 20 of Twisted Play (Cruel Games #1)

EVA

My back ached. My feet ached. My thigh muscles ached.

“You’re looking rough.” Rory grinned as she tied her long blonde hair back in a messy bun. “Getting soft now that you’re not lifting boxes of food a few days a week?”

“Yeah, that’s definitely it,” I said, “and not the fact that I’m running myself ragged between volunteering, studying my ass off, hockey, and now this stupid shit for?—”

I cut myself off. I’d brought this on myself, after all. My surgery. My visit to Jedediah Carter. My willingness to get on my knees for Alek. My fault my fault my fault. My heart thumped hard in my chest, and I took a ragged breath before bringing my spiraling panic back under control.

Rory picked up the box beside mine and followed me over to the other side of the room, where we’d cataloged the donations. I’d squeezed in an evening shift then stuck around to help, since two volunteers had skipped their shifts.

“Is the saintly Eva Jackson actually complaining?” Rory teased me .

“I complain all the time.”

“No you don’t,” she shot back. “You’re the queen of acting like you have your shit together when you’re secretly falling apart. You never let anyone see when you’re hurting.”

“Not today.” I dropped the box on the pile and leaned on it, trying to find a position that didn’t send pain shooting through my heels. “Today, I’m tired.”

“Maybe you need a visit from your new boy to take your mind off things,” she said, nudging me in the side with her elbow.

“Hah. He—” Tristan had spent the weekend sending me memes and cute cat pictures, and I’d melted every time my phone chimed with another message from him.

“He’s not mine,” I finished lamely. To my utter humiliation, my phone chimed, revealing a message from Tristan, which I quickly hid from Rory’s prying eyes.

Rory promptly picked up her own phone and dropped a bomb into our group chat.

Rory

Eva and Tristan sitting in a tree.

Vi

Has she fucked him yet?

Sage

lol…Eva?

Me

I hate you all.

Vi

You’re an idiot, Eva.

Sage

*thumbs up emoji*

Rory

*thumbs up emoji*

Rory shook her head. “The group chat thinks you’re a fucking idiot.”

As four scholarship students who’d met pulling food bank shifts as freshman, we’d bonded over cheap ramen and processed mac and cheese as we struggled to make ends meet.

“C’mon, let’s go grab a drink.” Rory turned her gorgeous blue eyes on me and batted her lashes, as if I’d ever been able to resist her. “I’ll lock up.”

Five minutes later, we stood on the sidewalk. I desperately fought to hold in my yawns and, not for the first time, regretted the distance I’d have to travel to get home so late at night.

A car pulled up in front of us—Violetta’s junker. “Get in, losers. We’re going drinking,” she called.

Sage cackled and vacated the passenger seat so I could climb into the back.

“We’d have been done earlier if you’d stopped by to help,” Rory said, clambering in after me.

Sage giggled and adjusted her seat so Rory’s legs weren’t quite so squished in the back seat. “Oops.”

“Have you started drinking yet?”

“No, but we could start faster if you two would buckle your seatbelts and let me drive,” Violetta snapped. “Let’s go!”

Obediently, we strapped ourselves in, and the car roared back to life.

“Does this thing have heat?” Rory asked.

Violetta’s laugh told me everything I needed to know .

By the time we arrived at the bar, we were laughing, shivering, and ready to let loose after a long, stressful day.

“I’ve got the first round,” Rory said. “And Eva’s not paying for shit tonight.”

Hot tears pressed at my eyes as she brought back a tradition we’d put to rest the year before, when we all thought we were finally financially stable enough that none of us would show up to an event unable to afford to eat.

Before then, when we suspected any one of us was particularly strapped, we’d cover her drinks.

Or her dinner. And sometimes, just her ramen.

“Remember the rules,” Sage added, interrupting both my thoughts and the question Violetta was about to ask.

No questions —a rule we’d established early on, when we weren’t secure enough in our friendship to trust each other with our secrets, one that had lingered as our secrets became more painful.

A tear streaked down my cheek. What had I done in this life to deserve these women as friends?

Rory was a natural leader whom I admired deeply, with a ruthless capacity to organize people and get shit done, even when her private life was a shit show or when she’d rather be in the studio painting.

Violetta was fiercely protective, even when she was running on empty herself, a general who’d go to war to protect the people she loved, even if she never knew who she’d be crashing with that night. She’d change the world so no one would suffer like her father.

And Sage, whose relatively stable upbringing by a motorcycle club polycule hid an absolute willingness to commit violence on behalf of the people she loved. She was a little bit of a psychopath, and that was why we adored her.

And me? I was a hot mess, desperate to turn the course of events through sheer force of will, as if I could move mountains if I just worked hard enough.

Sage wiped the tear from my face before licking it off her finger. “We’ve all been there.”

We had, more than once.

“Gin and tonic?” Rory asked, and I nodded.

“But just one,” I muttered. “I have to be at practice early tomorrow.” My burner phone buzzed.

I pulled it out, and Violetta and Sage raised their eyebrows. I shook my head, unwilling to explain why I had a second phone or how it related to my current financial situation.

The Devil

Call me.

Me

Can’t.

The Devil

Time is ticking. When will you start sending me information?

My lungs froze, unable to take in oxygen. I’d allowed thoughts of Tristan and our illicit moment in the library to distract me from the disaster that was my life instead of fixing it.

Me

Soon.

The Devil

Do I need to make an example of your father?

Me

No! Soon. I promise .

I shoved the phone into the bottom of my purse, determined to make the most of this rare night out with my best friends, only to find Sage holding my gaze.

“Who do I need to kill?”

The best thing about her was that I didn’t know if she was kidding or not.

My regular phone buzzed as Rory returned with our drinks.

Tristan

Look up, kitten.

Butterflies erupted in my stomach as I searched the bar.

Tristan

In the back, near the jukebox.

I found him surrounded by his teammates, smiling at me in a way that made me want to melt for him. He looked good—shoulders stretching a t-shirt that emphasized his muscles, and god, those fucking powerful thighs I’d straddled as he made me come in the library.

Cole stood beside him, suntanned, blond, with clear blue eyes the color of a summer sky, a filthy rich all-American boy who’d called me sparrow last week and set off the same butterflies in my belly as Tristan.

Tristan

Come here.

Violetta peered over my shoulder, not bothering to hide her curiosity. “Absolutely not,” she said, clutching my jean-clad thigh as I started to slide out of the booth. “Make him come to you. Which one is it?”

“Cornrows, sharp cheekbones, golden eyes, looking at me like he wants to eat me for breakfast. ”

“Oh, shit,” she said with a grin when she found him standing beside Cole. “He’s gorgeous. And so’s his friend.”

Cole glared at me.

Shit .

Violetta crooked her finger at the boys and gestured for them to join us. Tristan took two steps forward before Cole grabbed his shoulder and whispered something in his ear.

Tristan looked at his best friend for a long moment, his face utterly blank, before grinning, elbowing Cole, and then heading toward me. Cole followed, his expression faintly disgusted, as if he couldn’t stand the sight of me.

I shrank in on myself before Violetta elbowed me in the stomach, her elbow sinking into the soft rolls.

“Stop it,” she said. “You’re hot. Long red hair, tits for days, and an ass to die for.”

“Hey, ladies.” Tristan grinned, and my heart did a goddamned loop-di-loop in my chest.

“Sparrow, ladies,” Cole said, nodding at me. Tristan stood by the table, waiting for…?

Oh.

Violetta grinned and smooshed herself against the wall, looping her arm around my waist and encouraging me to scoot closer to her. “Take a seat, boys.”

Tristan slid in beside me, his thigh pressing against mine.

Rory and Sage didn’t move, so Cole snagged a chair from a neighboring table and took his place at the end, his gaze never leaving my face.

Guilt racked me. I was letting the coach sexually abuse me so I could provide Cole’s father with blackmail material that would ruin him and everyone else on the team.

What the fuck was I doing?

Rory immediately sussed out the tension between me and Cole and turned to him like the excellent wing woman she was.

He shook his head. “You don’t have to entertain me—watching Tristan fall over this little sparrow is entertaining enough.”

Tristan didn’t say a word. He just squeezed my knee, sending electricity crackling up my spine.

“Don’t be an asshole,” he said to Cole, immediately turning the conversation to our classes and friends we had in common.

He was working hard to charm my friends, and that told me more about him than anything else—it must have been absolutely clear that the way to my heart was through these women, and he was willing to do the work to get there.

I couldn’t pay attention to the conversation around us, not with the heat of Tristan’s palm burning into my skin through my pants. Every stroke of his thumb against the outside of my knee recalled the fiery memory of that moment in the library last week.

When I squirmed in my seat, absurdly turned on by the simple touch, Cole caught my eyes and smiled cruelly, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.

“Sparrow,” he murmured, “what are you doing?”

I shrugged, helpless to answer because I sure as fuck had no idea.

“Do you think Tristan has time to date?”

“I told him I don’t date,” I murmured, leaning forward a bit so Cole and I could talk while Tristan regaled Violetta with hockey stories over my back. “He’s persistent.”

Cole’s bright blue eyes darkened, and his gaze grew hooded. “So am I.”

“What do you want?”

Cole smiled. “Tristan. You. World domination. ”

“Does Tristan know that?”

Cole’s smile turned sharklike. “He will.”

The thought of me between the two of them, their tongues dueling over my head, their hands running over each other’s hard muscles and my soft curves, made my pussy clench. My expression must’ve given away the rush of desire, because Cole took my hand in his.

“Watch out, sparrow, lest you fly too close to the sun.”