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I know what it’s like to have a monster lingering over your shoulder, an overbearing shadow you can’t shake. I know the toll it takes. Maybe I’m confusing Meg’s trauma with my own, but a tiny, selfish and stupid part of me believes that if I can help Meg defeat her enemy, then I might be able to take on mine. I need her to show me the way, prove to me that bravery can always be found.
“Is now a good time to discuss my fee?” Thiago’s voice fills the room, and my eyes slowly draw open. Unable to withhold my scoff, I stand and raise my brow at him. He’s back on his feet now, backpack slung over his shoulder and empty mug placed back on the table without a coaster. My left eye twitches. “My mama told me, if you’re good at something, you should never do it for free.”
“You’re doing it because we have a deal,” I point out. “We’re going to help Meg take back the free choice Harrison stole from her, and save Laura before Harrison damages her beyond repair too.” There’s a pause where I hear back what just came out of my mouth, the insinuation that I want to ‘fix’ Meg just like Thiago said. Thankfully, he doesn’t linger on the ‘I-told-you-so’s’.
“Deal is a strong word,” he tilts his head. “We have a loose agreement that all hinges on Meg’s consent. That free choice you speak of goes both ways.” My molars grind together. No one else has ever managed to crawl beneath my skin so quickly, the condescending attitude rolling off him in waves. Sighing, I lean back against the wall beside the window and fold my arms.
“And if she doesn’t want to go?”
“Then I’ll find someone on the dark web to go after Laura, and you won’t get to play out this little experiment of yours.” He responds without missing a beat. It’s right then I realize I’m not the only one prone to overplan, having a scenario ready for every eventuality. Turning, Thiago finally takes his leave, and I almost allow myself to relax an inch, knowing that I got what I wanted, when he hesitates in the doorway. Without a groan, I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“What is it?” I ask, exasperated with his presence. Whether he’s going to try to extort me for money or throw me a backhanded insult, it’s draining and irritating as hell, the whole playful puppy thing. Except this time, as Thiago turns back, he’s not smirking anymore.
“If we get caught doing this,” he starts quietly, picking at his bag strap, “your fancy lawyers will get you off with a slap on the wrist, but I don’t have such connections. I’ll be facing jail time, and I’m far too pretty to not become someone’s bitch.”
“I’ll make sure they use a good photo of you in the papers,” I reply without a moment’s hesitation. Instead of scowling as I am, Thiago’s face lights up, one of those stupid smiles growing across his face until a small one creeps along the edges of mine too. Damn him. Straightening, I meet his gaze front on and let that trickle of humor slide away. “If we get caught, I’ll take the fall. This is my plan, you’re a naïve nerd I’m coercing to help me. That’s all.”
“This naïve nerd had Meg in his bed last night,” Thiago smugly mumbles under his breath, but I catch every word. Retracing his steps, he comes to stand before me. “Guess we’re partners then,” he holds out his hand between us. I almost roll my eyes at the gesture, but this is something I can’t do alone. I’m going need be Thiago as an ally, the eyes in the sky, and I’m going to have to let myself trust him. Clasping his hand, his grip tightens, and he suddenly pulls me close. “And as your partner, it’s worth saying that if anything happens to her—”
“Nothing will happen to her,” I try to shake him off, but he’s deceptively strong. Keeping his chest an inch from mine, Thiago’s eyes bore into mine, not a trace of mirth left in their cold, icy depths.
“If something happens to her, I won’t just destroy your life. I’ll dismantle it piece by piece, lying in wait and watching from a distance until you eventually forget about me. Then I’ll strike, and it won’t just be ruining every business you own from the inside out. It’ll be mailing daily glitter bombs to your house, posting fake porn of your wife online, ostracizing your children from every Ivy League school they apply to, slipping minuscule amounts of arsenic into your coffee shop orders so you don’t know where the burn starts and you end—”
“Okay! Okay, I get it,” I shove Thiago away, prying back my hand by sheer force. “Meg will be completely safe, I swear it.” Satisfied, Thiago grins like the Joker, and I clasp my hand to my chest as if I’ve just been assaulted. “Jesus fuck, you’re a twisted motherfucker.”
Grinning, Thiago nods.
“I’ll send you an invoice for my services. Expect a lot of zeros, I don’t come cheap.” This time, he does bound away, his puppy nature slotting back into place. I remain still until I hear the front door slam shut, rattling the house around me. Why do I feel like making a deal with Thiago is akin to letting my own personal devil into my life?
Striding over to my desk, I pick up his empty mug and place it back on the coaster where it should be. Beside it, Harrison’s address stares at the ceiling, those few lines holding more weight than I can register. This is the answer we’ve all been searching for blindly. For me to prove myself to Meg, to understand my feelings so I can give Cody the clarity he deserves, and for Meg to heal the wrongs that never should have touched her.
Dropping into my seat, I pick up that paper as if it could combust in my fingers, and I memorize the address just in case it does. My chest tightens whilst my heart beats through my entire body, each thud like a countdown. There is finally a way through this. A dangerous way. An imperfect way, but it’ll be worth it when Meg remembers her hands can be steady. Her spine is made of steel, and she was fierce long before I loved her for it.
Chapter Twenty Seven
By evening, I’ve accepted the unfortunate truth that Meg O’Connor has taken up permanent residence in my head and is refusing to pay rent. Not quietly either. Not some fleeting thought passing through the gaps between my pounding music switching songs. No, she’s everywhere. In the steam still clinging to the bathroom mirror. In the coconut scent left behind on my hands, no matter how many times I’ve scrubbed them. In the scratch of my pencil against paper, in the smear of blue-black paint dried beneath my nails.
It’s not just my thoughts betraying me either. I can still feel her. Her hair is heavy in my fingers. Her pulse beneath my palm. The shock that’s taken up residence in my chest when she didn’t pull away. That’s the part I keep circling back to, the fact she stayed. She stood inches from my almost naked body and let me touch her. Let me wash the mud from her hair. Let me press my fingers into the tension at her shoulders until her breathing softened out.
It takes me all the way back to the Fresher’s Party and the question of, had she not been unknowingly under the influence of drugs, what could have happened? Would she have still asked me to go upstairs? Would clarity have sent her to a different room where she waited for me, instead of retreating to the safety of Everest’s office? I wish I knew the answer, because I’m going fucking insane thinking it over and over.
I stood under freezing water until my skin prickled and my teeth threatened to chatter. It helped somewhat, but not nearly enough. I returned to my room with wet hair, my stained jeans clamped over my dick, and the desperate intention of ignoring every thought about her until morning. It was a noble plan that was doomed to fail instantly.
Within eight minutes of dressing and blasting my music, I was sitting before my sketchbook again, working on the dried page of murky clouds and misery.
Three guesses what form spread across the page, shading out the players on the field amongst bruises lining her ribs. Her back is arched, and her breasts…those incredible breasts appear in keen detail. One look and they’re seared into my memory, threatening to stir my erection once again. Either I’m missing Everest or the cold water did nothing to douse the heat in the pit of my core. As if on cue, my phone buzzes just as I’m darkening the line of her jaw.
Everest: Match was a fucking disaster. Got into a fight. Don’t ask. Going home to sleep it off.
I stare at the message for longer than necessary. Even now, every time Everest’s name pops up on my phone, my heart still does a pathetic little flip. It doesn’t matter that he’s not coming over, in fact, it’s probably for the best tonight. I don’t know how I’m going to explain that I accidentally happened to shower with Meg, when I’ve given him so much shit over the years for even being near her.
Intuition tells me there’s something Everest is avoiding coming over to tell me as well, the fact he ‘got into a fight’ and that Meg left the game early with rage dancing in her blue eyes is too much of a coincidence.
All problems for tomorrow. I sit in the smell of my coconut shampoo for a while longer, determined to stop thinking about the way Meg wrung her hair onto my feet with that smug little smile. Her defiance made my cock twitch then, and it does now. Here I was thinking girls were shy, meek little things that could be bought or bossed around. Then again, I rarely consider that anyone aside from Everest has any value, hence I don’t bother thinking about them at all.
Hours drag by, my mind slipping further into a spiral. Multiple times, I close the sketchbook, only to fidget and open it again. My music gets progressively louder in an attempt to drown out my thoughts, the cheap doorframe rattling on its hinges until that stops working too.
Then the doom scrolling starts, the student forum providing me with a photo of Meg being almost kissed by the guy who’s infuriating Everest at every practice. Thiago. A smirk pulls at my mouth before I catch myself staring a little too long at the smile plastered across her face. I’ve never seen her smile like that. So wide and natural, caught off-guard by the way Thiago is dipping her sideways.
