But Brock was all business. “They know that your parents are gone again this weekend. Do you really want to be home alone with Carter?” he asked, already knowing damn well what my answer was.
Shit. Goddammit.
Steven had to return to the city to finish his business from last weekend. He’d been pulled away when the hospital called about Carter. My mom was going with him after she had lectured me about not getting any more emergency phone calls.
“No,” I admitted softly, hating that I wasn’t safe in my own home.
Brock’s gaze seared mine. “Just tell your mom you are staying with Mads.”
“Can’t I just stay with Mads?” Anywhere but Brock’s house. How would I survive the weekend? We’d either kill each other or… I couldn’t even entertain the other possibility. Common sense told me it was a mistake to spend an hour alone with Brock, let alone the whole fucking weekend. No way. I would only get myself into trouble, like fall deeper for the asshole. Was I doomed to fall for a guy who was hung up on another? How could I compete with a girl who wasn’t even here?
“Not happening,” Grayson said. “She’s my cousin. I don’t want her put in danger.”
Shit. I also didn’t want Mads to be hurt, remembering how Carter’s friends had held her back. I glanced around the table, looking at the four menacing guys staring at me. “You’re not giving me much of a choice, are you?”
Brock’s laugh was weak and raspy. “No. This is just us trying to be polite. If we have to, one of us will lock you in our house. We have rooms for that.” The guys exchanged looks.
My eyes narrowed. Most people might think they were kidding. I didn’t. “You wouldn’t.”
“He would,” Fynn said. “Just don’t let her hurt herself more,” he said to Brock.
Brock nodded at Fynn. “Good point.”
Fuck it. Maybe I deserved a weekend free from Angie and Carter. Maybe I deserved a weekend in bed with the hottest guy in school, regardless of his reasons for wanting me. It was for one weekend. I’d suffer the consequences later, just file it somewhere deep in my head with all the other shit I couldn’t deal with.
“Fine.” I gave in, sighing. “But I need to grab some things from my house, and I have to be back Sunday night.” Angie was having a family dinner.
* * *
Brock drove me home after school and waited as I dashed inside to gather an overnight bag. He drove me to Mads’s where he instructed me to stay until he came to get me after the game. I rolled my eyes and shut the door in his face.
“So, you’re spending the weekend with Brock Taylor. Interesting,” Mads said when we were alone, a wicked grin teasing her lips.
I picked at the bowl of peanuts on the table, popping one into my mouth. “Don’t start. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Hmm,” she hummed, gray eyes sparkling as she pulled out a cigarette. “I did warn you. When the four of them gang up on you, it’s best to nod and agree.”
We sat in her screened-in porch, listening to the sounds of the football game in the distance. Mads lived the closest to the Academy, but it was far away enough that all we heard was the occasional cheer of the crowd or the muffled announcer. Her parents were in the kitchen, and her mom’s laugh floated out through the screen doors. Mads had a good life—a life I dreamed about. It wasn’t the big house or the expensive furnishings I desired. It was her parents, the way they looked at each other and the way they looked at her.
That’s what I wanted—a family that loved one another unconditionally.
Mads had an older brother who was in college, Jason. Photos of the two of them were plastered all over the walls, and I couldn’t stop the pang in my chest. We didn’t have a single family photo hanging in my house. “I still don’t understand why they care,” I said.
She took a long drag on her smoke, gazing out at the setting sun. “They have their reasons.”
And that was what frightened me.
Almost as much as Carter did.
It was dark when Brock showed up after the game to collect me. “You ready?” he asked from the doorway, sweaty and still in his football uniform, his hair messy.
I swallowed.
Jocks were not my type. Then why did my heart do a series of backflips each time I laid eyes on Brock fucking Taylor? My last boyfriend had been a skateboarder who didn’t actually know how to skateboard.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Oh, wait, you already have,” Mads called after us as we left.
I flipped her off but smiled as her laugh echoed behind me. “Did you win?” I asked Brock as we walked to his Range Rover. I didn’t really give a shit about football, but I was trying to make small talk so I would stop thinking about how his ass looked in those fucking tight pants.