Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 97882 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97882 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
I’d become so good at covering for us now that my neck didn’t even heat as I blinked at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure,” he said, waggling his brows. “You just don’t want to tell us who she is.”
“I bet I could guess,” Zeke said.
I took a drink of water, bored. “If you could, you’d know more than me. I didn’t even catch a name.”
Leo let out a shocked laugh as Clay covered his mouth with one fist and said ohhh.
“Damn, Cap,” Leo said, smacking my chest. “Ruthless. Even I get the name first.”
“What’s the point?” I said, hoping I sounded just a nonchalant as I did every season when I happened to let a girl take me home for a bit of stress relief.
“Yeah, yeah,” Clay said, smirking. “We all know. No time for anything but football for Holden Moore.”
Leo started in on telling us a story about some girl on the cheerleading squad who’d been playing hard to get, and I let my eyes wander the party, looking for Julep.
I felt Zeke watching me.
I glanced his way, and he just arched a brow, stepping a little closer to me and away from the other two. “Who ya looking for?”
“Just looking.”
“Ah,” he said, lips turning down as he nodded. “So… you wouldn’t want to know that Julep is here?”
I knew I did a shit job of covering the way my whole body stilled at the mention of her name. “Is she?”
Zeke’s lips flattened. “You suck at pretending you’re not into her.”
“Apparently not,” I said, glancing at Clay and Leo who I was fairly confident didn’t have a clue.
“She’s drunk,” Zeke said after a moment.
That made my grip on my cup tighten a bit, the plastic crunching.
“And I saw some kid I’ve never seen before offering her a Xan.”
That did it.
My façade cracked, and I tossed my cup in the trashcan before grabbing him by the shirt and dragging him away from Clay and Leo.
“Where is she?”
“Game room,” he answered, nodding toward the back hall. I turned, but he caught my sleeve. “She doesn’t seem herself, man. Be careful.”
I shrugged him off, putting it out of my mind that he clearly saw right through our bullshit and knew more than he should. I could deal with that another time.
Right now, I had to find her.
Shoving through the building crowd, I tried not to let my thoughts spiral as I searched the house. She wasn’t in the game room like Zeke had said, so I tried the bathroom, and then the living room.
No sign of her.
I climbed the stairs to my room, but she wasn’t there either, and then I lost every fuck I had about staying calm and started beating open the other bedroom doors.
Leo’s was empty. Braden had a girl half naked in his and was pissed I’d interrupted. I barely got an apology out before I left and stormed toward Kyle’s. I kicked the door open.
And there she was.
Although, with just one look, I knew the real Julep wasn’t really there at all.
Her body was there, sure — sweat glistening on her chest, hair matted to her slick neck and forehead, dark eyes nearly black where they were glazed and half-open. But there was barely any light beyond those eyes, barely any recognition of me towering in that doorway and Kyle jumping off the bed.
“What the fuck, bro?” he yelled, getting up in my face. “A little privacy, please?”
Julep’s reaction was delayed, her body swaying a bit as she grabbed the strap of her tank top that had slipped down her arm and pushed it back up over her shoulder. Her hand slapped down to her lap afterward, head bobbing forward like she’d fall asleep at any second.
My jaw was so tight I swore I felt a tooth crack from the pressure, and I glared at Kyle, then at her, then back at him.
I knew my brother. I knew that, even though he pissed me off, he wouldn’t do anything with Julep — or any girl — in a state like this. But the fact that he had her in his room at all pissed me off. He should have taken her home and put her straight to bed. He should have found me, because he knew even when I tried to hide it that there was something between us.
The one thing he shouldn’t have done was take her up here to his room.
My hands tightened into fists, neck straining as I glared at him. “Get out.”
“It’s my room.”
“I don’t give shit.”
“I’m looking out for her just like you would.”
“SHE’S NOT YOURS TO LOOK OUT FOR!”
The possession that ripped through me in that moment surprised me even more than it did Kyle, who let his head snap back like he’d caught me red-handed in a crime he’d suspected me guilty of for years.