Play With Me (12 page)

Ohmygod!
Ohmygod! Ohmygod!

Ryan staggered
back a step then caught himself before he crashed into my closet. I rushed to
him, but he held his hand out and stopped me with a scowl that turned my blood
cold. He ran his tongue over his cut lip then wiped the blood off with the back
of his hand. The next instant he had Tony pinned against the wall, with his
forearm pressed to Tony’s throat.

“I’ll let you
get off with this because you’re my
friend
, Mitchell,” he growled as
dangerously as a rabid wolf. “But do this again and you won’t live through the
night.”

“You don’t scare
me, Hunter.”

I had never seen
Tony so furious. He didn’t heed Ryan’s warning, but head-butted him on the
nose. My mind roared in panic. I couldn’t move, caught in a stranglehold of
shock. From the edge in Ryan’s eyes as he clamped down on his teeth, I could
tell Tony had just signed his own death sentence.

Full of fear for
my best friend and no less sorry for Ryan’s bleeding nose, I struggled to get a
grip and stepped between them, one hand braced on either of their chests. “No.
No!
You’re not going to do this. Not in my room,” I hissed. “And not over me.” Then
I scowled at them both in turn with the insane fear my parents would wake up
and kill me for having two boys in my room in the dead of the night.

When I wouldn’t
let them get at each other, both drew in a deep breath, and the rattle of my
bones from holding them back eased a little. I turned to Tony, staking him with
the horror I felt. “Why did you come here?” And ruined the most beautiful
moment of my life.
You idiot!

“I had to make
sure this asshole keeps his hands off your body.”

Ryan glared at
him over my outstretched arm. Unlike Tony, he was amazingly calm, which just
crept me out all the more. “You’ve chosen one helluva moment to show up.”

“Seems like I’m just
in time. You’re not going to touch her again.”

“I’m sure Liza
can speak for herself and doesn’t need
you
to babysit her.” With those
words, he placed his hands on my hips and moved me to the side.

I wasn’t sure if
this was a good idea, but with Tony being so furious, I somehow appreciated not
to be in his way anymore. Ryan took a protective stance beside me and nailed
Tony with a hard look. “This is none of your business.”

“She’s my friend
and sure as hell
is
my business,” Tony spat.

“What’s your
problem, man?”

“You are. This
shit ends now. I didn’t ask you to go that far with her.”

Ryan stiffened.
“Shut the hell up, Mitchell,” he warned in a voice gone lethal.

But suddenly I
didn’t want Tony to shut up. In fact I wanted to know what he meant with that.

Taking a
provocative step toward him, he continued. “I didn’t mean for you to screw her
when I asked you to distract her.”

At his words, my
stomach churned.

This was too
much information for just two seconds. Finding Ryan’s shocked face, I narrowed
my eyes. “Distract?” No real sound came out of my mouth. I had heard that word
one time to many tonight.

Lips tight, his
jaw hardened. “It’s not like that—”

“No?” Then what?
The club, the kiss. Him letting me drive his car. It was all part of his
brilliant plan to
distract
me. And he was sent by Tony who just wanted
to feel better—do a good deed for the old friend he’d hurt. I wanted to curl up
on the floor and bawl at the unfairness of my life.

“Bullshit, of
course it’s like that,” Tony answered before Ryan could say more. “He called me
this afternoon, wanting to know why you’d quit training all of a sudden. I
asked him to get your mind off…well—” He looked at me shamefaced, but his voice
became softer. “Off
us
. I knew you didn’t want to see me, but I couldn’t
stand the thought of you being in your room all alone, crying.” Then his tone
hardened twice as much as it had before. “But now that I think of it, it was a
crap idea from the beginning. You deserve better than him. All he wants is to
get you in the sack. Don’t you, Hunter?”

Wait.
“I deserve better?” I couldn’t believe he’d say something as trite
as this when he’d been the one who chose Barbie girl over me. “Then who, Tony?
You
?”
Cynicism leaked from every syllable.

“Why, I was good
enough for you for the past ten years.”

You were.
Until this afternoon, when you ripped my heart right out of my chest.

Ryan shoved Tony
away and stared him down, venom seeping through his glare. “
Now
you
start to fight for her? You goddamned idiot!”

“I don’t have to
fight for her. Not with you. She never wanted you.”

“She might, now.
And that scares the shit out of you, doesn’t it? Giving her up, but not wanting
her to be with someone else. You’re pathetic.”

If I looked at
it this way, he really was. But what in the world happened that I suddenly had
two furious guys fighting over me in my room. This couldn’t be true. I searched
Tony’s face. “What’s going on? You told me you’re dating Cloey. So why are you
in my room in the middle of the night?”

He shot me a
glance that said he’d rather not talk with Hunter in the room. A very queasy
feeling rose in my gut. Instinctively, I grabbed the edge of my desk for
support.

“Not hard to
guess,” Ryan answered my question, but he kept his eyes pinned on Tony. “You
slept with Cloey. And she dumped you like I told you she would, didn’t she?”

Tony was silent.

He. And Cloey.
Naked. In
one
bed.

A scream started
in my head that threatened to scatter my ears from the inside. My knees gave
way, and I collapsed on the bed. Tony reached for me, but I spider-crawled away
from him, my throat hurting as I forced air into my lungs. “Don’t you dare
touch me!”

He planted one
knee on the mattress. “Please, Liz—”

“No!” I slapped
him—for the first time ever—and his head jerked sideways with the force of my
palm. “Just go!”

Tony breathed a
few times, keeping me in focus, jaw hardening. I felt he wasn’t going to give
up, so I narrowed my eyes, filled with all the despise and coldness I was
capable of.
“Now!”

With that, he
finally backed off. He puffed a frustrated grunt and climbed out through the
window. We both knew, there was coming a time when we would talk again, but
tonight I decided that day was a long way ahead.

Ryan watched him
silently then turned to me, blood dripping from his nose and bottom lip. He wiped
it off. A scarlet line trailed across the back of his hand. “I really didn’t—”

“Stop it! I don’t
know who of you two disgusts me more tonight.” Tony, for what he did with Cloey
when I still loved him. Or Hunter, who would be just the ass I always suspected
him to be and drag me into something as beautiful as the kiss we shared when it
was only for
distraction
. “Leave me alone. I’m done with you.”

He wasn’t the
fool Tony had been to come for me with reassurances when I was close to losing
it. But he took a damn lot longer to leave my room. I almost couldn’t hold back
my tears when I looked at his pleading eyes.

“I didn’t come
because Mitchell asked me to. I came because
I
wanted to see you again.”

“Yeah, right. As
if I would believe that. Distraction, huh? Tell me, did I look so miserable
that you thought I depended on your mercy?” I paused to swallow that hurt which
lodged like a hard ball in my throat. “Or did you really just want to get me in
bed?”

Ryan pinched the
spot between his eyes, the muscles in his jaw ticking violently. “Cut the crap,
Liza. You know that’s not the truth.”

The truth was I
didn’t know what to believe anymore. My head ached too much to make sense of
tonight. Right now, I wanted no one near me, especially not this liar. “Leave.
I don’t ever want to see you again.”

Ryan didn’t move
for a solid minute. Then he came toward me, very slowly. Deliberately. He bent
forward, planting his hands on the mattress on either side of me. He was right
in my face, licking the blood off his lip. I didn’t budge.

“For a minute
there, I thought I stood a chance. But I guess in the end, Mitchell will still
be the lucky one.” He moved closer still and bridged the inch of gab between
our faces. What the heck, coming for a kiss? I sucked in a breath. But he
reached past me for his cap and straightened, pulling the brim deep down his
brow. “See you around, Matthews.”

Ryan didn’t look
back as he crossed to the window and disappeared into the dark.

Falling back on
the mattress, I curled into a tight bundle and started sobbing into my pillow. Just
where was the goddamned rewind button for today?

CHAPTER

13

DAYS PASSED, AND
I didn’t hear from either of them. It was a long week. Too long, with too much
thinking on my part. The thinking mostly focused on two specific moments. One,
Ryan’s delicious lips capturing mine. And two, Tony and Cloey, an image I just
couldn’t get out of my mind. After Tuesday night, I thought I wouldn’t live
through the pain that ripped open my heart with steel claws. But finally I fell
into a state of numb indifference to not only Tony and Ryan, but also to the
rest of the world.

By Friday, my
mom rescinded my detention. She said she had never seen so little of me in all
her life, or how pale and withdrawn I had become, and it worried her on a deep
level. Yeah, my room was my castle. I didn’t need food, nor company. And I wasn’t
sure when I last had a bath.

Even without
being grounded, I saw no particular reason for leaving my fort. Should the
world move on without me, I didn’t care. I was content with the twenty square
meters of this earth under my domain.

Saturday
afternoon, the first text message came in. From Tony. CAN I COME UP?

Since the day we
decided to be best friends because we both loved
Tom&Jerry
cartoons,
he’d never once asked before coming to my room, using either door or window. I
sighed then walked to the open window with the cell phone in my hand. Tony was leaning
against the tree, hands tucked into the pockets of his blue jeans. I wondered
if he knew what he wore today, the blue tee and shirt above, was my favorite.
And if he’d put it on for a purpose.

Our gazes met,
and his face had the word sorry edged in every line. I didn’t know what message
my expression sent him, but in case he didn’t get it right, I slowly shut the
window. To be absolutely clear, I pulled the curtains closed, too.

Funny, the same
day, Ryan tried to call me. I didn’t answer the phone, but decided to block his
number so I wouldn’t be tempted to pick up should he try again. I couldn’t
sleep all night then, because I wondered if blocking him was the right decision
after all. Close to three in the morning, I cancelled the block. And hey, he’d
tried to reach me two more times. There also was a text message. PLEASE TALK TO
ME.

Somehow, I
really wanted to reply to that text. I missed him. Hoped he would be honest
with me and could convince me he wasn’t an ass after all. But I was scared he
might do just that, and I’d be the idiot who believed him. So I sent one
message back. GO TO HELL. That text to him at three in the morning was enough
to render him silent. He didn’t try to contact me again after that.

Fantastic. It
seemed I got just what I wanted. Only that I hated it.

A few days
before school started again, Susan Miller called me. She wanted me to accompany
her at some shopping for our new classes. I let her talk me into it in a thirty-minute
phone call, and then only because I was curious how the soccer training was
going since I opted out. More, I wanted to find out how things were between
Ryan and Tony, and shopping with Susan was perfect.

She picked me up
on Friday morning, and we decided to take a walk to town instead of driving her
father’s car. In fact, this was the first time in weeks I made it past the
borders of our garden and into civilization. It felt like I’d been gone from
this world for years. All the more I was surprised that nothing had changed.

“I missed you at
training,” Susan confessed as we entered the paper shop. Then she made a
gagging face. “Hunter took Millicent Kerns from his Biology class onto the team
to replace you. I swear the girl is like an avalanche when she goes for the
goal. Buries everything underneath her.”

I grinned at
that picture. One hundred sixty pound Millicent was just the girl to roll
across the field like a snow slide. While we rummaged through a box of pens and
picked several pads, I said in the most nonchalant way, “Yeah, I kind of miss
it, too. But after I hurt my leg the first time, I thought I’d better not do
this murderous sport for a profession.”

Susan dropped a
pink pencil back into the box and slowly turned to stare at me, folding her
skinny arms over her nonexistent breasts. “Are you shitting me?”