Boyfriend Bargain by Ilsa Madden-Mills

33

Sugar

Awhile later, after bidding the party in my room farewell, I’m heading to the Krispy Kreme drive-through and getting donuts for the guys. I’m eating one when I pull up to his house and park on the street. Wrangling the box up to the back deck, there’s a bounce in my step at the thought of seeing Z, and I’m hoping I can cheer him up. There’s a knot of worry in my chest about what happened at the game, but he says he’s more centered when I’m around, and I want to be here for him.

I let myself into the house with a key he told me was hidden under a dead plant. It’s about ten at night as I open the back door.

Long John Silver flashes by and gives me a mean meow.

I flip on the lights. “Bad cat,” I say back at her, but my voice is sweet. She hasn’t quite decided if she likes me yet, and I figure it’s because Z and I aren’t here enough for her to warm up to me.

She looks over her shoulder, gives me a glare, and then stalks off to his bedroom.

But that isn’t the only cat in the room.

I flinch when Veronica comes around the corner from the den. Dammit. I must have missed her car parked somewhere along the street.

She frowns. “What are you doing here?”

In full makeup and dressed in jeans and a cropped black and gold HU hockey jersey with Reece’s number that looks custom-made, she looks a hell of a lot better than I do in my braid, grey joggers, and black sweater. I have zilch makeup on—Z doesn’t care for it anyway—except for a swipe of Make Me Hot red lipstick, which I wore especially for him.

“Why are you here?”

Her expression is stark. “I’m here to feed the cat—like I always do when the guys are out of town.” She prances around the kitchen in her stilettos and turns to face me at the counter. I eye the knives next to her. I don’t think she’d go for one, but there’s so much anger that oozes from her that sometimes I wonder. I get that she’s the queen of the jersey chasers, but she isn’t in charge of me.

“Z asked me to wait for him.”

She raises a brow. “Do you have any clue how many girls meet him here at this house?”

I cross my arms. “None since me.” And I happen to know Z isn’t the womanizer people like to say he is. I know him. Sure he has the healthy sexual appetite of a twenty-one-year-old male—hell, I love that about him—but she likes to exaggerate this idea of a horde of females being all over him. And I get it. He’s the number one draft pick and he’s beautiful and women want that, but over these past weeks, I’ve seen another side of him. The softness blended with the dark, the man who saves cats and puts up with his brother’s hateful girlfriend. Is she even his girlfriend? I don’t know.

She gloats. “Oh, I’ll give you that. You are the one right now, but if you only knew…”

I take a step toward her, and I’m taller, looming over her. “You’ve been itching to tell me the dirt on Z since the moment we met, but the truth is, I know him.”

“You know about Willow?” I nod and her gaze rakes over me. Then she smiles. “Did he ever tell you what she looked like?”

I frown. He hasn’t, but in my head I see her as a young, pretty high school girl who idolized him. I haven’t asked too many questions about her appearance because, well, it felt intrusive. “She was beautiful.”

She sneers. “She was way more than just beautiful.”

My nerves clang at the insinuating tone she uses.

“You should see your face right now.”

“I’m going to his room for better company.” I walk down the hall.

“If you really want to know what Z sees in you, just open his nightstand drawer,” she calls out from behind me as she follows.

“I don’t go through people’s private things.” But I do recall the look on his face when he looked at his nightstand a few days back.

Before I can shut the door, she comes into his room, circling around me until she’s standing next to his bed. She sits on the navy duvet, her hand stroking over his pillow, and I want to jump on her, but I grit my teeth instead.

“What do you want, Veronica?”

She looks around the space and laughs. “That night at the Kappa party when he first saw you, it was like you were a ghost, and then he just had to have you.”

Ghost?

“So?” I feign boredom.

“Just open the drawer. See what’s there and all will be revealed and you can quit being the stupid dumb blonde who thinks the hockey player is falling for her.”

A tingle of dread crawls along my spine. “No.”

“Fine. Let me do the honors.” She leans over with a flippant attitude and pulls the drawer out, her expression lighting up at whatever she sees, and I guess this isn’t the first time she’s been through his things. She pulls out a small gold box and dumps the contents on his bed. Dozens of folded yellow pieces of paper fall out along with a lone photograph that floats around and lands near the end of the bed, closest to me. I don’t look at it.

“Afraid?” She smiles.

“No. I assume those are the letters he writes to Willow for therapy.”

She shakes her head. “It’s sick how he’s fooled you.”

My resolve cracks, but I trust him. Don’t I?

“Still not curious about those letters?” she asks, running her hands through them.

“No.”

“Chicken.” With a sigh, as if she doesn’t have a care in the world, she plucks one of the letters out of the pile and unfolds it. “Oh, look, this one’s dated a week ago. Let’s see what he says to her.” She clears her throat and begins to read.

“Willow,

Another nightmare. Remember that time we went camping for the weekend with only a tent, a few bottles of water, and a pizza? Reece was determined to spend the entire night, but somehow you talked him into us ditching the whole idea and taking off for Denny’s and you ordered an everything omelet without anything in it but cheese. I still laugh about that night. I’m lost here in the real world, yet you’re the one who’s dead. I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry for doing you wrong. If you were here, my whole life would be different. I love you. Forever, Z.”

Her eyes flash up at me. “Wow. He loves her forever, and you’re just the poor substitute.” She grins. “And if she were here, there’d be no you in his life. I find that hilarious.”

“He writes those for a reason,” I say, maintaining control, but my hands are wrapped around my stomach. I love you.Forever. I hang on to the dresser for support. “You shouldn’t go through his private things,” I manage to say, but my voice is wispy. Weak.

“Maybe.” She rummages through the pile and pulls out the photograph. “See anything interesting?”

I know I shouldn’t, but I take it from her.

First, I notice how handsome both Z and Reece are, their faces leaner than they are now, vibrant with youth and vitality. The girl…she’s small next to them, petite and gorgeous with long hair that’s flowing over her shoulders, the color a shimmering white-blonde.

I finger my own hair, taking in her face, the way it curves, the shape of her eyebrows and how they frame her face. That sick feeling inside me grows, spreading.

“It’s eerie, right?” Veronica says softly, watching my face. “You could be her sister.”

I tear my eyes from the picture and my hands tremble. “We aren’t sisters.”

“That’s the beauty of it,” Veronica says, her face triumphant. “How does it feel to be the B team?”

I look down at it again, and my stomach turns. The truth batters at me, even as I try to deny it, but…her hair color, the length, the way our faces are shaped…my hands curl at my sides.

God. What is happening?

I’m falling down a deep, vast hole…

A bitter laugh flows out of her. “You can’t compete with her. You can’t be better than a dead girl. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

I let the photo fall to his bed, and I turn and make my way to the kitchen. I hear her behind me as she goes into Reece’s bedroom and shuts the door. Mission accomplished, I guess. She’s been dying to tell me this since she first saw me, and now…

I’m standing in the middle of the kitchen, my heart pounding like crazy, trying to piece it all together when the front door opens and Eric, Reece, and Z come in with long faces.

“Ah, my favorite blonde—just the welcome home I need,” Eric says, making a joke that comes off as forced. He jumps ahead of Z teasingly, gives me a quick hug, and then steps back, giving me a quizzical look. “Hey, we’re the ones in a shitty mood. What’s your excuse, babe?”

Z’s at my side, easing me away from Eric. A furrow knits his brow as he stares down at me. He tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear. “What’s wrong? Did something scare you?”

I wonder what my face must look like.

“Veronica’s in Reece’s room,” I say, swallowing. “But when I got here, she followed me to your room and told me—” I stop myself. I can’t do this in front of Reece and Eric.

Z gives Reece a dark look. “Can’t you control her?”

“Fuck you,” Reece mutters as he drops his duffle and heads back to his room.

Eric is digging into the donuts I put on the table, and Z turns to me and presses his forehead against mine, a needy look on his face, his gaze drinking me in. “Forget them. I missed you so much. What a fucking mess today was. Stan saw everything.”

“Nothing physical going on?” I run my gaze over him, checking for other injuries. My hands want to touch him, but I don’t. I’m barely breathing. I’m barely anything.

“I’m good.”

A long breath comes from me.

Okay. He is okay. I can see it for myself.

I try to put a few inches between us, but he doesn’t let me, tugging me back until his body is flush against mine. “Hey you, don’t run away. I’ve been thinking about you the whole way home,” he says in my ear, his nose trailing down my neck. “You smell so good.”

“Gross. Your room is just down the hall,” Eric says with a donut in his mouth.

I move back a bit, keeping my gaze down. “Uh, I just came to bring the donuts.”

Z gives me a hard look and frowns, his eyes narrowing. “What’s going on?”

I stare at the floor for a few more seconds then look back at him and shake my head. “I can’t…”

Eric raises a brow at us and takes off for the den. “Later, sexy people.” I hear him turning on the TV.

Z hasn’t taken his eyes off me.

I move to the table, where I grab the back of a chair. I’m swaying, as weak as a reed in the face of a hurricane.

“Sugar? What the fuck?”

I dig down deep for strength. “I saw the picture of Willow you keep in your nightstand. You never mentioned how much we resemble each other.” I’m amazed at the calmness in my voice.

Maybe I’m just numb. Maybe I always expected the axe to fall on us eventually. I think about Mama and her face all the times she’d cry and tell me my father was once again gone back to his family. Is that what my face looks like now? Devastated and broken?

His chest expands, and he looks at me before stalking by and going into his room, but I don’t follow. I hear him moving stuff around, slamming a drawer, and then he comes back into the kitchen. “You went through my things?”

“You think I went through your things? Screw you.”

I turn to the sink to fill a glass to settle my stomach, but water goes everywhere as my hand shakes. I set it back down on the counter then turn to face him. He’s dropped into a chair and scrubs at his hair, a hesitant, almost frightened look on his face.

“This…this isn’t what it looks like.”

My hands clench. “It looks like you picked me out at that party because of Willow. It looks like you’re with me because I look like her.” I think back to the photo, the eerie resemblance. I want the floor to swallow me whole.

He doesn’t say anything for so long, until I want to scream to get a reaction out of him. “Z, I look like her! Just admit it, please!”

“Yes,” he whispers.

My heart drops as I take that blow. “And you could have told me at any time about the resemblance, but you didn’t. We’ve been together since January and you never told me.”

A thick silence fills the room. He swallows and looks away. “I started to a few times, but it never felt right—”

“You knew how this would end.” I shake my head.

He whitens. “I was going to tell you eventually…”

“When?”

“After hockey…shit, I don’t know. I was afraid to say anything. I didn’t want to screw us up…” He bites his lip, chewing on it.

I laugh harshly and press my hand to my lips. “And this is why Reece doesn’t like me.” I close my eyes then open them when I hear Z scooting the chair back. He approaches me, and I step around him, because if he touches me, I might not be able to think. “Don’t you dare touch me.”

He halts and runs a hand through his hair, pulling on it. “You’re… It’s not like that. You are not her. I want you.”

“So you weren’t thinking about her? Ever? How about ‘I love you. Forever.’Sound familiar? How about ‘If you were here, my whole life would be different’? You wrote that in a letter one week ago.”

His throat bobs. Good, good. I want him upset. He reaches out to cup my face, but I jerk away. “Stop.”

He sucks in a breath. “Please, whatever you’re thinking, just stop for a minute and let me explain, Sugar.”

I grit my teeth. He can’t see the forest for the trees. He doesn’t see what’s wrong about this. Or he does, but he isn’t ready to admit it. He’s lost, still in love with a dead girl, and I can’t help him.

I move toward the door but his voice stops me, pleading. “Please don’t leave.”

I face him. “You can’t build a relationship on a lie,” I say quietly, regaining some control, because I have to get the words out. I have to. “You’re just like every guy who’s broken my heart, Z. At least with Bennett, it was a girl I could see, but you…you picked someone I can never, ever compare to. You deliberately left me in the dark and now here we are—at the fucking end.”

His face reddens and his hands curl. “No, not the end. I refuse to let you go. Don’t walk out on me, Sugar. Not now, not when I’m already losing my shit. Please.”

“Goodbye, Z.” My voice cracks and I’m out the door and running to my car.