Always Crew by Tijan

BREN

I was sitting in my truck, parked outside Cain University’s gymnasium. The windows were down. A slight breeze wafting through, mixing with a slight mingling smell of someone’s bonfire, sweat, and garbage. I glanced over. The dumpster in the corner of the lot was overfilling. My guess, it hadn’t been picked up on last week’s rotation. Or maybe over the last month. Either that or there’d been a party in the parking lot over the weekend.

Option two was more viable, now that I thought about it. Knowing the students on this campus and what they were capable of, definitely option two.

“What’s up, Brennie Bren?”

I had not even one second to swear, raise the window, or just simply have a knife ready and poised. Not that I needed it, but I wanted it, solely on the principle that Zeke Allen was annoying AF and also, that he snuck up on me. Dammit.

I had to settle with looking over at him, and hoping my glare of death suddenly had Reaper magic.

It didn’t.

His assholish smirk was still there.

I shifted in the seat, moving an inch away, again on the principle of it alone. “Still as repulsive as ever, Allen.” And he was. A professional douchebag, fraternity brother by career, and loaded up the ass with privilege and wealth. Unfortunately, we were stuck with him because he was also Cross’ brother’s best friend.

See. We were all doomed.

I added before he said anything else that would make me want to vomit, “I heard that we came close to not having you grace our presence at Cain.” And he continuously looked like he was enjoying himself. I said further, “That’s too bad. For real. Way. Way. Way. Too bad.”

He moved in, positioning to rest a hand on my door, over the opened window, and he laughed. “There you go, being funny. And no one said Bren Monroe has a funny personality. Personality, yes. You know the kind…dull, gloomy, dark, death, but comedic, I never would’ve believed if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears. Tell me the truth, Bren. You lie at night thinking of ways to brighten my day, don’t you? Don’t be shy. You can share your feelings for me. I know you have dirty thoughts about me when you’re in the shower.”

I was gritting my teeth, and I hated to admit this, but he was starting to boil my blood.

In the murdering way.

I shot back, “You know what’s actually funny? You don’t say any of this shit when your boy’s standing in front of you.”

That smirk immediately vanished.

Got you.

He didn’t like me talking about his best friend. Then, point taken, that’s all I was going to talk about. I positioned myself a bit more, facing him, tilting my head to the side. “You’re nice and quiet whenever Blaise is around. Why is that? Hmm? Oh, and I didn’t just hear about how you might not have come to Cain, that your daddy got mad at you.” I waited a beat. He didn’t like knowing that I knew any of these things. I had to add, “And guess who told us all that information?”

“There you go, trying to be a comedian. I lied before.” He snapped forward, baring his teeth. “You ain’t no comedian.” His eyes widened and he leaned back. “Wait a minute. What do you do? I was going to say don’t quit your day job, but you don’t have one of those anymore. You ain’t a college student. You got no career. I’m at a loss. I mean, how do I even know how to insult you if you aren’t doing anything productive with yourself?”

“Zeke!” A bark came from just in front of the truck.

We both turned.

Zeke cursed under his breath, stepping back.

Like two marauding golden twins, Blaise and Cross were heading right for us. Blaise had his soccer bag in one hand, still dressed in his uniform. He must’ve had a game. Cross was eyeing him from the side, angling his body so it looked as if he hadn’t come with Blaise, more like both of them converging on the truck at the same time. Cross had been working out, lifting weights with Jordan, but I didn’t see our other crew member coming with him.

Blaise and Cross weren’t actual twins. The twins were Cross and Tasmin, his sister, and she was going to college about four hours away from us at Grant West University. But even though none of them knew about the other growing up, the results were the same. Cross and Blaise, though different moms, looked eerily similar.

They were coming in both hot and ready to handle whatever was going on.

I knew Blaise was coming in to back his boy up.

Cross was coming to either back me up or make sure I hadn’t murdered Zeke. Judging by how he gave Zeke a once-over, then eased back, it was the latter. His eyes met mine, those tawny, gorgeous, and smoldering eyes, and I caught a flash of amusement.

I scowled at him.

He thought this was funny?

His mouth only twitched again.

Oh yeah. He thought this was funny.

Then again, anytime I came across Zeke Allen, Cross enjoyed watching me at work. He told me later that seeing me do my thing was ‘fucking hot when you tear him down.’ Those were his words, not mine. But now that I was thinking about it, that’s all I wanted to do: tear Zeke down.

“The fuck?” Blaise was there in an eyeblink, and he was moving between us, pushing Zeke backwards, but looking over his shoulder at me and frowning. Cross had decided he wasn’t needed. He tossed his workout bag in the back and got in next to me. He leaned over, kissing me and saying, “You okay?” His words were so quiet, and they gave me a thrill like always. Or maybe that was the kiss, or how he ran his hand down the side of my face before leaning back, giving me a closer and more intimate look. Whatever he saw must’ve reassured him that everything was definitely okay. He nodded and pulled back, his thumb tweaking over my bottom lip in a flirtatious touch.

Hiding a small grin, he angled his body, turning toward me. One elbow rested on the dashboard and he spoke to Zeke, sounding almost bored, “I get that you’re obsessed with my brother, but do you have to be obsessed with my woman, too? Get one of your own.”

Blaise paused, sending his brother a chilling glare.

Yeah. Those two had so not walked out together, side by side.

Blaise must’ve come from the soccer field. It was just past the gym.

“Okay. Let’s all shut the fuck up.” Blaise sent everyone a cold look before turning to his best friend. He began pushing him back even farther.

Zeke wasn’t moving. Well, he was, but not willingly. Blaise was mostly pushing him without making it look like he was shoving him.

Zeke kept glaring at me over Blaise’s shoulder.

I smiled and leaned out my window, raising my voice. “I don’t know why you have such a hard-on for me, but it’s time to let those feelings go.” I nodded to Cross. “Let it go for our boys, hmmm?”

Cross leaned back in his seat, his hand coming to my leg. “Blaise will keep him under wraps.”

I watched them go, saw how Blaise’s head ducked down and he was keeping a hand at Zeke’s chest, as he continued to walk him across the lot.

Yeah. I hadn’t wanted to talk to Allen, but I had to admit that I got a rise whenever some of my own insults pierced him. Reaching over, turning the engine on, I raised my window.

Cross did his at the same time. “We gotta hold up. Jordan was getting a girl’s number. He should be out in a few minutes.”

With that, all thoughts of Blaise and Zeke Allen were gone.

I shook my head. “The amount of girls he has coming through the house is setting records. I don’t know what records, but there must be some form of record he’s breaking. He had two girls at the house last night. One left just before midnight, and the other one showed up after one. He drove her home at five. I know all of this because I was up.”

Cross grinned at me before looking, and both of us saw the gym’s door open. Jordan came out, a bag over one shoulder and a girl walking on his other side.

I said, “She’s pretty.”

Cross snorted. “They’re all pretty.”

I shot him a look. “Really? Tell me more.”

He shot me a look right back. “You know what I’m saying.”

I laughed. I did. Jordan wouldn’t give them the time of day if they weren’t.

I nodded at them. “Ten bucks says she spends the night tonight.”

Cross groaned, shaking his head. “I can’t take that bet. I know he has a study group coming to the house, and there’s a girl there he’s interested in, so this one won’t be his flavor for the night.”

“Why wouldn’t you take that bet? Easy money for you.”

“Because you would’ve found out I knew, and you would’ve kicked my ass later.”

All true.

My man knew me.

Just then, Jordan gave the girl a hug before heading our way. She lingered, waving, and he glanced back over his shoulder. When he turned to us, a cocky smirk was on his face. He flashed us a grin, tossing his bag in the back. “I promised some people food. Can we stop at the grocery store quick?”

He didn’t wait for a response because he knew the answer, jumping into the back, and then we were off the next second.

This was what we did for each other.

Rides. Helped with food. I mean, those were the easy things we did for each other, but there was more. Ride or die. It’s how we always had been, and driving through Cain, easing into the grocery store parking lot and parking, I took a beat to appreciate them. Jordan headed in first.

Cross was right behind him, giving me a look.

I gave him a nod, indicating he should go ahead, and with a small frown, he did, but I knew he’d ask what was up with me later.

And there was something up with me, but it was nothing bad. It was just the opposite.

My biggest plight in life was finding my place. With all the bad that had happened in my life, my mom dying, getting assaulted, my dad going to prison, and so many other things, this, being here with them, was the easiest to handle of them all. It was also the most uncomfortable.

What I said to Hawk hadn’t been a lie. I meant every word.

I was a fighter. That’s what I did in life. It’s who I became. It’s who I was. It’s just how I was. I fought and I survived. The girl whom Jordan just got a number from, or the girl waiting at the house for him, those were normal girls.

Since he had broken up with Tabatha, since those girls started showing up, I hadn’t judged. I hadn’t been unfriendly. They mostly stayed away, knowing I was one of Jordan’s ‘family,’ that’s how he introduced all of us, and when they saw I was with Cross, I either got looks of envy or looks of relief. But my point is that I listened to them. I heard how they spoke, the words they used, what their hopes were, what their concerns were. Getting good grades. Passing a class. Losing ten or twenty pounds. Getting invited to certain parties, depending on who threw it, and the reasons for why hadn’t they been invited and others had, etc.

They liked makeup, dressing sexy.

A few girls came over who cared about getting a good job one day. They knew the hours of the library versus how some knew the best hour to show up at a fraternity party. Jordan wasn’t being picky, but even with the more studious girls, I still felt it.

It was just there.

A feeling. An underlying dynamic that bristled against me. It was like an allergy, working against me, and that no matter what, I wasn’t like those girls. But Hawk. The girl with the warrior braids, smoky-eye makeup, who sat in a room and talked to me about not being a liability to her family, that girl…she was like me.

She gave me heat, but I shot it back, but even then, I knew that I was like her.

We defied society rules. We fought and survived in the darkness, and somehow, we thrived among it.

Watching Jordan, how he was handling life at college, watching Zellman, even watching Cross—they were happy. And I wasn’t saying that I was unhappy, but I was lost. We were crew, and because of that, they’d been in the darkness with me. We formed out of necessity, and then that bond strengthened into a vow of family. There was no crew system anymore, here or in Roussou. It’d been disbanded. The administration had won, so what did that make us?

We weren’t fighting anymore. That seemed childish, but that world of violence, it was in me.

I was realizing that a part of me needed it. Maybe that’s why Channing sent me to Coug r Lanes. He knew exactly what I would be needing?

Yet, I didn’t know, and stepping inside the grocery store, I didn’t think I’d have it figured it out by tonight.

Coming up behind Jordan and Cross, who were both in the meat section, I skimmed the cart. There was a box of tampons. The brand and size I used.

“B. You want chicken or steak tonight?” Jordan was the one who asked.

Cross was watching me, a bit more intently than normal. He knew I had deep thoughts flowing around in my head, but I replied, “Chicken.”

He grabbed four packages, hefting them into the cart. “You’re low, right?” He was indicating the tampons. I gauged him, but he wasn’t being sarcastic or teasing. It was as if he asked if I wanted to get bread. No big deal.

I had to smile. “Yeah. I’m getting low.”

Cross met my grin with one of his.

Jordan didn’t notice. He was looking at a list. “Okay. I want to do kabobs for the group tonight. So we’ll need skewers and vegetables. Got the meat already.”

I indicated behind us. “I’ll grab the skewers. Vegetables are over there.”

“Got it.” He took off, pushing the cart in front of him.

“You okay with us doing dinner for Jordan’s study group?” Cross had stayed behind.

I shook my head, stepping closer to him. Our hands grazed against each other.

“No. I’m good. As long as there’s no problems, I like having people at the house.” I moved my hand, my pinkie entwining with his. “I got used to it at the end with all of Channing’s friends coming over.”

“Yeah.” Cross fell silent.

This was one thing.

I had said Channing’s name. Channing was linked to my father. The same father who was now out of prison and whom I hadn’t spoken about since he left the same night he showed up.

Cross asked that night, but I shook my head and told him I needed space. I didn’t want to talk, to process yet. I didn’t even know what I felt about that situation in order to process.

He’d been giving me space. All the guys had, but his eyes sharpened, and I knew that space was about to end really fast.

I was waiting, almost holding my breath until he let out a sigh. His hand came to my arm, and he drew me against him, tucking his chin on top of my head. “You need to open up one of these days.”

I raised my arm, sliding it around his back. “I know.”

I didn’t say another word. Neither did he.

He was doing exactly what I’d asked of him…giving me more space.

Then I had to laugh. “Was it Jordan’s idea for the tampons?”

He eased back, the corners of his mouth lifted. “Yeah. Just walked by and grabbed the box. He didn’t even say a word to me about it.”

Yeah. Family. Even during the awkward things.