Savage Little Lies by Eden O’Neill

Chapter Nine

Sloane - present

I washed my face long and hard that next morning after running into Ares, scrubbing it. I still couldn’t believe what had fucking happened.

This was hopeless.

This situation was hopeless, and once again, I found myself at the center of hate. Legacy hate.

Dorian’s hate.

The first time, I hadn’t been aware of the reasons. Once I was, I hadn’t liked it, but I’d gotten it. In the end, it’d all been a big misunderstanding. Actually, quite like this, but this I couldn’t get or accept. I wasn’t a liar. I hadn’t betrayed him.

That didn’t matter.

He’d made up his mind, and that had made up everyone else’s mind.

I braided my hair with wandering thoughts, trying not to feel anything, but that was hard. He’d once again shut me out, but this time was different. This time I was invested. I cared about the asshole and fuck us both.

Fuck me.

I wished I hated him. I wished I didn’t care for him, Bow, or anyone else. That would make all this easier. I could be alone. I got being alone. My brother and I were our own island, and I thrived on how well we always adjusted.

It was different when you actually had something, though. At least the start of something. I didn’t know what that was for Dorian and me, but it’d been something.

You need to get your shit together.

With a stiff breath, I moved on that morning. I still had a ship to fucking run, and my brother was sick. He hadn’t been any different last night before he’d gone to bed. Though he had gotten some homework done. It hadn’t been much since he complained about drowsiness, but he’d gotten a little bit done, and I’d worked with him.

Of course, his smart ass hadn’t needed me. He was the whiz, but he’d entertained me being there and working alongside him on my own work. In all honestly, I would have preferred working on a series I’d started in my art studio downstairs. I hadn’t gotten terribly far with it, but with all the downtime I’d had since coming here, that was where my mind had been at since Bru had been busy himself with football after school.

He obviously wasn’t doing that now, and I knocked on his door this morning. “Bru?”

His door was kind of open, so I pushed it the rest of the way. My brother turned over, and I thought he might be still sleeping, but I spotted him texting on his cell phone.

He eyed over his shoulder, some actual color in his face. “Sup?”

Well, that seemed good. He hadn’t been talking so much since he’d been tired and achy.

Lounging against the door, I eyed the room before smirking. “Really milking this thing for all it’s worth, aren’t you?”

His room was filled with video games and takeout cartons. Clearly, my brother’s weird bug hadn’t dulled his appetite.

And he seemed to be better now, sitting up. It took him a second to get himself stable, and clearly, some weakness continued to bother him. The fact that he’d been able to rise in itself was good, though. He had the energy enough to do it.

“Whatev,” he said, messing with his phone a sec before resting his head back on the wall. He closed his eyes. “Anyway, give me a fucking break. I’m like dying or some shit.”

He wasn’t dying, my eyes rolling back into my head. I picked up a pizza box, stacking it on another. “Dying people don’t eat pizza.”

“Says who?” He chuckled, but he must have done it too hard because he stopped. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”

“What does?”

“How about everything?” His eyes still closed, he folded his arms. “This fucking sucks. Why couldn’t you get it?”

“Nice,” I said, and after cleaning up some of his stuff, I sat on his bed. “And you obviously aren’t contagious; otherwise, I would have gotten it.”

Dr. Richardson didn’t think this was something my brother could pass to anyone. Just a bug, like he said. Leaning forward, I felt my brother’s forehead, and though he was still warm, he wasn’t burning up like that first day.

“You seem to be coming around, though. Sitting up? I’m assuming you’ve been taking your medicine.” The doctor had left some stuff for him.

My brother shrugged. “When I remember. I think I missed the last dose or two. I get all foggy, and since I’ve been sleeping, I just forget.”

Well, he couldn’t be doing that. Not if he did want to get better.

I’d scold him, but since I didn’t know what he was going through, I decided to be helpful by getting his meds together. The doctor hadn’t left a ton, but they had different directions on the bottles. I decided to get them ready on his nightstand, and while I did, he looked at his phone again.

“Any word from the guys?” he asked me, thumbing the screen. “I’ve been texting the hell out of them, asking them if everything is all right and stuff. I haven’t heard anything since before the video went viral. Ares isn’t good about texting, but Thatcher and Wells always do. I didn’t want to bother Dorian. I figured all that stuff with his family had him busy.”

I stopped messing with his pills, my eyes up. I shook my head, and my brother sighed.

“I’m not trying to get in their business. I just want to make sure everything is okay, you know?” He put his phone down. “You think they’re still mad about the haze? That I didn’t do it?”

I fingered a pill, about ninety percent sure the reason my brother was being ignored had something to do with me. If Legacy hated me again, they’d hate him by proxy. They only hadn’t the first time because Dorian had been trying to mess with me.

I guess he wasn’t bothering with that now, or having the others do that either. I rubbed my arm. “Ares said Dorian is out of town.”

“You spoke to Wolf?” Bru leaned forward.

“Barely. I just know Dorian’s not here. His parents took his phone too.”

“Shit.”

I nodded.

Bru’s head lifted. “Does that mean he did the video? Him and the other guys? Why would his parents take his phone? Do they think he did it?”

I had nothing to lose by telling my brother the truth, but I didn’t want him to think about anything else with him being sick. He didn’t need the stress.

“I can imagine all this shit with the press is hard for his family,” I said, still covering for Dorian for some reason. I swallowed. “I don’t blame them for leaving. As far as the phone, I mean, I’m not his parents, so…”

He was probably right in what he said. Again, I just didn’t want to stress him out. None of this did have anything to do with us and my brother was sick. He shouldn’t be thinking about this. His only priority should be getting better.

“Do you know where he went?” Bru continued. “Like I said, I’m not trying to get in his business.”

My brother was just worried. He was because he was a good friend.

He was being screwed just as much as I was in this situation.

“I think you should just worry about getting better,” I said, then gestured to his table. “I divided up your meds. The right side is the morning. Left, night. Actually, take the first set now while I’m sitting here so I know you have.”

Smirking, he picked up a small bottle of water he had on his bedside table. He took a swig before popping the meds, taking them down together.

He even showed me his tongue after.

“Don’t be an ass,” I said, making him chuckle again.

“And you stop worrying,” he said.

I’d do that once he got better.

I nudged his leg. I started to get his books so he could do some homework since he was up, but he waved that off.

“Finished it this morning,” he said before picking up his video game controller. He had a huge TV in here like he did downstairs. He shrugged. “Was feeling a little better, so I did it.”

Well, that was good. I grinned. “Perfect. I’ll get you some more today.”

He groaned, but I chuckled. I gathered some more of his trash before getting up.

“Did you hear anything from Callum?” he asked, fighting something on the TV screen. “He said he had to leave early. Some business thing.”

He’d said the same to me, but I hadn’t heard anything since then.

Taking out my phone, I decided to text him now to see how he was faring. I supposed I didn’t need to, but I just wanted to make sure everything was good.

“What are you doing?” My brother wasn’t even looking at me, shooting something that had purple guts.

I cringed. “Just texting him. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

“Thank him for me when you can,” Bru said. “For that doctor? Really, Callum has been a godsend. He told me he even called Coach just to make sure I didn’t lose my spot or anything. The team’s real competitive, and I was concerned about that.”

I knew he’d called the school since Bru had been out. He was technically Bru’s guardian since he was still a minor.

My brother would never know how truly helpful Callum had been surrounding the Dorian thing. I hadn’t gone into detail with my brother involving anything with that.

I’d been still trying to support the dark prince.

I had his back from the jump. Even if it didn’t matter now, I had.

You still do.

I’d dodged my own brother’s questions about him today, and before I could think about why, I got up.

“Let me know if you hear anything from the guys,” he said to me. His arms dropped over his legs. “And I’m sure you’ll hear from Dorian soon. He and his family are probably just busy like you said. Maybe his parents just need time for all this to blow over.”

Normally, I’d pass that off, tell my brother Dorian and I weren’t a thing and he needed to mind his own business.

I just nodded today, only one concern on my mind. My brother was the most important thing, his well-being and our survival. I didn’t have time for anything else. The pair of us were alive. We were good, and there wasn’t time to think about anything else. Anything else would be foolish.

Anything else was foolish.