That wasn’t what I asked, shaking my head. “You obviously have friends. Maybe one of those three out there.”
“It wasn’t.” The sigh dropped his big shoulders. “We had nothing to do with that. I warned you about that place. I warned you what people do in there, and I wasn’t fucking around. Obviously, someone was watching the place, caught you and me?” He feathered fingers through thick, blond locks. “They ran with it.”
“And you didn’t stop it.”
He clicked his teeth, shaking his head. “Not my problem, princess.”
My adrenaline blazed but in a different way, hurt and the line of pain versus anger blurred so quickly I couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t breathe, and it was all his fault.
My jaw moved, my body… shaking. “You’re an asshole.”
“And we’re done?” he backed up, hands still on his hips. “I told you what you wanted to know. It wasn’t me, Em.”
The word stopped me, my name cut off but only in a way I’d heard from one other person. That person was my sister, the one who left me here.
I dampened my lips. “Are you really telling the truth? You honestly had nothing to do with the meme?”
So obviously over this line of questioning again, he shook tousled locks. “Why would I lie? I can get any girl I want in this place.”
Ouch.
We had differences between us, the captain of the lacrosse team and me. He was the leader of the school, so what would he want with a new girl from a different school? I was a nobody to him, the dirt on his cleats.
I fixed my stance, the only thing I could do to avoid feeling small. “Since this is all so trivial to you, then,” I said. “My reputation and all that. Is it too much to ask if you’d shut these rumors down? You know, since you can get any girl you want?”
A consideration moved over those starkly green eyes I watched start at my lips. He moved with his stare, his gaze chasing a path up to my eyes as he closed the distance between us.
“Is that what you want?” he asked, getting into my personal space. He had a tendency of doing that, but unlike other times, I didn’t step down.
I raised my chin. “Not if I have to give you something for it.” I may not be from this place, this world like he was, but I didn’t come here without street smarts of my own. I was starting to pick up pretty quick on these games he liked to play.
And I wasn’t playing them.
His head tilted. “Consider it done,” he said, surprising me. I’d actually been right in this case.
Thank God.
A small smile curled his full lips. “And this one’s free of charge… this time.” He left me with that, opening the doors for me but something distracted me before I could follow him. The boys had a corkboard by the door to the coaches’ offices, photos on it.
It was there I spotted Paige.
Chills lining my skin, I’d felt like she’d almost found me. I wasn’t even supposed to be in here, basically dragged. Had I not been in here, I never even would have seen this.
I approached the wall, my sister in several photos. Some of them were in this very room. My sister was in the locker room with boys—well, one in particular.
Royal had his arm around her, the pair doing peace signs while someone else had taken the picture. They wore lacrosse jerseys, lacrosse sticks in their hands, and I felt like someone gave me a peek into what seemed like ancient history. It really felt like I hadn’t seen my sister in so long but here she was, and the snapshot in time didn’t stop there. She had lots of pictures with Royal, some of them out on the field. One in particular, they grinned like a couple of assholes, flipping off the camera with their tongues out. This one wasn’t that long ago, though. Her hair cut short, Paige had only been wearing that particular style since junior year, a pixie cut with hair just as dark and flat like mine. The only major difference between us beyond our hair was her lanky height and trim build.
And I guess the fact that her best friend was captain of the lacrosse team.
The open doors behind me closed slowly, Royal. He’d let go to join me by the photo wall. He was a part of many of these photos as well as his friends LJ, Knight, and Jax. Their group all had quite a few photos with Paige too. She was usually at the center of their posse. One of them, they were all dirty and messy on the field, their group holding up a trophy with mud splashed on their faces and shins.
“I heard you guys were friends.” I faced him, his eyes on the photo wall.
They narrowed. “Not all rumors are fake,” he said, deadpan.
I touched a photo. “This wasn’t that long ago,” I explained, knowing when my sister got that haircut. I turned. “Has she been in contact with you? I haven’t talked to her since the beginning of last summer.”
If he was her teammate, her friend, he might have the answers I was looking for. She had to have told someone something