“I don’t even know your name,” he murmurs.

Owen

What am I doing? Why do I even care about her name? I don’t know her. I don’t want to know her. I’d never seen her in my life before today. We had our brief encounter this afternoon where she told me no and pissed me off. Now here she is again.

Wearing a really fucked-up black uniform that’s shapeless and does nothing for her but make her look bad. Her hair is dark, dark brown and her eyes are a wide, innocent blue. She looks completely untouchable, like no girl I’ve ever been interested in before, and I’m asking for her name like I care or something.

“It’s Chelsea,” she answers, and I turn it over in my head. Over and over. Again and again.

Chelsea. Chelsea. Chelsea.

“I was, uh, hoping I could meet up with you tomorrow so I could get my assignments from you.” Man, this is awkward. We’re standing in the middle of this shitty diner, where Des and Wade can overhear every single thing I’m saying to Chelsea the innocent tutor with the blue, blue eyes and the pink, pink lips. They don’t even know what’s going on. I’m going to hear an endless amount of crap once we leave this place.

“Tomorrow? Friday?” Her delicate brows draw downward and her entire face scrunches up like she’s adorably confused. Which she is. Adorable.

Dude. Cut with the “adorable” shit.

“Tomorrow is Thursday,” I remind her.

“No, today is Thursday, considering it’s almost four in the morning.”

“Right.” She makes me feel like a dumbass. I don’t like it. “Can we meet later this afternoon, then? I need to get those assignments, especially if we’re not going to see each other again until Monday.”

A lot can happen between now and Monday. Shit, I can’t even begin to consider all the possibilities. I feel like I’m walking on a tightrope, weaving this way and that, just waiting for the right amount of wind to send me toppling over and plummeting to my death.

This is what my life has turned into. The push and pull. The wanting to do right and instead falling into the same old habit of doing wrong. I want to tell Fable the truth. I want to tell Mom to leave me alone.

I know, deep in my heart, I will do none of that. I will keep going. Keep up the pretense of right and wrong. Of living two lives. One where I’m the good brother who does what Drew and Fable want me to do. And then there’s the other, where I’m the “good” son who slips his mom some money when she comes around asking for it, which is all the time. Then smokes a joint with her and begs her to buy him some beer.

Sometimes, I really hate myself.

“I have class all afternoon.” She sniffs and lifts her chin, all haughty virginal princess. I have no idea if she really is a virgin, but she just screams untouchable to me. “And I have a tutoring appointment at five.”

“How about after?” I chance a glance over my shoulder to find my friends watching me, curiosity written all over their drunk, tired faces. I turn back to face Chelsea to find her studying me, like she’s trying to figure me out.

Good luck with that. I can’t even figure me out.

She heaves out a big sigh, which expands her chest, making me notice her tits. They seem decent enough, but I can’t really tell with that ugly uniform she has on. And I hadn’t really checked them out when I first met her, though I had scoped out her ass.

It was nice. Looked real good in those tight jeans she wore, too.

“If you can make it quick, I’ll meet you then. Say around six fifteen? Same room we met in before?”

Relief floods me, making me feel like a pussy. I don’t give a shit about my grades, but Fable is gonna kill me if I don’t get my act together. “I can do that.”

“Okay.” She takes a step backward, her foot poised to turn around. “I’ll see you later, then.”

“See ya,” I say to her retreating back, not moving at all as I watch her walk away, pushing through the swinging door that leads into the kitchen.

I hear my friends snicker behind me and I turn to see Wade and Des climbing out of the booth, stumbling over their feet. The food in their bellies did nothing to calm their drunken asses down and for whatever stupid reason, that pisses me off. I wasn’t as wasted as they were when we first got here and my buzz is pretty much gone. Finding Chelsea working here helped take it away.

My drunken buzz. Seeing her, touching her arm even for that brief moment, gave me another sort of buzz I’d rather ignore.

“So who is this chick?” Wade approaches me first, followed by Des.

I shoot them both a look that says shut the hell up, and we exit the diner into the cold, early fall night. The house I share with Wade isn’t too far from the downtown area since we live pretty close to campus, and we start our trek down the side street that leads to our neighborhood. Des will crash on our couch like he always does.

“Remember how I said my counselor wanted to meet with me?” I ask, stuffing my hands in my jeans pockets. I blow out a breath that I can see and hunch my neck lower in my hoodie to ward off the chill.

“Yeah.” Des makes a skeptical noise. “What the hell was that all about? Like, whose counselor ever wants to meet with a student?”

“Is she hot?” Wade asks. “Don’t tell me the sexy little waitress is your counselor, dude. ’Cos she’s hot.”

Irritation fills my veins, making my blood ignite. “No, the waitress is not my counselor, you dumbass. My counselor’s name is Dolores, and I’m pretty sure she’s two hundred years old.”

“That waitress was nowhere near hot,” Des says, kicking at a rock. It skitters across the broken sidewalk and lands on the side of the road. “Did you see what she was wearing? Black polyester sucks.”

“How the hell do you know that she’s wearing polyester? What, are you in fashion design now?” Wade sneers.

Fuck. These two love to go round and round. Wade is my oldest friend. Des is one of my newer friends. They claim to like each other, but sometimes …

I wonder.

“Knock it off,” I tell them both, not in the mood. When am I ever in the mood to hear them fight?

“So who is she?” Des asks. “The not-hot waitress wearing polyester.”

I wouldn’t call her hot. But she’s definitely not ugly. She’s … sweet. All clean, wholesome innocence. I bet if I looked close enough, she’d have a sprinkle of freckles across her nose. “I met with my counselor, and Coach and Drew and Fable were there.”

“Your brother-in-law was there?” Des’s mouth hangs open. He’s in awe of Drew. Wade’s not, because he’s known him forever, but Des and I only became friends early in our freshman year of college. The fact that my brother-in-law plays for the 49ers sends most guys into a dumbstruck stupor.

“I’m failing a few classes,” I say, my voice grim. “They got me a tutor. The waitress?”

“Is your tutor,” Wade finishes for me, shaking his head. “Man, you need to keep clean. No more dope for a while.”

Weed. It’s been my problem for years. I’ve been smoking since I was in junior high, back when we lived with my mom and she didn’t give a shit what we did. Once Fable took over, she forced me to quit. Drew made me want to quit. But then …

I fell back into my bad habits. I can’t help it that I like how I feel when I’m high. Nothing gets me down. My troubles don’t weigh heavily on my soul. And I’ve got them. Troubles. Most of them I created myself.

Some I didn’t ask for at all. One, specifically, is my mom. She’s like that fly that keeps hovering around you and no matter how much you swat it away, it comes back. Bigger and louder than ever.

Yeah. That’s her. A nagging, fat, irritating-as-fuck fly.

“You probably shouldn’t have gone out tonight, either,” Des says.

Since when did these two idiots turn responsible? “Listen, I’m gonna have to lay low for a while. Catch up on my homework, retake a few tests, and bring my grades up.” I can’t believe I’m saying this. I was totally against it earlier. Only because the tutoring sessions were screwing with my work schedule, and I need that money so Fable doesn’t know I’m giving most of it to Mom.

But I talked to my boss earlier, before we went bar hopping. Got everything straightened out and a new schedule. I can do all of it. No problem. The tutoring is temporary anyway. Once I get my grades back up, I won’t need Chelsea’s help any longer.

“You’re gonna be busy,” Wade says. “No time for chicks.”

“When do I ever make time for chicks?”

“A few weeks ago, when you brought that one girl back to the house. I know you thought I was asleep on the couch, but I heard you bang her brains out,” Wade says with a laugh.

Sneaky, sick fucker. “You were listening to me bang her?”

She’d been loud. Lots of ooh, touch me right there and yeah, I like it just like that. All of it had felt incredibly fake. Like she was putting on a performance and thinking that was what I wanted. I went with it. Encouraged her, even, with all the essential dirty talk she seemed to crave, but I hadn’t been into it. I hadn’t lasted long and when it was over, I kicked her out quick.

I can’t even remember her name.

“It couldn’t be avoided. She was a screamer.” Wade nudges Des in the ribs and they break into laughter.

Bastards.

“I get more pu**y than the two of you put together,” I say, irritated that I’m making that some sort of claim to fame.

“Considering Des is gay, that’s not saying much. Ow!” Wade rubs his arm when Des socks him in it.

Same old shit, different day. Getting drunk and walking home. Name calling. Bragging about pussy.

I’m getting sick of it. Sick of my life. Sick of me. I need a change. I need to leave.

I’m talking to Fable about it tomorrow.

CHAPTER 3

Owen

“You know I would love it if you came here, but Drew’s traveling a lot with the team for games and I’ve been going with him,” Fable says, her voice full of regret.

I clutch my cell phone tight and close my eyes. I’m still in bed. It’s past one o’clock and I have a class at two. I need to get my ass moving. “You travel even with the baby?”

My niece, Autumn, is their whole world. She’s three and a half months old and the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. She makes these little cooing noises whenever she sees me, which isn’t often enough. She looks just like Fable. Drew loves nothing more than holding his little baby girl in his arms and walking out in public like that. Paparazzi take pictures and they appear on the Internet, making girls swoon.

Those photos make Fable swoon, too. It’s some crazy shit. Who knew women love a dude holding his baby?

“Especially with the baby. Who knows how long I’ll be able to do this? Autumn will get older and next thing you know, she’ll be in school or whatever and I won’t want to go on the road with her. I’m taking advantage while I can.” Fable grunts a little; I can tell she’s juggling the baby because I hear Autumn’s little whimper. “God, she’s greedy.”

I don’t even want to imagine what Fable’s doing right now. “I sort of screwed up my meeting with the tutor,” I admit.

She sighs. “How?”

I tell her what happened, then finish by letting her know about my meeting with Chelsea tonight. That appeases Fable, but I can hear the weariness in her tone when she tells me not to blow this off and that I need to stick with it. I can’t run away from my problems by coming to live with them and blah, blah, blah.

Huge mistake, thinking I could call and ask her if she’d let me stay with her for a while. I get off the phone quick and toss it on my bedside table. Close my eyes and let my thoughts drift …

To the tutor. Chelsea with the big blue eyes and long dark hair. She hates me. And I should hate her. She’s one of those smart rich girls and I’m just one of the local scrubs who got picked up on a scholarship. Yeah, Drew is rich and he’s taken care of us—hell, he’s made more money now that he plays for the NFL than his dad ever did, and I benefit from that—but I can’t forget my roots. Where I came from.

Mom suddenly hanging around again reminds me of those roots all the time.

A girl like Chelsea would view being with me as slumming. Get with the rough bad boy and keep me her dirty little secret. And I bet she’s never slummed in her entire life. I probably scare the pants off of her.

Don’t you want to scare the pants off of her?

Hell, yeah. Though I shouldn’t. She’s not for me. Not my type.

My phone buzzes, indicating I have a text, and I grab it, groaning when I see it’s my mom:

I’m in front of your house. Are you home?

Hell. She is the last person I want to deal with right now. Or ever.

Crawling out of bed, I pull on a T-shirt and slip on some jeans, head toward the front door, and throw it open to find her pacing the sidewalk. She looks twitchy.

Great.

“Owen.” She smiles, but it doesn’t light her eyes. Has it ever? “Are you just getting out of bed? You shouldn’t sleep in so late.”

Her attempts at mothering make me want to laugh. She’s a total joke. “I have class in less than an hour.” I don’t want her hanging around too long. She’ll end up asking for more, more, more.

She always wants more.

“What do you want?” I ask her when she doesn’t say anything.

Mom flinches and sighs. “Fine, we’re gonna get right to the point? I need money.”