Unwinnable Read online

  “Are you having a party?” she demanded. She tucked long brown hair back behind her ears. She looked tired, her face lined and creased like a slept-in cotton shirt.

  I shook my head. “Just dinner. Last day of college.”

  “I know,” she said, a faint snap in her voice.

  Great. Rafe’s mom hated me, Jensen’s father had despised me, and Chase’s aunt didn’t seem likely to ever invite me to church with her on Sunday. Nobody’s mama—proverbially speaking—seemed to like me.

  The door opened again, and Chase called out, “We stopped for Boone’s Farm, since it’s Jensen’s favorite.”

  I winced as Jensen shot back, “You know that would be funnier if I hadn’t watched you throw up sangria, complete with mangled strawberries, last Monday morning during PT.”

  Silas pinched the bridge of his nose with his hand, a move I was pretty sure he’d learned from Rafe.

  “To be fair, that was an exceptionally brutal run,” Chase defended himself.

  “To be fair, that was an exceptionally large quantity of sangria,” Jensen said just as he and Chase rounded the corner into view.

  Chase stopped in the doorway, his eyes widening. Jensen nodded faintly as if nothing disastrous that ever happened were a surprise to him, and he was such a pessimist that I might’ve believed that. Ty, Lex and Penn crowded in behind.

  We should have found a way to warn them before they arrived.

  But, now they knew.

  They definitely knew.

  “Aunt Jennifer,” Chase said, moving to hug her a bit belatedly. “When did you get here? I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “Yesterday,” she said crisply. “Imagine my surprise that Blake is taking care of Skyla.”

  Chase’s jaw tensed. “You know that I’m at the academy all week. That’s why I asked you to move, so the three of us could stay together—”

  “Well, you’re not together, are you?” she demanded. “You aren’t here. And we both know Blake can barely take care of himself.”

  “You don’t give him enough credit,” Chase said.

  Chase had told me about how much trouble Blake got himself into before he moved them here, to the nearest real town by the academy. Chase had rescued him then—and then Silas had blurred his memory of shifters so he wouldn’t remember. Knowing the Blake I knew now though, who was prone to being sullen and sarcastic but who looked out for Skyla with fierce protectiveness, it was hard to imagine the version of Blake that Chase had described just months before.

  “You wouldn’t give him that much credit if you weren’t so desperate, apparently, to get drunk and fuck around with your friends.” Jennifer glared past Chase at us, and as I thought about the plans we’d had for tonight, my lips pressed closely together. She didn’t know how seriously that fuck around with your friends statement could be taken around here.

  “Chase,” she said, a bit more gently. “The three of you can’t go on like this.”

  He threw his hands up. “Well, I haven’t had any help, have I? I’m doing the best I can.”

  “Maybe the best you can isn’t good enough,” she said. “Maybe in the fall, they should just come and stay with me.”

  Chase shook his head. “No. We belong together. And they’re happier here—Blake’s staying out of trouble, Skyla’s enjoying school. It wasn’t like that when they lived with you.”

  Chase sounded calm and reasonable—wasn’t that part of his job around here—and yet I could feel his tension.

  She shook her head. “You’re going to have to figure something out, Chase. You’re barely old enough to have custody. If CPS found out you weren’t even here…”

  “Is that a threat?” Chase cut in.

  She paused. “I don’t want to fight. I’m trying to look out for all of you. Blake and Skyla deserve someone here for dinner in the evening and someone to go to Parent-Teacher conferences and—”

  “I’ve always been the one,” Chase said. “When my mom was dying of cancer, do you think she made dinner every night? No. I was the same age as Blake when it started, and I still managed to make ravioli and put Skyla to bed. Blake and I can take care of her.”

  She started to say something, then broke off. She chewed her lower lip and said, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you and for them and for her then. All right? I’m trying to do a better job by all of you now.”

  “Maybe the best thing you could do is leave us alone,” Chase said.

  She stared at him, the same heat blazing in her eyes that I saw in Chase’s. “I don’t think I’m going to do that.”

  Just then, the glass doors from the patio flew open and Skyla streaked into the room. “You’re back!” She jumped to give Chase a hug, and he caught her against his chest, the toes of her sneakers dangling by his knees. “I missed you so much!”

  It was sweet, but it was not the most helpful thing she could have said in the tension of the room.

  “Skyla, sweetie, I’ve got to be going now that Chase is back to look after you,” Jennifer said. “But I’ll be back.”

  She was smiling at Skyla, but I was pretty sure the word was meant for Chase when she added, “Soon.”

  Chapter Three

  Chase

  I didn’t want Skyla or Blake to know I was upset, so I put on an act all that night. We all ordered pizza for dinner and played MarioKart, and eventually, I wandered out of the living room and into the backyard, closing the glass doors behind me. The voices and laughter faded behind me as I stepped into the dark, but the scene stayed with me.

  Pizza boxes strewn across the coffee table. Video games blaring. My younger siblings were surrounded by a bunch of foul-mouthed, dangerous young shifters.

  My team looked like a pack of bad influences, even though I knew Maddie and the guys would do anything to protect Blake and Skyla.

  The scene inside was a happy one, but it was everything most people thought was bad for Blake and Skyla.

  And if anyone knew that Maddie and me and the rest of the guys slept in that big bedroom upstairs… my jaw tensed at the same time as my stomach did, tension running through my body.

  I was doing the best I could for Blake and Skyla.

  But maybe my best wasn’t good enough.

  Maybe I needed to figure something else out. I ran my hand through my hair and sat heavily on the stairs leading down from the deck. Blake and Skyla had a home now—a really beautiful house like we’d never had before, that smelled nice and had a big backyard and the most ridiculous, enormous play set for Skyla because she’d always wanted one.

  Blake was playing football again, and Skyla was in an after-school art program she loved while he had practice. He picked her up after practice, and they walked home together. It wasn’t pretty, but then, nothing about our lives had ever been pretty.

  The three of us were better off when we were all together. I was sure of that. If something had to give, it was something else.

  Like the academy.

  Dread washed over me. I didn’t want to give up the academy. I’d started there for the money that Dean McCauley slipped me, which let me take care of Blake and Skyla. But now, I was rich.

  Now, I was at the academy because I wanted to stay. I wanted to become the best shifter—and fighter—I could. I wanted to join the Council’s Own, and most of all, I wanted a life with Maddie and these men who had become like brothers.

  But I’d never prioritize my wants over what Blake and Skyla needed. I stared up at the sky, which seemed like a vivid dark purple blanket tonight, shimmering with stars. The half-moon was bright above, and it seemed to wink down at me. But even for wolves, the moon doesn’t have any answers.

  When the door creaked open behind me, I expected Maddie, but Maddie had her hands on Skyla’s shoulders as the two stepped onto the deck. Skyla had already changed into her pajamas.

  “Can you read to me?” Skyla held up my old, battered copy of the first book in the Harry Potter series.

  “You’re in the fourt
h grade,” I said. “You can read to yourself.”

  Skyla looked disappointed, but she nodded.

  “She can,” Maddie said, giving me a meaningful look, “but she wants you to read to her anyway.”

  “I know that,” I grumbled, coming back up the patio steps. I held out my hand, and Skyla handed me the book, her face lighting up. I followed her toward the house, then turned back. All my dread and fear felt mixed up and tight inside my chest, and it all felt like anger.

  “You know, you don’t have to try to be her mom,” I told Maddie. “She doesn’t need you.”

  Maddie’s face tightened as if she’d been struck, and regret dumped over me like a cold shower. I shouldn’t have said that. What the hell was wrong with me?

  “I was trying for moderately cool big sister type,” Maddie said, “given that a) really cool is probably too big a stretch for me, and b) I love her older brother.”

  Then she added, “Even if he is kind of a jackass.”

  “Maddie,” I started.

  She shook her head. “Uh-uh. Go read to her. I’ll be out here enjoying your hot tub and fantasizing about strangling you for being a dickhead until I calm down. Then we should talk.”

  Well, at least she was honest. I jerked my head in a nod, not knowing how to fix things.

  I followed Skyla upstairs, then I read to her until my voice grew hoarse. I was out of practice. She didn’t usually ask for me to read anymore, but then, I wasn’t usually here at bedtime anymore, either. By then, her eyes were drifting shut, and I started to get up from the bed.

  “Do you still miss Mom?” she asked, her sleepy voice breaking the night.

  I hesitated, then sat back down. “Yeah. All the time.”

  I didn’t think about it as much anymore, but her loss was a constant ache. I still pulled out my cell phone sometimes to call her when something good happened. Every time, as soon as I remembered, my good mood drifted away like smoke as I slipped my phone back into my pocket.

  “Me too,” she whispered.

  “If she was here, she’d give you such a big hug,” I said absently, thinking about how much I wanted my mom to wrap me in her arms and tell me everything was going to be okay.

  No one would ever do that again; there were no adults in my world, watching over me. I was supposed to be grown, but sometimes I still looked around for a real adult. Someone who was better at it.

  I was failing, all the time.

  “If she was here, she’d tell you that you were doing a good job,” she said.

  I looked at her sharply, wondering what she’d overheard, or maybe what Aunt Jennifer had told her. But her lashes were closed, her breath growing even. She was on the verge of sleep.

  I waited until her breath was slow, her face relaxed, and then I snuck out of her room without having to field any more deep questions. I exhaled slowly as I closed the door behind me.

  I changed into my swimsuit and headed downstairs. When I stepped out onto the deck, Maddie’s bubbly laugh rose above the lower rumble of the guys’ voices, and I felt a familiar rush of butterflies through my chest.

  I walked across the deck, under the twinkling Christmas lights that Penn had strung up—an act that still seemed uncharacteristic—and climbed into the hot tub. Lex and Rafe weren’t here tonight—there was some graduating seniors’ event—but the other guys were all there. Jensen and Penn shifted apart to make room for me.

  Across from me, Maddie’s hair was soaked to her skull. They always had to fight in the hot tub until everyone was sopping wet, even though a hot tub is supposed to be relaxing. You can’t get wolf shifters to relax.

  I sank into the bubbling, steamy hot water and tried to ignore how Maddie glanced away, ignoring me, as she tucked wet strands of hair behind her ears in a gesture I’d come to know well.

  “Well, this has been a blast,” Jensen said abruptly, standing up so that water streamed from his body, “but we have chair-unfolding duty to set up for graduation in the morning, and I want to be fresh.”

  “You never know what a folding chair could do to you if you’re not paying attention,” Penn agreed.

  Jensen, Penn, Silas and Ty all climbed out of the hot tub and headed across the deck, leaving wet footprints across the wood.

  “You guys are incredibly not-inconspicuous,” I said, throwing my hands in the air. “I know what you’re doing.”

  Silas glanced at me over his shoulder, amusement sparkling in his eyes. “Good luck!”

  I turned to Maddie, irritation flaring in my chest, but didn’t say anything until they were gone. “Did you tell them we had a fight?”

  “That wasn’t a fight,” she corrected. “It was barely a spat.”

  She had to correct me about whether our fight was a fight? I’d come out here with the intention to apologize, but I was rapidly losing any sense of sorry. “Oh really? Because it feels like it’s about to turn into a fight.”

  “Are you going to turn it into a fight so you can be right?” she shot back. “Because that would be wrong.”

  “You’re driving me crazy right now.”

  She pressed her perfectly shaped lips together, and even though she was obviously still a little bit pissed at me, and my own pissed level was rapidly rising to meet hers, I still wanted to lean over and kiss her. She was maddening and gorgeous all at the same time.

  “I realize,” she said slowly, as if she had to concentrate on keeping her tone under control—and with her temper, I could totally believe she did, “that you’re upset about your aunt’s threat. So maybe I should cut you a break.”

  I nodded, relief spreading through my chest. It felt good that she understood how I was feeling. Teasingly, I asked, “Maybe?”

  “Maybe,” she confirmed, “because that was really mean, Chase. I didn’t deserve that.”

  The flare of regret I’d felt earlier ran through my chest again. “I know,” I said, wading through the water to her.

  She sat up onto the edge of the hot tub so that we were closer to eye-to-eye, then tilted her head up, her bright blue eyes intent on mine.

  I stopped, just barely out of reach. “I’m sorry.”

  Her lips pursed to one side, as if she were on the verge of smiling. “I’m sorry for calling you a dickhead.”

  “Even if I was?”

  “Even if you were,” she said, holding her arms out, and I stepped between her legs and wrapped her up in my arms. Her voice was soft when she promised, “Chase, we’ll find a way.”

  “I want to believe that, M, but things look pretty damn bleak right now.”

  She pulled away from me to tilt her head up toward mine, and there was the faint, shy smile written across her lips that always made my heart lurch.

  “We’re in this together,” she promised. “And we always figure something out, right?”

  I didn’t want to give in to false hope, but her eyes were so bright and confident in that beautiful face, and her certainty was infectious. I cupped her cheek, and she covered my hand with her long, slender fingers.

  “Right,” I said, wanting to believe it.

  “Let me remind you that the world isn’t really that bleak,” she murmured, her legs tightening around my hips as if she were trying to draw me toward her.

  As if I weren’t always drawn to her.

  I closed the small distance between us so fast I left a wake through the water, lowering my head to hers to kiss her. She tasted like cherry popsicles, her lips still cool. Her hand slid up my chest to my shoulder, then wrapped around my shoulder like she needed more of me.

  I teased the tip of my tongue between her lips. Her lips parted, welcoming me in, as her hips rolled up toward me.

  The two of us shared a long, deep kiss. She was so fucking gorgeous, with her long blond hair and her tanned skin and that mischievous face. I couldn’t live without her. Somehow, I had to find a way to take care of Blake and Skyla without losing Maddie and the guys.

  I pushed away those dark thoughts. My troubles wou
ld be here later too.

  “Have I told you how much I love this bikini before?” I asked, running my hand over the curve of her narrow but well-defined shoulder until I found the string at the back of her neck. She gave me a slow, dreamy smile as I untied her, the kind that made our life together feel like a fantasy. The red cups of her bikini top fell toward the bubbling water.

  “If you love it so much, why are you taking it away?” she teased.

  “Because I love these more,” I said, running my palm under the swell of her breast, bowing my head to circle my tongue around her nipple. Her lips parted, her eyes growing heavy-lidded. It gave me a rush to produce that kind of reaction.

  If my life were my own, I would live to make her happy.

  I caressed her breasts as I sat on the ledge, next to her feet, and then she slid into the hot tub, her lithe figure barely disturbing the surface of the water. She straddled me in one quick motion, her thighs to either side of my hips.

  “Chase,” she murmured, “get out of the tub.” She patted the edge of the tub where she sat a few minutes before.

  “Why?” I asked.

  Her lips quirked. “Because I want to make up with you.”

  I was pretty sure we’d already covered that, but when she gave me that naughty smile, I’d do whatever she told me to. She moved aside so I could hoist myself onto the edge of the hot tub, then returned to where she’d been a second before, kneeling on the ledge. My heart started to race as she untied the laces to my swim trunks, her every movement teasingly slow, taking her time as mischief smeared across her lips.

  There was nothing like her sweet mouth sucking my cock; it always staggered me that this beautiful, brave, brilliant woman would do that for me.

  Then she drew me out of my trunks and leaned forward, wrapping her mouth around me as she took me in. The ends of her blond hair floated across the surface of the water and the night air caressed my bare chest as she drew me deep into her mouth, swirling her tongue over my tip. My breath heaved.