The Play (Briar U Book 3)

It’s Friday night and my roommates and I are playing an inane board game called Zombies!™ Exclamation mark included.

Hollis is home for the weekend, which means we get to listen to him and Rupi bicker over the latest development in the game. Hollis just drew a Sacrifice card—this requires him to sacrifice someone in our collaborative group in order for the rest of us to get closer to safety. Only problem is, the most advantageous move would be to get rid of Rupi. If she dies, we don’t lose much. Everybody else is too valuable to the group. There are two crossbows in my arsenal, for chrissake. What does Rupi have? Nothing.

“Dammit, Mike, finish her off,” Summer bursts out, and damned if I don’t crack up hearing someone as angelic-looking as Summer advocating for the fake killing of one of our friends.

“Summer!” Rupi gasps in utter betrayal.

“What?” she says defensively. “The whole point is to get the most people to the research station. There’s only one Sacrifice card in the deck. Only one person in the group is gonna die and it has to be you.”

“Has to be you,” Brenna agrees, taking a sip of the hot chocolate that soon-to-be deceased Rupi prepared for us.

“Mike,” Rupi warns. “If you kill me, I swear to God…”

“Babe,” he says.

“Mike.”

“Babe.”

“Mike.”

“Babe,” he sighs, and then places the Sacrifice card in front of her pile.

Rupi shrieks loud enough to shake the coffee table. “I cannot believe you did that!”

“I had no choice,” he protests. “It was best for the group.”

“What about what’s best for me?”

“You’re being very selfish right now, babe.”

“Why? Because I want my boyfriend to protect me from harm? I don’t believe this! After we’re done with this game, I’m going to—”

“You are done with the game,” Brenna interrupts dryly. “He killed you.”

Rupi huffs and flounces off in traditional Rupi fashion. The girl is a drama queen.

Luckily, she found true love with a drama king. Hollis stands up and throws his frazzled arms up in the air. “Do you see what you made me do?” he accuses the rest of us. “This is why I never play board games!”

He hurries after Rupi.

“And then there were three,” Brenna says indifferently, flipping through her arsenal cards.

“We can’t go on without him,” I tell her. “He’s the only one who has the antidote for the second mutation. Oh, and the only one who can skin a rabbit.”

“We’ll redistribute all the assets,” Summer suggests.

“Nah, I think the game’s over.” I drop my cards on the board and lean back against the couch cushions.

“We need to stop playing games with them,” Brenna remarks as she picks up her mug.

“Definitely,” Summer concurs. “They’re the worst.”

I reach for my own hot chocolate and gulp it down. My head wasn’t in the game, anyway.

For the past five days, Demi Davis has consumed my thoughts. I feel like shit for snapping at her, but if my severe tone wasn’t bad enough, I followed it up by info-dumping my dismal relationship with my father on her. I could practically see the gears in her brain working over all the things I’d told her since the semester started, trying to discern which ones were true.

Sadly, the majority were. I embellished a few details, to be sure. Dad generally isn’t cruel to my mother, nor does he speak to her with the same disdain I used during the fake therapy sessions. I was trying to exaggerate certain narcissistic tendencies to make it easier for Demi.

But all the events I described occurred in real life. I did catch my father banging his secretary when I was fourteen years old. I did tell my mom, and she did tell me to not interfere in their marriage. Just be a good boy and stay quiet because Daddy takes care of us and what kind of life would we have without him.

That was the day I realized my mother has no self-worth and my father has too much of it.

Still, an angry trip down memory lane was no excuse to take it out on Demi. I knew there was a chance she wouldn’t believe me when I told her about Nico. I shouldn’t have mocked her about getting her head out of the sand, insinuated she was a naïve fool.

She called you a fuckboy.

Ugh, true. She was as much of a dick to me as I was to her. We’re both dicks.

Fuck. I should try to clear the air. I look toward the side table where I left my phone. But no. Texting is garbage. A text conversation about this would feel too impersonal.

“You know what.” I hop off the couch. “I have to go.”

Summer glances over. “Are you sure? We could start a new game.”

“Nah, I think the zombies can have this one. I’ll be back later.”

“Where are you going?” Brenna asks.

“To see a friend.”

“Ha!” Mocking laughter rings out. “I knew the celibacy wouldn’t last.”

“Not for sex,” I clarify. “It’s the girl I’m working on that project with. We got into an argument the other day, and I want to smooth things over.”

“You know you can just text her,” Summer says helpfully.

“You know you can mind your own business.”

“All right then.”

I haven’t been drinking, so I make the ten-minute drive to campus and turn onto Greek Row. I can’t find a spot in front of the Theta house, but there’s a stretch of empty curb a few houses away. I park the Rover and that’s when I hear the yells.

Oh shit.

I quickly jog down the lane, skidding to a stop cartoon-character style when I spot Nico on the lawn of the Theta house, shouting up at the second-floor window.

“Come on, Demi! Please!”

The man sounds utterly destroyed. I’d probably feel genuine sympathy for him if not for the fact that I know precisely what’s going on. He cheated on Demi at the party. There’s no other reason why he’d be outside Demi’s house, begging her to let him in.

“Please, mami, I love you! I fucked up, okay!”

I lurk near the hedges that separate the sorority house from its neighbor.

“Go away!” comes a high-pitched voice.

It’s not Demi. I peer up and see two girls at the window, their figures backlit by Demi’s bedroom lights.

“She doesn’t want to talk to you. Go away,” one of them yells.

“We’ll call the police if you don’t,” the other one warns. “You’re disrupting the peace. People are trying to sleep.”

“It’s nine o’clock on a Friday and this is Greek Row!” Nico growls. “Nobody is fucking sleeping, Josie! Just tell her to come down.”

“She doesn’t want to see you, you cheating prick.”

Yup. I called this one.

“Demi,” he wails. His voice actually cracks, and this time I do feel for the guy.

I know narcissists—I lived with one my whole life—and they don’t usually experience remorse. If they do show any regret, it’s probably an act. Yes, Nico could be putting on that act, but my gut says he isn’t. He seems genuinely heartbroken.

He made his bed, a voice in my head points out.

“Demi! I’m going to stand out here all night until you let me in! Please. We’ve been together forever! You owe me a conversation. You owe me a chance to explain—”

A shriek of epic proportions slices through the night air. It’s shrill enough to give Rupi Miller a run for her money.

Demi appears at the window, shoving her sisters out of the way. “I owe you?” she thunders. “I OWE YOU?”

Nico instantly recognizes his mistake. “No, I didn’t mean it in that way—”

She cuts him off. “You cheated on me with one of my friends! And then you cheated on me again with some random chick at a party!”

Oh, Nico, you stupid bastard.

Any sympathy I had for him is long gone. I’m solidly on Team Demi. I mean, I always was, but now I don’t care how gutted the guy appears to be. He deserves it.

“We’re done,” Demi screams out the window. “Do you hear me, Nicolás? We’re done.”

“Baby, don’t say that.”

“You’re right—we’ve known each other forever. I’ve been loyal to you forever. But you’re incapable of reciprocating that loyalty. So please, just go.”

“We can work through this,” he pleads. “Please, give me another chance. Let me earn your trust back.”

“Dude!” a random voice shouts from one of the neighboring houses. “You’re pathetic! Bitch wants you to leave!”

Demi ignores the interruption. “There’s no earning my trust back,” she calls to Nico. “We’re done. I don’t want to be with you anymore. I don’t want to be with a liar and a cheater. I’m worth more than what you’ve given me.”

She’s right about that. And call me a perv, but I’m disgustingly aroused by the sight of her right now. Her cheeks are flushed and her dark eyes are blazing like hot coals. She’s got a hand on her hip as she glares down at Nico. Fierce and confident. Scorned but not defeated.

“We’re not done,” Nico says.

“We’re done,” she repeats.

“You’re done, bro,” someone else hollers, and then other voices from Greek Row chime in.

“Go home, asshole!”

“You’re killing my buzz!”

Nico only has eyes and ears for Demi. “You don’t mean it,” he informs her.

Idiot. Men really need to stop telling women what they mean or don’t mean. The one lesson I’ve learned over the years is that a woman doesn’t appreciate it when you put words in her mouth—or your dick in someone else’s mouth.

“Oh, trust me, I mean it.” Demi abruptly disappears from the window.

For a moment I think it’s over. But then she reappears, her arms full of clothes.

“Let me help you clean out your drawer before you go,” she says angrily.

I choke on a laugh as items of clothing come sailing out the second-floor window onto the lawn. A Celtics hoodie. Some T-shirts. A pair of boxers float down.

“You don’t deserve a drawer in my house! You don’t deserve anything anymore. I’m done with this. Take all your stuff and get out of my life.”

Once again I think it’s all over.

But then Nico, stupid stupid Nico, utters the dumbest shit he could’ve ever uttered. “Don’t you dare throw my PlayStation out the window, Demi!”

If that ain’t a challenge.

She whirls around again, and this time she doesn’t come back.

Huh. Okay. Maybe she decided to spare the PlayStation. Nico seems to think so, because his entire body relaxes. He glumly walks forward and begins picking up the clothes on the lawn.

He still hasn’t noticed me, and I’m not about to make my presence known. It’d be like approaching a lion with a thorn in its paw.

Just when I decide all is well—when the night is quiet and Nico’s scattered items have been collected—the front door of the sorority house flies open and Demi emerges. Holding a tangle of cables, controllers, and a slender black PlayStation.

Nico’s head snaps up. “Thank you!” Looking relieved, he holds out his hands as if he truly believes he’s getting the game console back unscathed.

“Thank you? No, thank you,” Demi shoots back. She’s spitting fire again. “Thank you for wasting eight years of my life.” She hurls one controller to the ground. “Thank you for lying to my face.” The second controller smashes on the concrete walkway. “Thank you for disrespecting me.”

When she reaches the curb, the only item she’s left holding is the PlayStation.

I hold my breath. The other components could easily be replaced. This console itself can’t.

“I never want to see you again. You’ve ruined this. You ruined our friendship, you ruined our relationship, you ruined everything.”

Crash!

The PlayStation collides with the sidewalk, breaking into several pieces.

Nico has the nerve to say, “I can’t believe you did that!” Which prompts Demi to take a swing at him, and that’s when I jump away from the hedge.

She manages to get one sharp blow in before I haul her away from him, trying to corral her like a wild horse.

She might not be a teammate, but I think this still qualifies for paragraph four, line eight of the captain’s log: Don’t let your teammates commit murder.

“Hey, hey, stop,” I order.

“Hunter? What are you doing here?” She blinks a few times before her eyes go feral again. “Let me go. He deserves an ass kicking!”

“Yes, he does,” I agree, and Nico scowls at me. “But karma will do that job for you, trust me.”

“Hunter, let me go!” Now she’s grunting, gritting her teeth, attempting to punch her way out of my grip. So I fling her over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “Hunter!” she screeches in outrage. “Put me down!”

“No. I’m not watching you get arrested for assault tonight, okay?” I kick away a piece of Nico’s PlayStation, while trying to contain a struggling Demi. “You’re already guilty of property damage.”

“I don’t care!” she says stubbornly. “Now I want to do bodily damage.”

“I know you do, Semi, but trust me, he ain’t worth it.”

But the riled-up woman in my arms is still flapping her arms like a trapped bird trying to get free. I spare a dark look at Nico before marching off toward my Land Rover. Only when I reach the vehicle do I set Demi down. The moment her socked feet meet the sidewalk, her steely demeanor seems to crumble. Suddenly she turns into a vulnerable girl, tears welling in her eyes.

“He humiliated me,” she whispers.

“I know, babe. C’mere.” I open my arms, but she ducks her head shamefully.

“No. I don’t want a hug,” she mumbles.

“Fine, then get in the car.”

“Why?”

“You’re coming over to my place and we’re getting drunk. You could use the distraction.”

Demi hesitates. She glances in the vicinity of the Theta house, where Nico is slowly walking toward his pick-up truck. Then she tears her gaze away and opens the passenger’s door of my Rover.

We’re on the road a few seconds later. Demi doesn’t say a single word. She keeps her gaze straight ahead.

“I’m so sorry,” I say gruffly.

She finally speaks, her voice trembling with each word. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. You were right—about everything. And I snapped at you and called you a fuckboy.” She sniffles. “I feel horrible about that. Please tell me you accept my apology.”

“Of course I do. It’s all good with us, Demi. I promise.”

She still refuses to look at me. “He was the fuckboy. He cheated on me. More than once, with more than one person.”

“Yeah, I gathered.”

I turn onto the main road that leads to town. It’s a straight ten-minute drive, and then I’m pulling up into the driveway behind Summer’s silver Audi. The lights are still on in the living room.

“Come on, you look like you need that drink.”

Fat teardrops slip out the corners of her eyes. She blinks them back fast. “Okay.”

We walk inside. Demi reaches down as if to remove her shoes before realizing she’s not wearing any. Pink and gray striped socks cover her small feet. She stares at them for a moment as if questioning whether they even belong to her.

“Yo, Hunter? That you?” Hollis calls from the living room.

“Yeah,” I call back.

“Good timing—we’re about to start a new game.”

I guess he and Rupi ironed out their insane differences. “I brought a friend with me,” I answer as I unlace my boots.

“Oooh,” teases Brenna. “Is it a sexy friend?”

I examine Demi. All I see are quivering lips, smudges of mascara under red-rimmed eyes, and a shell-shocked expression.

“Fuck off,” she says ruefully.

I snicker. “Sorry, but sexy isn’t on your side right now.”

When we enter the living room, the girls take one look at my guest and jump to their feet. “Are you okay?” Summer blurts out.

Brenna glares at me, then turns to Demi. “What did he do to you?”

“Oh, screw off, Bee.”

Demi laughs through her tears. “Be nice to him. He just stopped me from physically assaulting my cheating boyf—ex-boyfriend,” she corrects.

“Ugh! Cheaters are the worst kind of dirt bags,” Summer declares.

“The worst,” Hollis agrees.

“You poor thing,” Rupi clucks, tugging Demi toward the couch.

In the blink of an eye, she’s surrounded by the girls, who immediately start pressing for details.

“If you guys don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it,” Demi admits. She gulps a few times, then gives a half-hearted smile and points to the board game on the coffee table. “What are we playing?”