We’ll earn it back
Jagger
We promise
Leila
Don’t make promises you can’t keep
Knox
We never make promises we can’t keep
Riven
Ever
Jagger
Please come see us when you’re back
Leila
I’ll text you
Chapter Thirteen
Leila
The drive to Stormhaven takes exactly forty-three minutes, and I spend every single one of them rehearsing what I’m going to say. By the time I pull into a parking spot across the street from my brothers’ off-campus house, I’ve gone through at least twenty different versions of this conversation, and none of them end well.
Their house is a typical college rental—a two-story with peeling paint and a front yard that’s more dirt than grass. Landon’s car is in the driveway, flanked by what looks like half the team’s vehicles taking up all the street parking out front. Great, I have an audience for this shitshow.
I kill the engine and sit there for a moment, gripping the steering wheel. I could turn around right now. Drive back to campus and pretend this conversation does not need to happen. But I’m done running, and I’m done hiding.
I climb out of the truck and hurry across the street before I can talk myself out of this. The front door is unlocked—because of course it is—and I walk in to find exactly what I expected: chaos.
The living room is packed with hockey players. Some are playing video games, others are arguing about something, and there’s an intense game of beer pong happening in the kitchen. The place smells of pizza and body spray.
“Leila?” someone says. Suddenly everyone is looking at me, and the room goes quiet.
“Where are my brothers?” I ask.
“Upstairs,” Bodhi says from where he’s lying on the couch. “Levi’s room.”
I head for the stairs, and the second-floor hallway is quieter, so I can hear their voices coming from the end of the hall. Levi’s door is cracked open, and through it I can see both my brothers sitting on his bed, controllers in their hands, playing a video game.
I knock once and push the door open.
“Leila.” Landon drops his controller and stands up. “Where the hell have you been? We’ve been calling you for days.”
“I needed space,” I say, stepping into the room and closing the door behind me. “To think.”
Levi pauses the game and turns to look at me. There’s a bruise on his jaw from where Jagger hit him, and a cut above his eyebrow that has scabbed over. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks. You too.”
He almost smiles. “Are you okay?”
