“That’s the kind of challenge I like.” Lev smirks. “I can do better than both of you combined.”
Ares’s scowl deepens. “I would love nothing more than to win any challenge you two want to throw my way. But Zara needs to eat something, and we have a lot to talk about.”
“Fucking killjoy.” I roll my eyes, but my stomach grumbles at the idea of breakfast.
“Takes one to know one.” Ares bites back, adjusting the obvious bulge in his sweatpants. “Make yourself useful and help me bring the food to the table rather than being a gigantic pain in my ass.”
We all work together, bringing several serving platters to the kitchen table.
Once each of us has a full plate of food, a coffee and a glass of orange juice in front of us, Ares crosses his arms over his chest.
By the looks of it, my brother has no intention of eating. I sense a lecture coming.
“I hope you know what an impossible situation you put yourselves and me in.”
He isn’t wrong, but his tone could definitely use some work.
“You wouldn’t be in this situation if you had minded your own fucking business and you hadn’t followed us incognito last night. You should have gone home after the game or whatever else you do when you don’t have to work.”
Ares’s jaw ticks as he shakes his head.
“Is this really what you have to say? Honestly, Chance. I don’t even know where to start in explaining to you how much you fucked up.”
“Hey now,” Lev intervenes before I can say anything in response. “Granted, the situation is pretty bad. But you should have all the facts before you blame everything on us. We had no idea that our frat president was Fox’s brother. The first race was just a handful of us on Rush Night.”
I back Lev. “That’s true, Ares. We were surprised to find out the bids had already been awarded and that would be an initiation task rather than just a rush event. We had every reason to believe it would be just one race to get into the fraternity. We had no idea that they were planning to use the initiation video to force us to keep racing.”
He doesn’t see things that way. We shouldn’t be surprised when he doesn’t understand.
“That shouldn’t have mattered. You knew that initiation was fucking illegal. The second you saw a motorcycle, you should have walked away.”
I know he’s right, but I don’t want to admit it. “But how could we? Both Lev and I are legacies. Dad has been going on for years about how he loved his time in Gamma Delta Tau. How he was excited that one day I’d be his brother as well as his son.”
I’m full of shit and I know it. Of course, Ares doesn’t let me get away with it.
“Yeah, but let me take an educated guess and tell you that Dad would have rather you failed the initiation than break a law he’s put at the center of his campaign. He ran for mayor because he wanted to have a motorcycle-free town.”
I know all that.
“We wouldn’t have been allowed to reveal why we failed the initiation. Dad would have been disappointed in me, regardless.”
Ares rolls his eyes. “He would have gotten over the disappointment, Chance. Like he did when I dropped out of college and gave my fraternity pin back to the president. One thing to not follow in his footsteps. What you’re doing is fucking next level.”
“You know what?” A mixture of frustration and contrition swirls in the pit of my stomach. “You’re right, we should have said no. Of course we would have if we had realized that it was a trap to have us racing. But when I thought it would be just aone-time thing, I wanted to do it. Any time I saw a bike, even on TV, I thought about what we lost. I just wanted to exorcise that fucking memory. I wanted to go on a bike and prove to myself that nothing bad would happen. That day, nothing would have happened if that stray bike hadn’t cut into the race. Banning motorcycles in Star Cove is pointless. It isn’t going to bring back our brother.”
To my surprise, Ares agrees with me. “That’s true. But whether we agree with the ban or not, it’s the law. And now you and Lev are being blackmailed into racing and because of that, Zara has been pulled into this mess, too. With Morelli involved, this is much bigger than a fraternity prank.”
Zara intervenes. “Ares, blaming Lev and Chance for what I did isn’t fair. I had a choice too, and I decided to race. Maybe thinking I could protect them from Cal was stupid, but I thought I could find a way to help them get out of it. That’s why I made that bet last night.”
“Princess.” Ares’s tone softens.
By the way he and Zara were kissing when we came home, it’s obvious that they cleared the air between them.
“I know your heart was in the right place, but I wish you had come to me with this rather than resurrecting JJ Smith. When I caught up with Smith and I saw it was you, my heart fucking stopped. We could have lost you too last night.”
There’s a beat of silence in the kitchen and I hate to admit it, but Ares is right.
If something had happened to Zara last night, I don’t know what I would have done.
