Spinning Out (The Blackhawk Boys, #1)

by Lexi Ryan

I told the police all I could, but they didn’t have much to form any sort of investigation if they’d even cared to—and they didn’t. It was dark. A big, dark-colored SUV came speeding up over the hill and killed my brother and destroyed the better part of Brogan’s brain. Mrs. Barrett wants answers. The only ones I have she wouldn’t want to hear. His drunken pleas. His anger. His refusal to let me out of his car until I promised not to leave him. The bruises he left on my arm because I tried to leave anyway. Then Nicholas’s fists when he came to rescue me. A grieving mother shouldn’t have to know any of that. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“There’s Mia,” Chris says, and I snap my head up, thinking she’s joined us on the patio. Instead, he looks toward the kitchen windows where Mia’s standing with her head bowed, probably doing dishes. “I’m worried about her.” “Me too.” I’ve been home almost a month, and she walks around like a robot. Katie’s the only one who gets her rare smiles, and as far as I can tell she only leaves the house to see Brogan and check on her dad. She’s not living. She’s surviving. “Bailey said she never goes out anymore, and she’s not herself. I’m sure all this hasn’t been easy on her, but since you two both live here, she thought you might know more.” He studies me, and the questions in his eyes are more complicated than the ones coming out of his mouth. “You think she’s okay?”

“You didn’t die that night.” She swallows. “No. Death would have been easier.”

In the back of my mind, I hear my counselor from rehab. Don’t expect more from your willpower than it can handle. You’re human. You have weaknesses. Stay away from the things you crave, and you’ll never have to be stronger than those weaknesses. Drugs were never my weakness. But Mia . . .

Football has been part of my life since the day I was born. My dad’s NFL dreams were crushed by an early college injury, and he didn’t hope his son would have the career he’d missed—he expected it. And I never minded, because carrying a football was as natural to me as breathing. It’s just that since the moment I walked into the hospital and saw my best friend had become a vegetable, I haven’t much wanted to breathe, let alone play ball. They all expect me to follow my dreams while Brogan’s wither right alongside his body.

“I’m sorry.” She lifts her hand to my jaw and skims her fingers over the stubble there. “Why would you say that?” “Because you regret it,” she says, “and I should, too.” I close my eyes, telling myself this is only a moment. I’m so caught up in the pain and the memory, I can allow myself this touch. This contact of her skin with mine that makes me want so much I can never have. “I don’t regret it.” My voice breaks on the words, and I step away before I can say more. Before I can admit that memory is all I have. It’s the only thing that reminds me I’m alive. The memory of Mia’s mouth, her touch, the way she tastes—that was all that kept me from following her brother to the grave I put him in.

May, eight months before the accident

I’m slammed with that push-pull of want and guilt deep in my gut. I shouldn’t even think of her as Mia. I should think of her as Brogan’s girl. But she’ll always be Mia to me. She’ll always be more to me than I can admit to anyone.

She’s been with Brogan for more than six months now, and I’m still jarred by an electric current every time we touch. I’m horrible and despicable. I’m broken. I shouldn’t be thinking about electric currents in the context of my best friend’s girl.

“Isn’t that what you see when you look at me?” “No.” My heart hammers as I look at her, wishing we had more light so I could see her eyes. “I see you, Mia. Just you.” I want to say more, to tell her how bright she shines, to explain that her family is half of what leaves me in awe of her. I’m not blind to my privilege. I get how lucky I am, how much has been handed to me from the day I was born. But Mia doesn’t have any of that. Everything she is and has, she earned without help from her family. And yet she’s constantly doing everything for her dad and writing letters to her brother in prison. I’ve never met a person as selfless as her.

“Your mom sounds amazing,” I whisper, as if speaking too loudly really will scare away the fairies. “She was. Sometimes I miss her so much. It feels like she took a piece of my guts with her when she left, as if I’ve never functioned properly since.” I know exactly how that feels. “What happened?” “She left my dad and moved away. She doesn’t visit.” “Does she call?” “A couple of times a year, but it’s always so awkward that I hang up wishing she hadn’t.”

October, three months before the accident

“It’s not his job to make me happy. It’s my job.” “But are you?” “Why are you pushing this?” Because I’m in love with you, and I need to know I’m not making a mistake by keeping that to myself. “I’m pissed at him,” I say. I’m a fucking coward. “I told him as much myself when I found out he canceled on you this weekend. And don’t stand there and tell me it doesn’t matter when you and I both know it does. I was there last spring when his grandma died, remember? I remember how it made you feel when his mom didn’t want you at the hospital.”

I’m not prepared to see Brogan again, but here I am. I’m not sure what made me decide to come. Maybe it was busting the shit out of my hand and breaking a couple of bones. Maybe it was hearing Mia tell me she doesn’t regret the night we spent together in October when I thought I was nothing more to her than a regret. Maybe it was my dad’s endless lecture on the way to the ER—how foolish I am, how this could screw up my football career. I wanted to tell him there are things that matter more than football. I thought of Brogan. Whatever the reason, this morning, with a fresh cast and a bottle of painkillers I won’t take, I came here.

I remember talking to her about Romeo and Juliet the night I met Arrow. We laughed, remembering what an idiot Juliet was. I never understood her before. Not really. But now I can imagine what it was like to wake up in that tomb and see Romeo dead beside her. The guilt. The grief. I’m not looking for a dagger, and I don’t want to die. But there are days—maybe more than I want to admit—when I don’t want to live either. “I’m not Juliet,” I whisper. “Don’t worry about that.”

I was trying to break up with him that night. That’s why we were arguing. That’s why he wouldn’t let me out of the car. That’s why I had to get my brother to come save me. That’s why they were in the street . . .

My back teeth slam together. I fucking hate when she acts like my servant.

“You don’t know how to live anymore.” “What’s the point, Arrow?” She shakes her head. “I can’t even feel anything.” God, this woman’s going to break my heart.

“You’re beautiful,” I say. “I don’t even know if I deserve to look at you, but some days it feels like you’re the only piece of beauty left in the world.”

“I need this job,” she whispers. Her big brown eyes sparkle with tears. “No, you don’t. Quit, Mia. I have money. I’ll pay whatever my father’s paying you.” “Would it be worth it? Just to get me away from you?” “It would be worth it to make you stop hiding from your life. You didn’t die with your brother. You aren’t brain-dead like Brogan. Stop acting like you lost your life that night. You don’t have to live in this purgatory you’ve created for yourself.”

Mia’s brimming tears finally spill over and course in rivulets down her cheeks. “Maybe I’m living in purgatory,” she says, “but that’s only because I deserve worse.” Mia blaming herself for my crime is buckshot to the soul. “Don’t say that.” I thread my fingers into her hair and cup her jaw. Maybe if I can hold her together, I won’t fall apart. And the fact that I even care about myself is a revelation. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” “Didn’t I?” She reaches up and wraps her fingers around my wrist. “Thank you for not blaming me. But if you want to help me forgive myself, you have to stop being a casualty of that night. Seeing your life fall apart too is nothing more than another punishment for me.”

“I don’t understand what you want,” she says. “You send me away and then you come in here and touch me.” “I don’t want to be your mistake.” I don’t know if I’m talking about tonight or last October, or maybe there’s no difference. She said she doesn’t regret October, but tonight . . .?

“I loved Brogan,” she says into the darkness. “But I couldn’t fall for him. That stupid difference between loving and being in love. I never thought it mattered. But I couldn’t fall in love with Brogan. I could only love him.” She finds my hand where it’s wrapped around her waist and pulls it up to rest on her heart. “Because I’d already fallen for you.”

So I breathe and promise myself that soon I’ll find a way to tell Mia the truth without ruining Coach’s life. I’ll find a way.

October, two and a half months before the accident

Brogan pushes Trish away, and in his haste to get his pants zipped, he catches his dick in the zipper. “Fuck,” he growls. “Karma works quickly,” I say softly. Then I shake my head, because part of what I always loved about Brogan was that I trusted him. I believed he’d never hurt me. “I’m done. This is over.”

“Mia Maria Consuela Mendez!”

How long can a heart race without oxygen? Because blood whooshes through my ears but I can’t breathe. I can’t freaking breathe. She was still a virgin? I assumed in all the time since we talked about it she and Brogan would have . . . But they didn’t. Fuck. And she didn’t think that was important to tell me? She never had sex with Brogan, but then one night with me and—

Mia was a virgin. It doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. Fuck. It matters so much. That means something, doesn’t it? But as much as I want to believe it means I’m more to her than she says, I’m afraid it only reinforces what she hinted at the night of her birthday. She thinks what we have is like what her mom and dad had—the hot, fast-burning passion. The impulsive mistake.

“I saw Arrow coming out of your room this morning,” she says. Shit. “Gwen, I—” She holds up a hand. “Listen. I feel like somewhere along the way, you may have gotten the idea that you and I are friends, and I know I’m young, and I know I don’t come from money, so maybe you think that makes us twinsies or some shit. But we’re not. And you’re not my friend. You’re my employee. You’re not Arrow’s friend. You’re Arrow’s employee. So if you want to make fucking him part of your job description, go for it. But if you think you’re going to sleep your way into a better position in this house, you can forget about it right now. It didn’t work for your mother, and it’s not going to work for you.” I flinch at the mention of my mother. How does she even know about them? Uriah? Rumors? I have to clench my teeth to keep myself from talking. “My husband has plans for his son, and they don’t involve marrying trailer trash. Do you understand?” Straightening my spine, I lift my chin and fist my hands at my sides. “Yes, ma’am.” She drops the ring of swatches to the desk and rakes her cold eyes over me. “How convenient for you that your little boyfriend turned into a vegetable that night. And now you’re free to fuck a Woodison, which I’m guessing is what you wanted all along.” She sighs dramatically and gives me a cold smile. “Unfortunately for you, Woodison men have figured out what Mendez women are good for, and it ends in the bedroom.”

“But you say one more thing about my mother, and you won’t have to fire me, Gwen. I’ll leave, and I’ll make sure Uriah knows why he has to scramble to find a new nanny.” The color drains from her face, confirming my suspicions that her husband wouldn’t approve of this conversation.

I want to touch her so badly, I can practically feel the slick heat between her legs, but I can’t. Not tonight. Last semester, I tried everything to erase the memory of her from my mind. Pot, meth, alcohol binges, lines of coke—nothing worked, and I was lucky because even though the judge made me go to rehab, I wasn’t an addict. Even when I was chasing my next high, there was nothing I wanted as much as I wanted Mia Mendez.

I grimace. “Brogan just died. The funeral will be this weekend.” She sighs heavily. “I’m sorry for your loss.” “Dad should be there. It’s not a bad drive. He could come back and—” “It’s not always about you, Arrow.” I clench my fists and bite my tongue. “Fine. Have fun.” She nods and starts toward the stairs, then stops and turns back to me. “Piece of advice, Arrow?” She tilts her head to study my face. “About Mia?”

Her façade seems to crumble with every second she stares back. No more perfect trophy wife, only a vulnerable young woman. “Don’t try to compete with a dead man,” she says. “The dead always win. Take it from someone who knows.”

“Would you stop acting like you’re doing this for me?” “Fine, then. I’m not. This isn’t about you, Arrow.” For the first time in our long relationship, there’s derision in his voice when he says my name. “But if you care about me at all, you’ll keep your mouth shut. I am a father. Trish doesn’t have anyone else. Maybe I’m selfish for doing what I must for her, but so be it. Make it about me, Arrow. Shut the fuck up about this for me

New Year’s Eve, the night of the accident

As if he suddenly senses my presence, his fingers freeze on the last button and he slowly raises his head to meet my eyes. His jaw goes slack as mine tightens. “How much of that did you hear?” he asks. “Enough.” He grimaces. “Listen, it’s not what it looks like.” “Does Mia know you’re fucking Trish?” “She probably wouldn’t care. It’s not like she’s doing it.”

Since the day I met Mia, she’s had my heart in her hands, and every day that I deny that, it just hurts me more.

He takes another swig. “I thought you were saving yourself for marriage, but you were only saving yourself for him.” He offers me the bottle, and I shake my head. “But it doesn’t matter. We love each other. We can get through this.” “No. I don’t want to pretend that we’re this happy couple anymore. If that were true, you wouldn’t be sleeping with her.” I move as fast as I can, reaching across him to hit the button for the automatic locks and then reach for the door. Before I can open it, he wraps a hand around my arm and squeezes too tight, making the skin throb beneath his fingers. “You’re hurting me.”

I surreptitiously fish my phone from my purse and type a quick text to my brother. Deadman’s Curve. Brogan’s red Jetta. Come get me. SOS. Brogan swings around to look at me right as I tuck my phone away. I fold my arms and promise myself Nic is on his way. I’ll sit here and talk to Brogan, and soon enough Nic will be here and everything will be fine.

I scan my surroundings, and everything tilts sideways. Everything’s blurry, and I fight through the cobwebs in my brain, trying to remember what happened tonight. The fight with Brogan. Then Mia. There was a party at a house off-campus, and I told Mason I’d swing by before returning Coach’s car. Then Trish grabbed me. She promised she could make me forget Mia, and that sounded so damn good. After that . . . shots. Too many shots. And then . . .?

I hear something and realize it was my phone that woke me. I pull it from my jeans and blink at the screen. Mia Mendez. Beside me, Trish mumbles something in her sleep. Mia’s calling me, and Trish is curled against my side. I decline the call with a swipe of my finger and silence the phone before closing my eyes and letting sleep pull me under again.

“Pictures on Facebook of you two all over each other.” Facebook. Which means everyone’s going to know I spent my night with Trish. Mia’s going to know.

May, four months after the accident, the day after Brogan’s funeral

I know they’ll find her at the cemetery. I just know. Like the night she caught Brogan cheating on her, I stayed in my room because I knew she was coming. I’ve always felt that connection to her—like our souls are hardwired together, no matter how much I try to let her go or tried not to care when she was with Brogan. Our connection is some cruel cosmic joke.

“I want you to live, Mia. I want you to sing. Don’t come here anymore. I’ll only keep you in the past. I’ll only weigh you down.”

All this time, I’d valued Coach more than my own damn father. But today I learned which of the two really puts me first.

“Gwen left today.” He says it as if he’s telling me there’s leftover spaghetti in the fridge. “Don’t look at me like that. She wasn’t happy, and everyone knew it. She thought she wanted the grumpy old man for his money, but it turns out I’m not worth it. She tried to forbid me to go to the station to help you, and you can imagine how well I handled it.” He sighs heavily. “Anyway, she took Katie and went to her mom’s.” “I’m sorry, Dad.”

Reaching over, he brushes my hair behind my ear. “You’re not the hot, burning fire, because you’re there even after a long, hard rain.” He swallows and takes a breath. “You’re not the sun, because you’re there in the darkest night.” He traces my lips with his thumb. “Arrow . . .” “You can’t be the wind—beneath my wings or otherwise”—he laughs and then his smile falls away as he traces his thumb down the column of my neck—“because you keep me warm during the deepest winter.” He closes his eyes, lifts his hand from my neck, and clenches his fist.

“For a long time I thought you were gravity. Always there. Always pulling me your way. But that can’t be it either, because you don’t pull me down. You lift me up when there’s no reason I should be able to stand.”