Break Me (Brayshaw High #5)(42)

She steps into my space. “Man up, baby boy.”

I push toward her. “I swear to God—”

“If something I do bothers you, say it,” she cuts me off with a soft shout. “Or better yet, growl it since that seems to be your favorite way to communicate.”

“You’re pissing me off.”

“I’m getting the feeling you’re perpetually pissed off.” A sour laugh slips from her, but a soberness is quick to take its place. “If there’s something you want me to know, tell me all about it. Something you want me to stop doing or do more of, spell it out for me. Something you need from or of me, ask for it. I will give it to you if I’m able, and if I’m not, I’ll try to find a way.”

Something wraps around my upper body, squeezing. Pulling.

I swear there’s a crack.

I don’t like it.

She’ll do what she can, as much of it as she’s got, for me.

‘Cause that’s what I hired her for, right? What a good employee would do?

My lungs fill with air.

Right?

Brielle’s arms fall to her side. “All I want is to be whatever it is you hoped for the minute you decided I was worth this place,” she whispers with purpose. “But I can’t be if you don’t help me figure out what that is.”

I push my chest out, my attempt to stretch through the heaviness building and building.

And fucking building.

She wants to be whatever I want her to be.

Whatever I want her to be.

I want her to be better off than she was because she was supposed to be.

I want her to be everything her brother doesn’t.

I want her to do all the things he’d hate.

See all the things he tried to shield her from.

The pain and anger, the danger and resolution.

I want her in the middle of trouble and forced to fight her way out.

I want her to be nothing she is and everything she’s not.

That’s why I brought her here, to change her, to give her more and use her to piss off her brother?

Isn’t it?

To create something new for Bass Bishop’s little sister.

To obliterate the softness, bury the bright, and lead her into the darkness?

To erase everything she is and rewrite her completely.

RIGHT?!

I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until a hard hand comes down on my shoulder.

I meet Maddoc’s gaze, and he lowers his chin.

Snap out of it, brother, that’s what he’s saying.

With his help, I do. I force my muscles loose and push a chuckle past my lips.

I grab the ball he offers and begin walking backward, Brielle studying me closely.

“That...” I trail off, plant my feet and throw for a three-pointer, slowly turning back, not stopping until I’m directly in front of her. “Was one of the most pathetic things I’ve ever heard.”

Her eyes move between mine. “I highly doubt that.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“And you should go,” she says softly. “Your BrayGirl is waiting.”

BrayGirl?

I look over as she does.

Katie K stands near the double doors leading to the empty locker room, pretending not to be eavesdropping.

She’s far from mine, just someone I enjoyed playing with, but I don’t tell her this.

I lick my lips.

“You were wrong, you know.” We meet each other’s eyes. “You said a BrayGirl is good enough for our bed, but not our heart.”

I’m not sure she realizes it, but she takes a step back before speaking. “So you could love a girl who would give herself to you when you haven’t earned it?”

“No.”

Her frown is as quick as my response, but it doesn’t hold long.

She understands what I’m saying.

Not only is a Brayshaw’s heart off-limits to the girls they sleep with, but their beds are, too.

With that, I walk away, grab Katie K and get the fuck out of there.

I should have realized right then and there Brielle Bishop would be a problem for me.

I didn’t.





Chapter 12





Brielle



I walk through the football field and out the back gate instead of going out the front.

I have no idea if Royce or Micah or any of the other girls from the home will be waiting around for me or not, but it’s not likely.

A fact that’s proven when a half hour passes, and I get no calls or texts asking where the hell I disappeared to. I could always say I stayed after to help my teacher, but if they asked him about it, I doubt he’d lie for a student he doesn’t even know.

Not that they would ask or that I have a reason to lie.

I’m technically a free reigner here until I’m called on by the game maker, aka Royce freaking Brayshaw and his hot and cold attitude.

That’s the logic I use when I hop on the city bus and take it the forty-five-minute route to the edge of town.

It’s the line where Brayshaw ends and the real world begins. Just behind this neighborhood are almond orchards and small, privately owned vineyards. Those go on for miles and at the very end of them sits a highway. It too, is miles long to the next true town, and the exact reason this one is able to function as it does.