“Yeah, well, you don’t have to. You can leave.”
“I may. I’ve been talking with Samuel…”
“Who?”
“Samuel Manning. You met him. He was a friend of my dad’s. He has lawyers who can help me get out of it. Sell my shares and get out of this whole fucking family. I could disappear if I wanted to.”
That makes my chest constrict and my face grow hot. “But what about soccer? Don’t you have plans to go pro?”
What I’m really asking is, what about me? What the fuck about me, Colton?
He seems to read between the lines. “I said Icould. Not that Iam. Just an option.”
I rub at my sternum, and he adds, “I’d take you with me, though. Don’t worry.”
That’s insane. I have family and plans for my future. I can’t just slither away into the ether. I couldn’t. Could I?
No, I could never leave my family like that.
But I don’t say that. Right now, we have more urgent things to focus on. Like getting through this weekend. We can’t leave yet. Not until Maya has what she needs. If it weren’t for that, I’d say we should just get a hotel. I don’t want Colton anywhere near his stepdad.
But Maya was insistent that this was the way out.
So now we’re stuck here, and we need to follow through.
We walk back into the house and are once again greeted by no one. It’s eerily quiet.
“Come on. Let’s go downstairs. We have a theater and a bowling alley. Some arcade games too…”
My eyebrows rise, not entirely surprised that they have all this, but still.
“All right,” I say, and he nods, leading me down a few hallways until we end up at the stairs that lead to the basement. I follow him, and a few minutes later, the bowling alley and arcade appear. To the left are double doors, where I assume the theater is.
“What do you want to do first?”
I swallow and glance around.
“How about bowling? That way I can kick your ass.”
His eyes twinkle. “We’ll see about that.”
The challenge is there, and it makes me happy that he’s almost smiling, that I’m helping him forget where he is. Even if just for a minute.
He trots to the rack of balls and picks one up, handing it to me. “The lightest one for baby.”
I roll my eyes and reach for a heavier one. “You’ve seen my muscles. You know I can handle more than six pounds.”
That makes him laugh, soft and disbelieving, but enough to lighten the weight on my chest.
“Will still kick your ass,” he says with a grin and then grabs a bowling ball from a cabinet and saunters toward the small screen, punching in our names before taking a spot on a seat. He tosses me a pair of shoes, and I slip them on. He does the same.
“You first,” he says.
“Fuck off,” I murmur, but it’s said lightly, with humor. I know he’s trying to figure out my game, if I’m as good a bowler as I think I am.
So, he watches carefully. I can feel his eyes on me, my back, my ass, my legs. When I bend my knees slightly and then move forward, I feel the ball slip from my fingers and land on the smooth floor. The ball rushes down the lane, twirling aggressively as it slams into the pins, knocking them over with a crash.
Colton whistles, and I turn toward him, my lips curling up in a smug grin.
