Smoke and Survival (Best Wishes Book 2) Read online

  “Did he treat my girl right?” she demanded, picking up a fork. “Cause if not, I’ll gladly tell him to do better at the forking.” I groaned at her phrasing and the dramatic way she stabbed the air a few times with the metal utensil. I was saved from having to respond by the waiter bringing us our food, the scent of spices surrounding me in a bubble of deliciousness. We dug in, focusing on our meals before continuing any kind of conversation.

  “How’s life in Sadie’s world?” I asked with a groan when I was too full to even look at my plate. Pushing it away, I slumped back in the vinyl of the booth.

  “Not bad, prepping a collection for a Yule exhibit at the college my dads work at. Other than that, haven’t done too much. Except...” Her eyes sparkled as she leaned forward again, having moved her plate off to the side a few minutes earlier. “Harlem and I have been talking, and by talking I mean flirting, and by flirting I mean sexting.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively which made me laugh.

  “That’s the piercer, right?” She huffed and gave me a half glare for not remembering. I threw my hands up. “Just checking, I’m awful with names, remember?”

  “Too true,” she agreed with a laugh. “But we have a date coming up which I’m super excited for.” I smiled optimistically. Sadie had spent a lot of time working hard on her art and studying, and she deserved a night of fun.

  “Good, but if you’re coming back to the dorm to have fun, tell me so I can stay somewhere else,” I chastised playfully. She rolled her eyes, two pink stains blossoming on her cheeks.

  “Trust me, if we’re doing anything, we’ll be going to her house. She has quite the toy collection, if you get what I mean.” Her brows went up and down a few times. I face palmed and groaned at the exaggerated movement. She’s so dramatic.

  “Yes, I know what you mean, but girl, as much as I love you, I do not need to know that kind of stuff.” I shook my head at her as she waved me off again, intent on ignoring my advice about the situation. “But I’m happy for you. What are you guys doing on your date?”

  At the question, Sadie lit up and immediately started rambling about all the things they had talked about wanting to do. While she went off on about ten different tangents, I paid the bill, and we headed out down the sidewalk toward the stadium. My cheeks hurt from how much smiling I was doing, happy to have had a girls’ dinner with Sadie before the game.

  Now to support my guys.

  The cheers filled the stadium as the game slowly came to an end. We were leading 6 to 4 with only five minutes left in the last quarter. I was standing between Sadie and Nik with Cam on the other side of Nik. Benji, Austin, Elijah, Gabe, and Hudson were on the bench behind us, Hudson directly behind me with his hands massaging my tense shoulders. A timeout was called, so I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check it. I didn’t have any texts. Not surprising since all my friends are right here and Char is working. But I did have two emails waiting in my inbox.

  Unknown: Lucie baby, you know you can’t run from me.

  Unknown: Your new coat looks sexy as hell on you, babygirl.

  My heart seized. Reaching out with a shaking hand, I got Nik and Grigori’s attention. Nik’s glassy eyes looked toward me in a questioning expression, but his smile slid away when Grigori saw the look of terror I knew was blatant on my face. I shoved the phone in his hand and took an unsteady breath.

  “You okay, Princess?” Hudson’s baritone was close to my ear, helping me fight off an impending panic attack.

  “It’s him.” My voice was shaking, catching Sadie’s attention even though I had tried to be quiet.

  “Like him him?” Sadie bit out, her voice hard. She was slipping into her angry chihuahua mode, but with the fear icing my veins, I couldn’t find the humor in her mood shift. I nodded silently, unable to answer in any other way. The timeout ended, and cheers signaled the resuming game. Despite the atmosphere of excitement and happiness surrounding me, I found myself untouched by anything other than the numbness that was spreading from my chest to my arms and legs. Even though my heart raced and my breathing shortened, I knew my panic attack wasn’t as bad as it could have been. When the worst of my attacks hit, my vision would completely dim and the sounds around me would fade away as if muffled by something.

  “Let’s go, Princess,” Hudson suggested, keeping his words calm as he nudged me.

  “No,” I commanded firmly, that fire within me growing at the thought of running away.

  “No?” From next to Nik, Cam’s disbelieving voice reminded me that he was here for me too.

  The numbness was pulling back, and the fire and determination that rose in its wake pushed me to answer them. “Yeah, no. He stole four years of my life, took everything from me. My life, my friends, my independence, everything that I was. I saved myself, and I will not let him take over my life again,” I explained sharply. My hands curled into tight fists. The thought sliced through me like a knife—he’s here on campus. I checked the emails again. One was from earlier in the day, and one was right after the game had started. That bastard! I whipped my head around the crowd. It was a sea of nameless students, no familiar faces other than those from a few classes. “He was here,” I hissed as I continued to scour the crowd.

  When I couldn’t find him, I turned back to the game, refusing to let him steal my guys’ victory from me. It was less than ten seconds until the buzzer and Dante had gotten the flag, earning our team the final score of seven to four. I clapped, but my mind was racing. I could see my guys and Sadie all closing ranks around me, eyeing the crowd discreetly. Before the students could filter out of the seats, we filed out of our row and up the stairs to make our way toward where the team comes out of the locker room.

  I knew I should be worried about sticking around in the dark knowing he was here, but I felt safe with my guys. Sadie, Benji, Gabe, and Elijah all stayed with us as we went to our usual spot to wait for Dante and the twins. I was curled against Nik’s solid chest with his arms wrapped around my torso keeping me warm, and Grigori was propped on my right shoulder, rubbing his feathery head on my temple.

  Ever since the party, Elijah had kept his arrogant playboy attitude to himself, and I was finding out he was more like Gabe: quiet, polite, and friendly. I was having a nice conversation about several upcoming movies that we were excited about when the team started to come out of the locker room entrance. Nik dropped his arms with a gravelly laugh at my excitement, knowing what was going to happen next. My tradition of jumping into the twins’ arms before being spun around continued. When Dante came out, he curled me in his arms and kissed me hard. My guys, the rest of the team, as well as all my friends gave loud whoops and hollers at the kiss. When it ended, my face was bright red, and I chuckled at the triumph on Dante’s.

  “I’ve wanted to do that since our first game, Firecracker.” His deep voice was quiet, and his bright white teeth nearly glowed in the dark as he smiled down at me. I smiled back at him and started back toward our guys, our hands intertwined.

  “Cover your stump before you hump,” Landon sang under his breath when I walked by him. I laughed, punching him in the arm with my free hand.

  “Shut it, brat, I already told you you were right, stop rubbing it in,” I chastised.

  “Holy shit, is it the end of the world? Landon Anson was told he was right about something?” Hudson’s voice was filled with fake disbelief, his hand pressing against Nik’s chest next to him. “And pray tell, what was he right about?” He raised an eyebrow at me. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. How do I explain that? I was glad that only my guys were listening to this conversation, Sadie and Benji still deep in conversation with Gabe and Elijah about movies a few feet away.

  “That she and Dante would sleep together today.” Logan sounded proud of their prediction, both of their chests puffed up and their hands migrated to their hips giving them the look of mighty importance.

  “Oh, really?” Nik’s eyebrow raised, matching Hudson’s expression, and Cam was looking over at
my and Dante’s joined hands with a smirk.

  “Is that a problem?” I challenged with my own eyebrow raise as I looked at each of my guys so they knew I was serious. A round of nopes and nos went up, satisfying my worry that there would be jealousy.

  “Come on,” Dante directed with a head tilt, “let’s go back to the room and get into game night. It’s cold out here.”

  An hour later we were gathered around the coffee table playing a round of Life. I couldn’t help but laugh as Dante got hit with yet another space telling to pay up. Based on the way the game had been going, Hudson and Logan were in the lead with the most money, with Cam right behind. Dante and Nik were near the bottom while Landon and I were in the middle of the pack.

  “This is totally rigged,” Dante playfully groaned as he tossed a couple of the brightly colored bills toward Landon, our banker for the evening. “One of you cursed me, I just know it.”

  “The only one who can curse you is Nik and you know he wouldn’t do that,” Hudson challenged through his bouts of laughing. Dante flipped Hudson off with a smile but didn’t comment to give me a chance to go. Taking my turn, I felt light and happy at being surrounded by the normalcy of our usual game night even after that scare at the game. I moved my pieces, which had somehow grown from one car to two because I had three sets of twins in the family section of the board game, and crossed into the retirement section, meaning I was officially done.

  Counting my fake money and my Life Tiles, I tallied my total while the guys all finished their trek through the game. Somehow, Dante wasn’t in last after we all announced our winnings.

  “I lost?” I huffed. “How did I lose? I wasn’t even near the bottom!” I exclaimed, but Logan’s quiet effort to avoid eye contact caught my attention. I held my hand out. “Cough them up,” I commanded playfully.

  “I didn’t do anything!” He tried to claim innocence, but I knew that little light in his blackened coal eyes. I held strong and continued to stare until finally he grumbled under his breath and dropped ten more Life Tiles into my waiting palm.

  “Damn cheater.” I laughed, bumping into his shoulder as I added the stolen amount into my total. With the increased amount, it put Landon in last place.

  “Sorry, dude, I tried,” Logan told Landon from the other side of the table. I balked and glanced between them as the room laughed at the scene playing out.

  “You two are so mean to me,” I whined, playing up the situation by pouting out my bottom lip. They both pressed their hands into their chests in time with one another.

  “You slay us, Love,” Logan added at the same time Landon complained about my pout being cruel and unusual punishment.

  “Not my fault you cheated!” I tossed one of the little cardboard tiles at each of them but turned my attention toward the rest of the group as they cleaned up the board game. “We done already?” I asked, my brows pinching in confusion. We typically played games until really early in the morning, and it was only nearing midnight.

  “No,” Cam answered, “we’re going to play something else.”

  I perked up. “Battleship?” It was more than overdue for me to crush Hudson and Nik since the last time their team had completely destroyed me. Hudson and Nik both chuckled, knowing where my thoughts had gone to when I gave them narrowed eyes.

  “Nope, we’re going to play Truth or Dare,” Dante explained as he took the box from Cam’s extended arm to put away in his closet. Half of Dante’s closet was used for its designated purpose while the other half was piled with a huge amount of boardgames, cards, and other activities the guys and I liked to do at least once every other week, if not more. My interest was piqued at the thought of playing Truth or Dare. This could go either way, fun and playful or really, really bad, I thought, knowing how the twins loved to prank people.

  “Logan, truth or dare,” Dante asked as soon as he sat back down. Logan hummed for a brief second before answering.

  “Dare!” he practically shouted in excitement. Why does it not surprise me that he loves this game? I chuckled to myself.

  “Sing the chorus of ‘Barbie Girl’ in the most girly voice you can,” Dante dared with a big smile, pulling out his phone and holding it up as Logan stood. Clearing his throat, Logan began fluttering his eyelashes and doing some weird hip shaking as he obnoxiously sang the Aqua song. I could barely keep my giggling under control as he attempted to shimmy his shoulders and ended up shaking his whole body instead, making it look as though he was about to have a seizure. At the end, he gave a low bow to the rounds of laughter and claps that echoed through the group.

  “Lucie, truth or dare.” He nudged me in the shoulder urging me to answer faster when I hesitated.

  “Dare?” I questioned, unsure as I gave him a skeptical stare. He better not make me do something crazy like drink out of the toilet or something.

  “Give Landon a makeover!”

  Landon balked at being thrown under the bus, but I was relieved that was all I had to do. Grabbing my overnight bag, I dug out my small makeup bag and got to work. At first, I tried to make him look somewhat normal, but by the end he had eyeliner smeared in a fashion reminiscent of a racoon and fire engine red lipstick in a Joker-esque smile.

  “Smile!” Hudson cheered as his phone suddenly appeared in our peripheral vision. Landon tossed an arm over my shoulder and pulled me close as we smiled up at the camera.

  “Cam!” I pointed through my laughter. “Truth or dare.”

  “Dare,” he challenged with a predatorial glint in his eyes. Smirking, Cam leaned forward until his arms rested on his knees and his intense hazel eyes centered on my face practically daring me to give him the best I could. I matched his smug smile when the perfect action popped into my head.

  “Demonstrate the sexiest place you love to kiss on someone other than me...or Nik.” A round of ‘oos’ went up at my dare. Cam tilted his head in agreement before scanning the room. The level of sexual tension grew as he leisurely took everyone in. Shifting, he strode confidently over to where Dante and Nik were seated. I almost rolled my eyes at the fact that he picked Nik despite the one rule, until I realized he had crouched in front of Dante. Actually, straddled might be more accurate since he was practically in his lap.

  “There are two places I love,” he murmured, his normally low tone heated and smooth and confident as he kept his eyes on Dante’s green gaze. I felt my breath hitch as Cam leaned forward, gripping the back of Dante’s neck and head as he fused his lips to Dante’s pulsing carotid artery. Everyone was silent, staring with quickly heating gazes as Dante started to heave heavy breaths, his lids falling when Cam’s jaw shifted slightly, dragging his lips down Dante’s neck as he pulled away. Cam shifted back to look at Dante, whose breaths had turned to shallow pants.

  “The other place is, well,” he shrugged nonchalantly as he put his weight on his knees. As he shifted, I noticed the hard bulge Dante was sporting and felt another rush of heat pulse through me. Pushing the hem of his basketball shorts up, Cam bent over to kiss his inner thigh before nipping lightly. Holy shit, I breathed as I squeezed my thighs together. I haven’t ever seen two men together, but if this was what it was like… hot damn.

  “Holy…” the twins muttered under their breaths, their eyes locked on the display. At their words, I glanced around and noted that every single one of us was entranced by the display. Have they… have they done this kind of thing together before? I wondered silently as Cam finally moved back, his hand slowly resituating Dante’s shorts to cover his leg back up. Before anyone could say anything, Cam darted forward and gave him a quick peck on the lips, patting his cheek lightly before moving back to his seat.

  “Lucie,” he continued on with the game despite that that entire interaction had left everyone completely silent and half-gaping. “Truth or dare, Doll.” He flashed me a cocky smile, soaking up the attention. Shaking my head slightly to try and clear the naughty direction my thoughts had taken, I answered.

  “Truth,” I practically squea
ked, still drowning in the sexual tension in the room.

  “How do you feel about us?” he questioned. His question threw me for a loop as I glanced around the room. All the guys were looking at me with curious glances, including Dante, even though he was shifting slightly in his spot.

  “I like you guys?” My statement went up at the end like a question in my confusion.

  “Close your eyes,” Cam commanded softly. Narrowing my eyes, I tried to figure out if he was about to prank me, but I reminded myself that this was Cam and not the twins. Finally, after a couple seconds in suspicion, I did. I heard some shuffling, and despite the urge to open my eyes, I wanted to show I trusted them.

  “You can open your eyes now,” Nik’s rough voice caught me by surprise, but I obliged him regardless that I was so lost as to what was going on right now. The twins held a large piece of poster paper with different boxes of candy taped to it. As I read through it I realized the boxes of candy were strategically placed so their names completed the sentences the guys had written. A few were scribbled on to help them make sense, but the words made my heart flutter.

  Just be-TWIX us, we realize we’re BIG HUNKS and all, but there are so many RIESENS we still don’t know how we SKORed with an ALMOND JOY like you. And everything about you is RED HOT! Every day with you feels like a PAYDAY, full of SNICKERS when we see you, SWEETART. If you’ll let us, we promise to always ROLO with the punches and TAKE-5 to spoil you. U-NO we care about you to REESES PIECES, and we want you always, NOW AND LATER. You’re worth 100 GRAND in our eyes, and we’re STARBURSTing to know, will you be our girlfriend?

  When I finished, I glanced over at them wondering if I was really seeing what I was reading at the bottom.

  Will you be our girlfriend?

  “Princess,” Hudson took over before anyone could say anything. “We all care about you. We all want you, and we know you have asked about multiple partners in the past.” I gave Cam and Nik the side eye, both looking unperturbed at being outed about sharing our private conversation. I hummed in response, waiting for him to continue. “So, we were hoping you would like to be our girlfriend?” Hudson finished, his hands wringing in front of him with a look of worry on his face.