The Keeper (Playing to Win #1)
Bella Matthews
PROLOGUE
LINDY
Nineteen Years Old
“Hey, princess,” Easton’s smooth voice whispers as I answer his FaceTime in the middle of the night.
“Hey, hockey boy,” I rasp back and clear the sleep from my eyes. “What time is it in Vegas?”
It’s too late to be doing time-zone math.
Or maybe it’s too early. I squint to see the clock app. Definitely too early.
“It’s a little after midnight here. Were you sleeping?”
I grab my glasses and sit up so I can see his face. Easton always FaceTimes or texts. He never calls. There’s no in-between for him. There never has been. “E, are you drunk?”
He runs his hand through his sandy-brown hair. Hair that looks like it’s already been yanked on one too many times. Eww. Please don’t let a naked woman be in bed next to him. Because I’ve gotten those calls before, and they are not my favorite. “Easton . . .” I push when he doesn’t answer me. “What’s going on? Are you alone? Are you okay?”
“I fucked up, Lindy.” With haunted eyes, he drops his head back against his pillow and groans. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
He and I have been doing this for years.
Calling each other in the middle of the night when our demons get the best of us.
We understand each other.
Shared trauma will do that to a person.
But tonight, he’s talking in riddles even I’m having a hard time decoding.
“What happened, E? You’re scaring me,” I whisper softly into the night, as my stomach drops, anticipating the worst possible answers.
“I couldn’t save you,” he breathes out and shuts down.
“But you did save me, Easton. I’m alive because of you.” I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap an arm protectively around myself. I never talk about this. Not with anyone except him. “You saved us both.” Four years ago, a stalker held Easton and me at gunpoint. In an effort to get to my mother, he killed my bodyguard, and if it hadn’t been for Easton and my stepfather, Brandon, he would have killed the rest of us too.
A chill runs down my spine, and I try to shake it off before Easton closes his eyes. “In my dreams, I couldn’t save you.”
“In my dreams, you always do,” I tell him with brutal honesty because honesty is the only thing we’ve ever been able to offer each other. “Are you going to be able to sleep, E?”
“Stay on the phone with me, okay? I need to hear you breathe. I need to know you’re safe.”
I lie back down and tug my comforter up, then prop my phone on the pillow. “Sleep, E.”
This isn’t the first time I’ve gotten this call in the middle of the night.
It won’t be the last either.
Looks like our favorite Kroydon Hills socialites have jet setted off to sin city for baby Kingston’s birthday celebration. Let’s see if what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, or if this reporter can bring the dirt back to Philly.
#KroydonKronicles
LINDY
“What do you think of this one?” My roommate Everly spins around to look at herself in the mirror. Her blonde curls bounce around her shoulders like a shampoo commercial.
“Hurry up,” her twin sister, Gracie, yells from the hall of the penthouse suite we’ve booked for the weekend.
Everly rolls her eyes and plumps her perfect boobs, and not for the first time, I wish I had my friend’s confidence . . . and figure. Give me a pair of figure skates and a perfectly smooth rink and I’ve got confidence in spades. In all the other facets of my life, fake it till you make it is a little more my speed. So I go for the easy out and toss a pillow at Everly.
“Who are you worried about impressing? This is a girls’ weekend. Remember?” With a shake of my head, I lean back on the bed, and maybe I peek down at my own less than C-cup chest. Who am I kidding? I’m barely a B most days. “Remind me again why I’m sharing a room with you?”
She adds a delicate gold chain around her neck and gives me one of her cheerleadery smiles. “Because you love me, and I’m going to play wingman for you this weekend. Now get up and get dressed because there are at least two gorgeous men meeting us at the pool that are of legal age and not related to either of us.” With another quick glance in the mirror, my Instagram-perfect bestie slides her feet into heeled wedges and tosses a sexy pink sarong my way. “Now rip off that stupid old t-shirt and put this over your bikini. Easton’s never going to realize you’re an adult with actual boobs and an ass if you dress the same way you did when you were fourteen.”
“Evie,” I gasp and look around, checking to see if anyone else heard what she said. “I told you that in confidence.”
“You told me that in a drunken fucking cryfest, and Kenzie and Brynlee are probably studying in the other room,” she snaps back at me, referring to our other two roommates—Kenzie, Easton’s little sister, and Brynlee. Technically, I guess Bryn is Kenzie’s cousin. And considering Kenzie’s legal guardian happens to be my big brother, that may actually make me her aunt. I’m the youngest in a huge, obnoxious family. Most days, I wouldn’t trade them for the world. Even if my closest sibling in age is fifteen years older than me.
But while I’ve always looked at Kenzie as part of the family, I’ve never looked at her brother that way.
Even as a kid, Easton was always handsome. What I had back then was an innocent crush on my best friend’s brother. But the feelings that have developed over the years since that night are anything but innocent. They’re also not something I’ll ever admit. At least not sober, apparently.
“Besides, Easton won’t be the only man out there today, and you need to pop that cherry at some point. Vegas is bound to have plenty of men willing to do the work for you,” she winks dramatically and smiles again.
I wrap a hand around Everly’s big mouth, then yank it away just as fast when she licks it. “Gross. You know you have a problem with volume control . . .” I toss my tee onto the hotel bed and tie the sarong around my waist, then fix my boobs. “And who exactly are the two men you’re expecting?”
Gracie walks in, the complete opposite of her identical twin sister. Where Everly is a wild bombshell, Grace has a quiet, understated beauty about her. She’s the calm to Everly’s storm and is always the most sensible one of us. “Oh come on, Lindy. Evie’s always wanted Easton’s friend, Pace. Do you have any idea how excited she was when she heard he was going to be here this weekend?”
I shrug and refuse to admit I got butterflies when I thought about seeing Easton this afternoon. He and I talk at least once a week and have for years. But we rarely get to see each other. Between my training and his long-ass season, not to mention the Olympics and the two of us living on opposite sides of the country, I hardly ever see him in person.