Sinful Longing

That was the kind of stuff addicts said when they were falling off the wagon. Nobody lied better than an alcoholic ready to sidle up to the bottle again. Colin took solace in the truth, though. He wasn’t going to touch this stuff. That was why Shannon had asked him to stop by the store. She knew he could handle it. Hell, he was damn proud of himself for proving to his family that every day he was recovering.

And to himself, too. He intended to do that by competing in this year’s Badass Triathlon at the end of the summer. He hadn’t attempted it since his epic fail. But it was his personal quest to finish it this time. Whether he came in first or last didn’t matter. Finishing sober was all he wanted.

Colin paid for the beer and headed out of the store, ready to see Ryan. His brother had had a hell of a day. He’d spent it at Hawthorne, visiting their murderess mother in prison. Apparently she’d finally confessed to him that she’d had their father killed. Colin had never doubted she was guilty, but Ryan had held out hope she’d been framed, and that with the case reopened someone else would be nabbed. True, the detectives were still looking for the gunman’s potential accomplices, but for once and for all, Ryan was as sure of their mother’s guilt as the rest of them were. Now it was Colin’s job, along with Shannon and Michael, to lend some support to their brother.

As he got behind the wheel of his Audi, something nagged at him. Something he’d meant to do last night after he said good-bye to Elle. He snapped his fingers.

“The picture,” he said. The hot sex must have fried his brain. He’d forgotten to text her the image of the kid in the Buick who’d been stalking Shannon—Colin was sure he’d seen the guy around the community center playing basketball. He hunted for it now. But as he scrolled through his photo gallery to fire the picture off to Elle, all his recent images were gone. Right, he’d reset everything on his phone the other day after testing a new fitness app that downloaded a virus. Needless to say, his venture firm wasn’t going to fund that app.

He’d simply get the image from Brent another time. Now, he needed to be with his family.

And later this week, he had a date with Elle.

Well, it was hardly a date.

More like a plan to fuck.

But that was okay. He loved fucking her, and if fucking her was the way to win the heart that he wanted badly, he’d be up to the challenge.

*

“No one was there.” Marcus blew out a long stream of air.

“So you try again another time,” Elle said, trying to cheer him up as she untied her roller skates while chatting with Marcus on the phone.

“I guess so,” he said, his voice trailing off.

“Look, just because he wasn’t there this morning doesn’t mean he won’t be the next time. Besides, who’s at their house anymore these days?” she said with a laugh. She’d just finished her workout at the rink, and over at the arcade, Alex hammered the joystick in what looked like a furious game of Frogger. “It’ll probably take a few tries before you find them.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he answered, sounding a touch more hopeful.

She smiled as she tugged off her skates, glad that her words were giving Marcus some kind of courage. “So just go again until you do it. Life is all about risks, right?”

“Risks,” he said, as if he were letting the word marinate. “Right. Risks.”

As she finished the call, she dropped her skates into her bag then joined her son for a round of Frogger, soundly schooling him in the arcade game she’d aced at this very rink back in high school. “It is so much easier to crush you in games at the roller rink than on the Xbox,” Elle said, pumping a fist in victory when her frog successfully evaded more cars, trucks, and traffic than her son’s.

“As if your retro games even count,” he said with a smirk.

“Hey! I didn’t see you complaining about my retro games during practice. You were glued to the screen.”

He shrugged. “I pretended to like it.”

She answered him with a noogie. “What do you say to you, me, fries, and a shake?”

“Mix in a burger and you’re on, T,” he said, calling her by her roller derby name. Only the “T” stood for more than just her alias – it was her word to live by.

“It’s a deal.”





CHAPTER SEVEN


The basketball arced through the air, swirling once, then twice, around the rim and dropping with a whoosh into the basket.

“No fucking way!”

Rex stared at the ball in amazement as it bounced on the concrete of the court.

Colin held his arms out wide as he stood on the free-throw line. I told you so. “Angle. It’s all angle.”