Sparkling Hope (The Eastburgh Devils Series Book 1)

Not only did I wake up with a throbbing head, but also with too much daylight in my room. I glanced at the clock on my nightstand, and the first thing I saw was the pill.

Then I realized I was wearing a t-shirt, and when I touched my cheek, I felt two thin strips stuck to my cut.

Luna.

It took me a few seconds to recall everything that happened almost seven hours ago. The lockout, then brushing my teeth, the apologizing, the band-aids as she handed me a rag and a t-shirt, and the moment right before that crappy air conditioner ruined it.

I remembered it all.

I remembered that she wasn’t wearing a bra under her sleep shirt. I also remembered everything about the party.

How we were both in the closet, and I was fingering her.

That feeling of her hating me but reacting like that to my touches still stayed in my mind. Her breathing was fast and short, her gaze scowling, her nipples hard, and her pussy so fucking wet.

I don’t know what drove me to slide my fingers over her thighs because I took advantage of the moment in the storage room to prove her wrong.

When my hands touched her skin, it felt like she was draining every last drop of blood from my body. No matter how painful it would be, I would let her. Suddenly she made me feel something, so much in such a short time.

She didn’t have to help me, but she did anyway.

It wasn’t just a touch.

Not much, but I had so much urge for that touch. After her.

At that moment, with my fingers on her thighs, I didn’t want to go any higher, even though my desire for her pussy was just as great as it was in that storage room at Sigma Devils. All I wanted at that moment was to be near Luna.

I also remember what I asked her before she went to her room.

Do you want to stay here? How stupid.

I sat up straight and had to come to terms with all of this for now. It was too much thinking and too much Luna on this Saturday morning.

It was enough that even now, even though I wasn’t awake for five minutes, I was already thinking about her and fell asleep with her in my head last night.

I quickly guided the pill to my mouth, and with big gulps, I flooded the Sahara in my mouth, and the pill found its way into my stomach.

My cell phone started buzzing, and I frantically searched for it in my bed when I saw it wasn’t hanging from the charging cord and sitting on my nightstand like it did every night.

My jeans were on the floor, and my cell phone shone through the fabric, and the name of our group chat popped up. Henry had the idea for the name of our group chat, and he still thought that he was the most creative person on earth.

BIG ROCK ENERGY

THE LOST SON

Are you still alive? Cause I am not.

CARTER BUNNY

Knocked out.

SUGAR DADDY CHARLES

I’m not surprised after your crash.

CARTER BUNNY

I don’t know how I came here, but I woke up on Spencer’s sofa and this sofa is a 10/10.

WESTON

Still alive. Somehow.

CARTER BUNNY

I thought you were lying dead on the side of the road.

I turned down the brightness on my phone because it already took some time to get used to the brightness in my room, and I didn’t need another screen shining on me like a spotlight. I could forget about breakfast because it was already shortly after two and time for lunch, but now I would not get anything down anyway.

When was there a proper time to eat? Especially after a party?

At a frat party, I had pancakes with syrup in the middle of the night, and a few hours later, when the sun came up, Charles started cooking pasta. They began to burn because he was so drunk that he forgot to add water to boil.

I braved down the stairs to the kitchen and found Ruby scurrying quickly into the kitchen.

‘Good morning.’

‘Good morning, Weston. Everything good with you?’ Sometimes, I was still overwhelmed with questions like that.

Did I look that beat up?

Camilla asked that too, but only when we had visitors. There was so much honesty in Ruby’s voice color and facial expression that you could read from her face that she really meant the question.

That was one of the things I immediately noticed about Ruby and Luna. In both facial expressions, you could immediately tell what they were thinking and how they meant it.

‘Yeah, it’s all good,’ I smiled and sat on one of the bar stools.

Ruby was packing some smoothies and sandwiches into a basket.

‘Camilla and I are going to New York until tomorrow. I have to sign some books.’

‘Where’s my Dad?’

‘Rick is on the coast until tomorrow,’ she reminded me.

Then I remembered that was what he talked about almost daily. Dad and Camilla bought a beach house on the New Jersey shore in Easthill, which they were renovating and planned to rent out when they weren’t vacationing there.

For me, all it meant was that I had the house more often here on my own.

My Dad and Camilla were away almost all the time for several days, but that was nothing but a problem for me.

I could throw parties and do that over several days, Carter usually moved in over that time, or I could have girls over at my place.

My Dad gave a lot of seminars he shows at colleges, and he wanted me to always come with him so I could get used to what it would be like when I followed in his footsteps.

I’d take over Sinclair Constructions over my body. Nothing was ever going to make me work for my Dad. Summer shifts during the season break were already hell. I only made those until Henry started helping.

Later it turned out that he paid Henry for it, and since last summer, he hasn’t stopped raving about how great his nephew helped him during the summer at events or family gatherings.

That’s not what hurt me the most, but rather how my father looked into my eyes as I sat across from him and he talked about it.

As if he would like to annoy me with these sentences, to indirectly tell me what a disappointment I was to this family because I didn’t want to take over my great-grandfather’s business.

With me, it would go into the fourth generation, but that’s not what I wanted to do. I wanted to make hockey my profession.

Eventually, play in the National Hockey League for one of the teams.

My father would laugh when I got to where I wanted to go.

I wish I could see him at one, just one goddamn game in the audience so he could see me play, and hockey wasn’t gymnastics on the ice, as he always called it.

I can handle this.

I’m going to make him proud.

‘We’re leaving now,’ Ruby took the basket filled with food and drink from our fridge and walked through the living room to the front door.

‘Weston?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Congratulations on the win yesterday. I hope you had a good time yesterday.’

‘Thank you.’ I heard the door slam into the lock, and it became quiet.

Now Luna and I were alone until tomorrow night.

God, how I would love to do the things to Luna that were floating around in my head.

The thought faded when I heard the stairs behind me, and Luna appeared next to me in the kitchen. Immediately the room filled with an unpleasant mood. I tried to tell from her face what she was thinking, but it didn’t work as she tried to avoid any eye contact.

What was that?

‘Your mother and Camilla are in New York, and my father is on the coast.’

It was common for my Dad, Camilla, and now Ruby to be in New York more often.

Eastburgh was located in New Jersey, a short drive from the city that never slept.

‘Okay,’ Luna replied briefly, pouring milk into the bowl, where there was already a pile of cereal.

Meanwhile, I sat on one of the bar stools in front of the kitchen counter and watched every move of her.

‘Would you like something?’

‘Thank you again for helping me yesterday,’ we both started talking at the same time, and for the first time, she looked at me, and our eyes met. It felt like an eternity, even if only for a moment.

‘Do you remember yesterday?’

What was I supposed to say to that? Of course, I did.

Every moment of it, I remembered that I had offered her to sleep in my bed. I wanted to suppress that memory because I had no idea what happened inside me when I asked her that.

Maybe it was just the sight of her standing in the door frame in her much too big shirt, her hair still slightly wet hanging loosely, and wool socks in blue with white stripes.

That was how she now stood before me, except she now had an oversized gray hoodie with the college logo on the back.

‘Well, hardly, just that you helped me in,’ I lied to her.

‘And the party?’ she asked cautiously before dropping her spoon into the milk.

I remembered every single second and would love to tell her that I also remembered fingering her in the storage room until she came.

‘Hardly.’

‘Mhm.’ Luna disappeared on the stairs leading up.

After I also made myself some food but left half because I couldn’t get anything down, Henry picked me up, and we drove to Sigma Devils, where my car was still on the side of the road since last night.

Some were still cleaning up the grounds, and we took some trash bags and brought a broken beer pong table to Trevor, which he had to fix.

When I got home, I heard Luna’s cheesy boy band music roaring from her room, and that stopped me from jerking off in the shower.

I thought that way, I could come to other thoughts, and a man knew how to help himself, but with the volume of the songs, I just couldn’t.

The rest of Saturday, I lay in my room on my sofa and watched a True Crime series, which I will probably have to watch again from the beginning in the next few days because I have been napping in between.

Suddenly I had an idea, and I was wide awake.

I wasn’t sure if this was my life’s stupidest or best idea, but I still felt guilty after apologizing.

After I pushed her into the water and she panicked, I only realized what I had done.

I jumped off the leather sofa, ran through the bathroom, and knocked on her door. There was still no answer after knocking and shouting her name a few times.

I cracked the door but looked into an empty, dark, raspberry-smelling room.

There were two options, either she was downstairs, or Luna wasn’t home.

As I made my way down, I heard the TV in the living room.

Luna sat in the tailor’s seat on the sofa, and her gaze rushed from the TV screen hanging on the wall to me as I entered the living room.

‘Do you have anything else to do?’

Luna turned the TV on silent.

‘Except sitting on the sofa and trying to figure out who the killer is before the FBI does, no.’

Only now did I see the notebook on her lap.

Did she take notes while watching a crime movie to find out who the killer was?

‘Wear something comfy.’

‘What am I supposed to do?’

‘Like leggings or something. Where you can move and then come to the jeep.’

Inwardly, I had already prepared for an argument, but Luna got up, turned off the TV, and went to the stairs.

‘I’ll never talk to you again if you’re fucking with me.’

I shook my head and waited until she disappeared up the stairs, and I could go to the basement.

That was easier than I thought.

All my hockey skates were hidden in the basement. My Mom always kept everything neatly in boxes. From my first ice hockey skates to my jerseys in all sizes and colors that have accumulated over the years.

It stuck with me since Mom and Dad split up, and that’s what it was like. Everything was messed up and in some worn-out boxes.

It was an absolute mess.

I snuck out size eight skates, hoping they would fit Luna.

The skates were protected with a skating protector, and I hoped they were still sharp and would glide well over the ice.

Then I realized I had no idea if Luna could skate. I knew almost nothing about her except that she studied sports management and journalism, loved cocoa as much as I did, took notes during a thriller, and hated the pool in the swimming hall.

I was already waiting for her in my jeep and briefly turned to my cell phone, where I asked my friends for the key to the ice arena.

BIG ROCK ENERGY

WESTON

Is the key to the ice arena where it always is?

CARTER BUNNY

Do you want to show a girl your personal hockey bat?

WESTON

Shut the fuck up for once.

Just tell me where the key is.

THE LOST SON

Don’t you do something like that when it’s warm?

SUGAR DADDY CHARLES

Watch out. Your dick will freeze.

THE LOST SON

It sounds like you’ve had experience with it.

CARTER BUNNY

And we’ll play hockey where you had sex?

Ugh.

WESTON

Can someone answer that question for me?

THE LOST SON

Lies under the rock, as always.

SUGAR DADDY CHARLES

Before I fuck on the ice, I have some sense. The showers are also working.

WESTON

I agree!

CARTER BUNNY

You’re perverted.

THE LOST SON

Since returning from New York, Charles lost his mind with his broken heart.

WESTON

Charles urgently needs a brain in his empty head.

SUGAR DADDY CHARLES

I need head!

I put my phone on silent and made it disappear in the center console. The lights in the front yard, which turned on automatically when moving, flickered when Luna came out.