Sparkling Hope (The Eastburgh Devils Series Book 1)

A dull, soft knocking slowly roused me from my sleep. At first, I didn’t even realize the knocking was reality and thought my dream had some scarring special effects.

The more awake I became and got used to the brightness in my room, which was flooded by the sun’s rays, I realized that the knocking came from the hallway and was definitely not a dream.

It could only have been one person.

Carter.

Carter, who slept the night in the room next to us.

Carter, Weston’s best friend.

Weston.

I only realized that Weston was lying next to me, his hand resting around my waist under my t-shirt. Right then, all the moments from tonight jumped into my head.

Weston and I had had sex.

Fantastic sex.

Sex I craved even more.

Why was Carter knocking?

I didn’t want him to barge in because he’d see me in Weston’s t-shirt while Weston was asleep beside me.

I didn’t want to and didn’t feel like explaining that because what was there to explain? I had to find out for myself what it all meant.

The knocking could no longer be heard, so I released myself from Weston’s grip. As much as I wanted to lie here next to him any longer, I had to do something before Carter burst in here, and I didn’t want him to see us like this.

I slipped under Weston’s arm and got up from the bed, quietly puttering to the door, which I opened a crack so my head could fit through.

‘Carter?’ I called after him in a whisper as he walked down the hall and stopped at Weston’s door.

‘Have you seen Wes?’

He was in my bed, asleep.

‘No, should I care?’

Carter grinned.

CARTER GRINNED.

Why was he grinning?

‘No, but I’d like to go to the bathroom. Can I go through your room to the bathroom?’

‘Huh?’ I looked at him with my eyebrows drawn together, and I could swear question marks were popping up around my head.

‘The door is locked,’ he explained.

Oh shit.

The question marks fizzled over my head as I realized why the door was locked. Weston and I showered together last night and locked the door to his room so Carter couldn’t get in.

I wanted to smack my forehead against a wall right now.

If we had unlocked that door again during the night, I wouldn’t stand in front of Carter having this awkward conversation. I felt my bedroom door open wider, and Weston hurried past me.

‘Morning,’ he said in a raspy, sleepy voice.

Carter and I looked at each other, and he looked just as shocked as I was. What the hell was happening here?

‘I have so many questions,’ Carter countered, scratching his head, ‘but I think this is one of those times where I just shut my mouth and leave.’

My eyes lingered on Weston’s back.

Damn it.

‘Luna unlocks the door for you,’ he said before heading down the stairs to the kitchen. Carter looked after his best friend and then glanced back at me.

He shook his head, and a smirk formed on his lips.

God, this was awkward.

I was sure my face had turned the color of a strawberry.

Without comment, I closed the door and went into the bathroom, where I unlocked the door to Weston’s room so he could enter the bathroom. I picked up the towels scattered across the bathroom floor and tried to cover up all traces that we had showered together last night.

At the last moment, I saw the condom wrapper next to the small trash can and tossed it in. Carter entered the room when I held a pile of white towels in front of my chest, trying to hide the t-shirt’s print.

‘Can I have a towel?’

No. The towels were my shield right now.

It didn’t matter now. Weston was coming out of my room, and if Carter had a functional brain, he knew what was going on between Weston and me anyway.

‘There are some in the closet,’ I pointed to the closet next to the shower.

‘You can give me one of the towels, too.’

I pressed the towels harder against my chest, ‘Oh, uhm…nah, they were all on the floor.’

I turned my back on Carter before he could say anything else and grabbed my toothbrush and toothpaste as I walked by. I ran across my room to the door to throw the towels down the laundry chute that led to the washing room.

As I walked past the large mirror in the room, I discovered as I passed that the t-shirt also had printing on the back.

SINCLAIR and underneath it, the back number eleven.

I gave up on it.

The day was already shitty.

In the bathroom, I held the printed front of the shirt shut while I turned my back to Carter. I sighed and tossed the towels down the laundry chute and rummaged from my dresser for anything neutral to wear.

Wearing a gray hoodie and matching sweatpants, and a toothbrush in my mouth, I ran down the stairs and entered the kitchen. Weston was sitting on a bar stool, propping his forearm on the kitchen counter before the porcelain bowl and scratching around in the cereal bowl with a metal spoon.

I hated that sound.

‘Hey,’ I said with my toothbrush in my mouth, glancing at him as I closed the refrigerator and placed a bottle of orange juice next to the countertop for me.

Weston did not react as if I weren’t standing in the room.

No look in my direction, nothing at all.

Yesterday the eye contact was so intense between us, and now I wasn’t even worth a response, let alone a look?

He continued to look into his crappy bowl of cereal, still scraping through the soggy cereal with his spoon. I rinsed my mouth under the running faucet and wiped my wet mouth on the sleeve of my gray sweater.

‘Listen, Luna.’

The exact words as yesterday on the dock.

No matter what he would say now. I knew it didn’t mean anything good.

He was still looking into that bowl, which I wanted to pull out from under his nose so he would finally look at me.

‘What was between us tonight will remain a one-time thing, like that kiss on the ice. That was provided,’ he ran his hands through his hair and then over his face.

I swallowed a hard lump, which had formed in seconds, down my throat. Was he fucking serious right now?

‘Don’t say that.’

Say you don’t mean it.

‘I mean it, and you should have known that.’

I should have known. What a fucking lie. I bit my lower lip with my canine tooth to stop my jaw from quivering.

‘How was I supposed to know that we—’

He interrupted me mid-sentence. ‘There is no we. There has never been.’

That hurt.

‘Get over it. You know my attitude, Luna.’

Weston was exactly the asshole I hoped not to be. I laid my biggest fear bare to him like a deck of cards. I let myself fall without being caught and realized I was falling for him.

I should have known it.

‘Is that what you wanted to tell me yesterday on the dock?’

He looked up at me for the first time.

‘Yes,’ he said dryly.

‘But I was still good enough to fuck?’ my jaw quivered at the thought that I had fallen for him.

‘Get the fuck out of here now.’

‘Fuck you, Weston. I hate you.’

I hated myself, too, because I was just now realizing that deep down, I hoped there was more between Weston and me and that the sex wasn’t a one-time thing.

I wanted to appear strong before him and pretend his words would hit and bounce off me. But that was not the case.

I felt my eyes start to burn, and before I could lay my feelings out for him so openly again, I turned and ran up the stairs, skipping a step with each step.

I ran into Carter’s chest as if all that wasn’t enough.

‘Woah, careful, Montgomery. Are you okay?’ Carter held me by my arms with his hands.

‘Just let go of me, okay?’

Without hesitation, he let go of me, and I hurried past him towards my room.

Never in my life have I wished so much not to live here anymore.