Veils of Rivalry

Cole's POV

The house is crowded. Music blasts through the speakers from every corner of the room, people already drunk and dancing to the heavy bass.

Allie laces her fingers in mine as I lead us through the sweaty bodies until I reach Samson and Keith, my friends from college. They greet me, then nod to my girl.

It’s more than what they’ve done over the last twelve months. They aren’t fans of her since she cheated on me last year, always telling me to ditch her.

I didn’t care enough to break up with her.

Their eyes lift to the person behind me, and I sigh. “Allie asked Mia to come. Fuckface decided he had to join because he can’t go one hour without being stuck to her side.”

Blaise ignores me and goes straight to my friends.

Samson leans forward and shakes Blaise’s hand. “Been a while, man. How’s life treating you?”

Blaise sits down and brings Mia onto his knee. They get into a discussion about football and how my stepbrother wants to do tryouts, and I take Allie to get drinks to try to forget the asshole is here.

For a few hours, I steer clear of him. I’ve probably done too many shots and smoked far too much weed. I navigate my way from the kitchen to the sitting room, dropping onto the couch in front of Blaise.

“Why are you still here?” I ask him, noticing Mia is dancing with Allie by the stairs. I inwardly huff when they notice us and head over.

“Get fucked,” Blaise spits, taking another drink of his beer.

My eyes absently zone into the way his throat moves with each gulp. I wish I could cut it wide open and watch the way his blood flows out. I’d make sure I drained every drop, bleed him dry, then sit by while he turns blue and lifeless.

There’s a tick in my jaw, and I drag my gaze to his face instead.

“Stop talking to me,” he adds when I don’t snap back.

I laugh and kick my legs up on the table between us. “Daddy won’t like it if he knows his little princess is drunk the night before practice.”

Even though he’s done with high school, he still plays on their team for the next two weeks. He grits his teeth and goes to retort, but we’re interrupted by my friends.

I’m handed another joint, and I keep my eyes on Blaise as I fill my lungs with the toxic smoke and blow it in his direction. With a grimace, he waves his hand in front of him, giving me the death stare that doesn’t even slightly scare me.

“I’m bored,” Samson says, sitting next to Blaise. “Let’s play a game.”

Allie sighs as she approaches with Mia. “Please don’t say Never Have I Ever.”

Getting comfortable pressed up to my side, she drops her head to my shoulder, lacing our fingers while I inhale on the joint and pass it back to Keith. Blaise only stares at me, his eyes narrowing. I bet the fucking prick will tell his dad that I was smoking weed tonight.

My brow quirks, and he averts his eyes to his girlfriend. Such a fake asshole. Always pretending he actually fucking likes her.

“What game, then?”

Samson hums, thinking to himself before clicking his fingers. “We’ll have two teams. One chases the other, and if you catch them, you can beat them the fuck up or just take your point as winning.”

Blaise snorts. “What’s the point? What do we get if we win?”

“We’ll decide later.”

“Sounds dumb.”

His voice irritates me. I can imagine my fist laying into his smug face, but the idea of letting my mom down again makes me rein it in.

“I’m not on his team,” Blaise says as he gestures to me, and my right eye twitches. “He’ll cheat.”

I scoff. “Fuck off. No one even wants you here.”

Mia scowls. “Hey! Allie asked us to come!”

Fuck Allie too. Relationship or not, she fucked me over by asking her friend to come tonight. I never hang out with Blaise. I’d rather rip my own balls off.

The only reason Mia knows Blaise is because I told Allie she could bring a friend to the stupid wedding of our parents. Biggest mistake ever.

He doesn’t deserve to be happy. I hope she cheats on him and breaks his fucking heart.

“How many people are here?” Samson asks.

“Twenty-five.”

“Great!” He’s grinning as he stands. “One can be the referee. Do you still have the masks from Halloween? The black and the white ones with the blank faces?”

“Yeah,” Keith replies. “And the black hoodies.”

“Let’s do it. Twelve on each side. We wear masks and hoodies to hide who we are. Bring a little fun into it.”

Keith vanishes, and the party continues. The music gets louder, and Blaise is on his seventh beer. If he drinks any more, I won’t need to tell his dad. He’ll get caught. But of course, he’ll get a free pass regardless of how strict our parents are.

If it was me who had something on the day after partying, I’d get my ass handed to me and kicked out. I’m too broke to survive outside of the house.

Allie pulls my arm. “Let’s go back to my place. We don’t need to play the chasing game.”

I ignore her, downing my drink and looking around, losing sight of Blaise. I can’t see his girlfriend either, so maybe they’ve had the same idea.

My girlfriend looks up at me with puppy dog eyes. “Cole, please. I want to have sex.”

Saving the day – because I really can’t be fucked with going home and having Allie slopping up my cock or riding me until I force myself to come – Samson returns with a box filled with the masks we all wore at the Halloween-themed football party last year before we all split up and headed for college.

All of them are the same style. Blank face masks with no design. The chasers will wear white, and the runners will wear black.

No weapons allowed. No inflicting fatal injuries. No siding with the other team to beat down the other. No phones.

With my lack of a response, Allie’s moved on to kissing my throat. “Let’s go upstairs instead. I want to walk around this party with your cum leaking out of my pussy, baby. Come on. Before they pull us into our teams.”

My cock shows no reaction to her words, even as she’s tugging at me to go upstairs with her and grabbing at me through my pants. She pouts when she finds me soft – the same way I was last night while she was on her knees for me.

It’s been happening a lot. I have next to no interest in sexual pleasure. We haven’t had sex in a while. Maybe that’s one of many signs to break up with her.

Her lips part to say something else, but Samson grabs everyone’s attention.

“Okay. Let’s choose teams!”

I try to peel Allie off me while she hangs on to my arm like I’m about to disappear. She’s so damn horny when she’s drunk.

I still can’t see Blaise. Hopefully, he left, because the urge to kick his face in during this game is too much. I’ll probably kill him if I end up on the opposite team. It would be a damn miracle if I found him first.

When Blaise staggers into the room, I roll my eyes and gulp the rest of my drink, barely registering the burn down in my throat. He drunkenly crosses his arms and leans against the wall opposite me, his hair disheveled.

I look at Mia and roll my eyes at her fixing her skirt, the smudged lipstick, the redness of her throat. I feel sorry for her having to spend so much time with him.

She’s best friends with Allie. I might lie and say she tried to fuck me to ruin their friendship. It’ll put an end to me and Blaise being at the same parties.

“Why are you staring at Mia?” Allie asks, and I turn to look at her, at the frown between her brows. “Do you want her? Is this because of what happened last week? I’m sorry. I promise I stopped texting him.”

She was talking with her professor—flirting, to be exact—and I had to pretend I cared enough and used that as one of the reasons I don’t want to fuck her when she cried to me about needing to be screwed.

“Cole and Blaise should choose teams.”

My brows raise as I bring my attention back to my friends. They know I hate my stepbrother. They’ve seen me pin the bastard to his locker by the throat and demand he make his father leave my mom.

I hated him when he came into my life years ago, and I still hate him now.