Wicked Games by Sean Olin Read Free Book Online Page A

guys. This actually happened—for a minute or two, anyway. If she double-checks with Reed or Andy or Carlos, they’ll back you up without even realizing that they’re supporting your alibi. So, you had a few beers. The guys left. Then you had a few more. And you figured you were too drunk to risk driving home. Cool?”
    “Sure.”
    “You and I stayed up watching old episodes of
Futurama
on Hulu. Piece of cake.”
    Jeff was right. It was that simple. The complicated stuff was all inside Carter’s heart. He closed his eyes and felt the morning sun, warm on the backs of his eyelids. He was suddenly exhausted. He’d been up with Jules until four, at least. He’d barely slept at all the night before.
    “Whaddya say, bro?”
    Carter reluctantly nodded. “Sounds like a plan,” he said quietly.
    “All right, cool,” said Jeff. Then, splashing a plume of water at Carter, he said, “I gotta say, though, man—you’re one lucky dog.”
    Slowly lifting himself from the edge of the pool, Carter wandered back into the pool house and laid down on the unmade futon. He could smell Jules’s scent on the sheets—peaches and rosewater. He remembered his face buried in her hair the night before, breathingher in, gulping down these smells. Images from their hookup flooded his head—his hands running up her smooth legs, the devilishly playful expression on her face as they’d chased each other up the beach toward Jeff’s house, and then the warmth of her skin when he’d covered her body with his own. An enticing, lingering memory of the night before.
    Was it possible that Jeff knew what he was talking about? That the problem wasn’t with what he’d done the night before, but with the fact that his love for Lilah was disappearing? And then what? What would happen to Lilah if he up and left her?
    The possibility disturbed him. He imagined her spiraling into a depression like she had after the swim-team fiasco. Hurting herself, maybe seriously. It made him sick to his stomach.
    In a sudden panic, he leaped up and stripped the bed, crumpling the sheets into a ball and stuffing them deep in the hamper in the bathroom.
    Back on the futon, he closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. If he could just somehow get back to sleep, maybe he’d wake up in a world where he wouldn’t have to worry about any of this.

8
    In the three and a half years they’d been together, Carter had never once neglected Lilah’s calls. Never once failed to return a text.
    If only she hadn’t gotten drunk, if only she’d tried a little harder to enjoy Jeff’s party and not made such a spectacle of herself. She should have remembered how fragile things were in their relationship. She should have been more careful, more attentive, less selfish. She should have put Carter’s needs before her own.
    She regretted every single thing she’d done, and her regret made her hate herself and her self-hatred filled her with an uncontrollable need to hear Carter tell her that everything was okay.
    Now he’d gone AWOL. And it was all her fault.
    At 8:30 a.m., unable to stand it any longer, she called the landline at his house. Maybe his mother would be able to get him on the line. And then Lilah could say she was sorry, and everything would be okay again. She could hear her heart beating in her throat as the phone rang and rang.
    Finally, Carter’s mother answered, and the sound of the sweet Georgia drawl she’d picked up while they’d lived in Savannah almost broke Lilah in half. “Hi, Mrs. Moore. Is Carter there? Can I talk to him?” It took all of her self-control to squeeze the words out.
    “Oh, Lilah, no. He’s at Jeff’s house,” Mrs. Moore said.
    Lilah refused to believe that this could be true. “Are you sure?” she said.
    “Sure as the sunrise.”
    “So . . . he’s okay?”
    “He seemed fine when he called to say he was sleeping over,” said Mrs. Moore. “Are
you
okay, honey?”
    Lilah definitely wasn’t okay, but she didn’t want to