Veils of Rivalry Chapter 10

Cole's POV

There’s a crashing sound coming from outside my room that pulls me from my sleep, the door thrown open, making me tense everywhere.

“Did you spill my fucking coffee?” Dad asks in a firm, angry tone.

I kick off my duvet and hurry to get under my bed like I always do when he’s mad. He’s scary when he’s drunk – and he’s always drunk.

Mom pulls his shoulder, trying to drag my dad away from coming for me. “I told you it wasn’t him! It’s only damn coffee, Malcolm! It’s three in the morning, go to bed!”

“Stop fucking lying for him!”

“I’m not! Please don’t hurt him. He’s only ten years old. Please, please don’t hurt him. It’s only coffee. You need to stop⁠—”

I cover my ears and press my face into the dust-infested carpet the second I hear the slap and my mom crying out. She falls to the floor, facing me with a trickle of blood coming from her nose. Her eyes are telling me to run, to remember what we talked about when he was like this a few days ago.

I’m scared. I love my dad, but sometimes, when he drinks too much beer, he changes. He shouts, breaks things, and when Mom tries to stop him, he hits her.

If I don’t hide on time, sometimes he hits me.

Dad grabs her by the hair and yanks her to her feet, and I take the opportunity to crawl from under the bed and run, just like my mom told me to do.

I want to help her, but she’d made me promise to get out of the house and go straight to the neighbor’s place before he gets more violent. If I try to help, I’ll only get hurt again. My arm is still sore from when he broke it nearly a year ago.

He told Mom I fell off the trampoline, but I didn’t. He lied. He always lies, and then blames everything on me.

My bare feet smack the ground as I run as fast as I can, reaching Mom’s phone, then rushing down the stairs, pausing when I hear a loud scream. I step forward and freeze, a tear slipping down my cheek before I turn and leave the house.

I bang my small fist on the neighbor’s front door, full-blown crying now, still hearing my mom’s cries for him to stop. The door flies open, and I gasp as my dad grabs my face and drags me into the darkness.

My entire body flinches as I jolt awake in a confused state.

I’m struggling to fill my lungs, a thick layer of sweat all over me.

Hair tickles my nose, and there’s a weight on my chest that stops me from sitting up. I’m weak, breathless, and everything hurts like I’ve been struck by a fucking car. My vision is still completely nonexistent, and I can smell sex everywhere.

There’s a bitter taste in my mouth, a mix of alcohol and something else.

I blink a few times, groaning when my head aches, and slip in and out of consciousness while battling with reality. I can’t fall back into that dream. I can’t. I’ll fucking lose my mind if I need to re-live that memory ever again.

Not that my dad was ever arrested for being an abusive asshole. He talked his way out of everything, since the only evidence was the word of a kid and a few bruises on my mom’s face that could have been self-inflicted. She was a nurse, after all, so she healed our wounds.

And my dad was a cop. Still is. I haven’t seen or spoken to him since I was a teenager.

There’s faint music. From behind my eyelids, I know the sun is beaming through the window. Is it the next day already? What the fuck happened last night? The brain fog is fucking me.

I try to tuck my cock into my pants, but my girlfriend hikes her leg over me, and I flinch as her knee skims across my dick. She hums, splays her hand on my chest, and falls back to sleep.

I know it’s Allie lying on me, going by the smell of her perfume and her perfect frame pressed against and over me, and the soft way she snores.

From the feel of her tits against my ribs and bare pussy on my leg, she’s naked. My jaw hurts, and my head feels like it’s about to explode when I try to sit up and fail again.

“Fucking hell,” I mutter, and my throat cracks like I’ve been screaming for hours. “Fuck.”

My phone dings from somewhere. The floor? I lift my head, screwing my eyes to faintly see it on the other side of the room.

Allie doesn’t stir as I slowly roll her off me, my eyes starting to adjust to my surroundings to see we’re in some sort of ancient, fancy room. And when I sit on the edge of the mattress, I look down and see a white-ish stain at the bottom of my shirt. I rub it between my fingers, whatever it is being half-dried.

Is it cum? Mine? Allie’s? I glance at the passed-out blonde beside me. How did she successfully get me to fuck her? And why don’t I remember it when I only had five beers?

The last I remember, I was sitting with my friends, trying not to jump on Samson and snap his neck for touching Blaise’s shoulder. And then I was watching them talk, laughing at something, and the way my friend kept looking at him when Blaise wasn’t aware of it.

The annoyance that ran through me could have been the fact my friends were mingling with him, and I hate him. Maybe it’s just the fact I hate hanging out with him. Or, it could be that I’m possessive of my friends and don’t want them anywhere near the piece of shit.

Blaise might think the masked man and unidentified messenger is Samson, though. Was that why he was so friendly with my guys last night? Was he trying to find out whose dick he sucked?

Surely, he’ll know Samson doesn’t have an evil bone in his body and does everything for a joke? He’s not serious enough to hide his identity and fuck a guy’s mouth before stalking the shit out of him.

Then there’s Jackson. He’s definitely the type. I already know from multiple drunken occasions that he thinks Blaise is a preppy guy he’d fuck. And since Blaise evidently likes cock, going by the way he hardened sucking mine, he might find him attractive.

I groan and rub my hands through my sweaty hair, grabbing my phone from the ground and going into the bathroom to wash my face with cold water and scrub the smell of sex from me. I feel dirty, not because of Allie, but it feels wrong. It had felt wrong being with her sexually before I cut off sex. And I’m still trying to figure out why it feels that way.

The cheating, maybe. The attitude transplant she’s in need of, possibly. The six-foot tank who sleeps in the room across from mine, fuck no.

Am I the problem? Is this all my issues getting in the way of me being happy with Allie? Are we a good match, and I’m just fucking it up?

I dip my head, needing the dizziness to ease off before I move from the front of the mirror. I gulp down water from the tap with cupped hands, then I check my phone.

Mom: Did you ask Allie if she wanted to come on the trip with us? I think Blaise asked Mia and she said yes! It’ll be wonderful if everyone came. Let me know and I can book a larger lodge so you don’t need to share with your brother and his girlfriend.

Blaise: Where did you fuck off to? Allie is looking for you and I’m not babysitting her drunk ass.

Mom: Can you call Blaise? Or are you with him? Gavin can’t get a hold of him and he’s worried. Please don’t get him drunk again, Cole.

Great. His dad can’t find him, so they assume I got him drunk.

A few hours ago in the group chat, Keith sent in a picture of them all, asking where the fuck I am in the caption. Samson has his arm over Blaise’s shoulder, the latter grinning like he’s having the time of his life, a beer to hand. Mia is on his other side and looking completely out of it. Allie is in the background, and she looks even worse than Mia.

I lean out of the bathroom and look over at her. “Allie? Are you feeling alright?”

She lightly snores, so I guess she’s not dead. At least she made it to bed with me and not someone else to take advantage of her.

Music plays downstairs in the main hall, and by the sound of it, there are a lot of fucking people drunk still. I can hear screams, cheers, chants, and it only gets louder as I open the room door and lean my body out to look down the corridor.

Strobe lights and colors flash in the distance.

I’m still really drunk somehow. My steps are uncoordinated and I’m swaying, and I keep shaking my head to realign my thoughts when I hear voices I know don’t exist.

But I’m not missing out on this. Samson will kill me if he thinks I bailed on his birthday party, regardless of the time.

Taking advantage of the fancy shower, much fancier than the one me and Blaise share, I wash the smell of sex and sweat from my body, grimacing as I pull the dirty clothes back on.