➳ 𝐇𝐄 '𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐊𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒

⊰ 𝟙𝟙 ⊱

T A T E ' S P O V

"The best lies contain an element of the truth."

"What're you playing at, Tate?"

Colten's giving me that irritating half-lazy grin through the mirror. Any decent person who's not tied to the Carver name might think the bimbo is amused, but that's borderline horseshit. We're Carvers. We're cunning and conniving, and we thrive on playing games. Just like lover boy Colten here, who's innocently gawking at me with his puppy dog eyes. He's playing me. This good cop, bad cop scenario he has going on with Lyle is an awful fucking performance. But they're both used to being the show ponies of the family, so I flash him an applauding grin.

"What's it to you?" I cock a brow, my lips almost twitching up in the same direction, "Looking to join the team, Colt? Or are you worried you'll be benched if you did?"

I resist the urge to crack a smile as I drape my black silk tie around my neck, looking at him as to say I've got no idea what the fuck he's talking about, and I'm just taunting him like the dick I am. But we both know it's a lie. I know what he's talking about. and when he continues to glare at me with his eyes like a deer in headlights, and not the cute kind I'm normally into, I feel like I've wrapped my hand around live wire from the electricity brimming in them.

"Cut the shit, Tate. I'm not Lyle. Why're you toying with that Finley girl?" Finley girl, the dipshit can't even remember her name.

I can't say I'm not surprised. Colten can't even remember the names of the girls he's stuck his cock into, let alone the one he spent an hour trying to play the hero with for whatever reason. Another smile is brewing on my lips, but I swallow it down to avoid one more frown line appearing on Colten's football field of a forehead.

"Who, Evie? I wouldn't sweat it. She's not the toying type, not to me, at least." This much is true. Little E is a virgin. I can tell by the way she walks with her legs straight and close together as if she's frightened a hand might wander between them. I can't say I haven't thought about it at least once or twice every time my gaze settled on her thighs. But trying to pop her cherry was never on my to-do list.

I don't see the fascination Lyle seems to see in her. Girls like Evie aren't fun in that sense. They're like balloons. You stretch them out, give em a little mouth action, and then they pop. Maybe that's exactly what Lyle's intentions are, and that fascinates me. He's had his head shoved up Evie's perky little ass from the second he got here, and I can't wait to give her a reason to shit all over him and whatever he's planning to do with her.

I just gotta work my way back into her good book first.

"Well, you didn't invite the poor girl over for a tea party." Evie, her name is Evie. Oh, fuck me, I almost forgot about the sleep paralysis demon pissing all over my mood from the corner of my room. I can't control the groan that rattles my chest. "She isn't Cora, Tate. You and Lyle can't-"

"Can't what? Pass her around like she's a rag doll?" I finish his scolding, a smirk tugging at my mouth, but it straightens out into a thin line. "Maybe fuck her here and there, and when I'm done Lyle can take my shift? Shit, maybe I'll even squeeze you in between the meantime. How's that, Colt? You wanna be Evie's meantime Man?"

By the time I'm finished spewing up word shit to get a rise out of this know-it-all dumbass, He looks like he's ready to fly off into the fucking sky like a hot air balloon from the heat radiating off him. I genuinely hope he does. Maybe then I'll be able to get some peace and fucking quiet.

Either way, mission accomplished.

Colten dips his chin down, shaking his head as if somehow in that empty space of nothingness he calls a brain, he's having a hard time trying to process what I've just said. But when he meets me at eye level again, it sure as shit doesn't take a genius to translate the words brewing in them.