Page 49 of High Achiever
“No one hates you.” Ash sighed loudly, then pulled out the big guns. “Noah and Chase don’t hate you.”
Spencer made a quiet, pleased sound that twisted something in Ash’s chest. “S’true. They’re the best.” His eyes fell closed, his head drooping even further against the seat. “Friends in high school were all douchebags. My family … My mom …” Spencer trailed off. “But Noah and Chase are good. Decent. And they like me anyway. Really. S’like—you know, hookups are hookups. What could they offer that Noah and Chase couldn’t?”
Ash cleared his throat. “That’s annoyingly sweet.” And surprisingly coherent, despite the slurring. “Are you in love with my brother?”
He ignored the warning glance Ryder shot his way. Ash wasn’t any sort of saint, and he wasn’t above getting intel while Spencer was wasted. It had been Spencer’s idea to drag them to that party, anyway.
Spencer smiled with his eyes closed. “No. Do love him though. World would be a better place if everyone was alittlein love with their best friends.”
Ash shot Ryder his own look. “I happen to agree.” He waited a beat, then asked. “So why don’t you date? Hookups are hookups, yeah, but dating’s different.”
Spencer was silent for a moment, and then he lurched forward, his dark head poking in between the front seats. Ash had a brief moment of panic that Spencer was about to hurl all over them, but then the alpha started talking. “Y’know how Noah and Eli met?”
“At the cabin?”
“I was s’posed to go. Bailed to get laid. Tha’s what I told Noah.”
Ash took that in. “But it wasn’t true?”
“It was a little cabin. Tiny house.” Spencer brought his thumb and forefinger together until they were barely a centimeter apart. “Itty-bitty. You know. Jus’ me and Noah.” Spencer gave Ash a meaningful look, but Ash could only frown at him inconfusion. Spencer rolled his eyes. “He’d get sick of me, you know? The house is different, in and out and—and Chase is there. But just us? Little cabin? Too much.” Spencer nodded to himself, like he was making the most sense in the world. “’M always too much.”
Noah and Chase were Spencer’s best friends in the entire world. Spencer said as much all the goddamn time, to the point where Ash could have begged him to shut up about it. And yet Spencer seemed to think that, underneath it all, Noah couldn’t handle him in close quarters. That too much proximity—too muchSpencer—would sour their bond.
Something deep and painful ached in Ash’s chest. Nobody should feel like they were a burden in that way. Not with the people they depended on, the people they revealed their true selves to.
Ash tried to keep his voice level. “I think you underestimate my brother.”
Spencer retreated to the back seat with a funny little laugh. “’M best in small doses. You know. You get it.”
Ash turned around with a start. “You think we only like you in small doses?”
But Spencer didn’t answer. He’d already closed his eyes again, his head lolling to the side like he’d been asleep for hours. He’d either passed out on a dime or he was done talking.
Ash could only stare, distraught, until a strong, warm hand tucked itself into his. Ryder’s gaze was on the road, but Ash could see the furrow in his brow. “It’s okay, bright eyes. We’ll fix it.”
It was a ridiculous thing to say. They couldn’t fix a person like that, as easily as Ryder fixed his goddamn cars.
But then again, when had Ash and Ryder ever been particularly reasonable? Ash settled back in his seat and pressed his free hand to his chest, trying to ease the ache.
Yeah. Why the hell not? They’d fix it.
14
RYDER
Ryder had thought he might have to half drag, half carry Spencer out of the car to get him inside, but the other alpha perked up from his slump as soon as they parked, managing to get inside the apartment on his own two feet.
Ash peeled away to “get the idiot some water,” and Ryder followed a stumbling Spencer to the bedroom.
“Take your pick,” Ryder said, nodding at his and Ash’s beds.
But Spencer shook his head, an uncharacteristically mulish look on his face. “Hate sleeping alone,” he mumbled.
Nobody had said anything about him being the only body in the bed, but Ryder let the assumption lie. He leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. “Aren’t you an only child? Think you’d be used to it.”
Spencer frowned down at his feet, swaying slightly in place. “My mom and I would share, when we couldn’t afford bigger. Only time she was, like, soft with me. And then every time she found some asshole to date, we’d move in with him and I’d be on the couch or whatever and … I dunno.” He shook his head as ifto clear it. His slurring might have eased, but he still looked and sounded … tired. “I like a cuddle, I guess.”
Fuck. The amount of heartbreaking shit that had come out of Spencer’s mouth tonight was overwhelming. If Ash and Ryder hadn’t already been determined to keep him before, that would have sealed the deal.
