Sworn Enemies - Rebel Hart Page 0,70
fuck around with people because you can’t be with the one you want to be with,” I said. “I understand.”
Daniel looked over at me, his face drenched with concern. He set his stuff down, walked into the living room, and sat on the couch. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
I finished off the beer I was working on before grabbing a second one, twisting the top off, and starting on it. “Quinn broke up with me.”
“What? Why? You guys were great yesterday.”
“Wright set me up again,” I replied. “He sent me some texts to prod me about a pro team and somehow linked my replies to one of her teammates that abandoned her team. She was on the opponent’s team tonight, and it completely cost them the game. Quinn thinks I slept with her just to pull it off.”
Daniel sat in silence for a minute and then stood up. “I’m going to destroy that guy.”
“No, Danny—”
“What?” Daniel whipped around.
“It won’t fix it.”
“No, but I’ll feel better. I don’t like people messing with my brother.” I looked at him pleadingly, and he sighed before coming back to sit down. “Fine.”
“I know it sounds crazy because we haven’t known each other that long, but I really think I was falling in love with her.” My stomach hurt at the realization that last night was the last time I’d ever hold her. “I…it hurts.”
Daniel looked over at me. “You think that sounds crazy to me? At least you knew each other for a few weeks.” He rubbed a hand through his hair. “Look, you can’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t stop looking, er, trying to get her back. There’s gotta be a way to prove to her that he set you up. Can you show her the texts?”
“I deleted them. I didn’t want her to see that I was still poking around for a pro team when we just started dating.”
“Why were you?” Daniel asked.
“Because until I met her, that was all I wanted. I thought maybe I could take her with me. I don’t know.”
“She’d never leave her team, it sounds like,” Daniel replied. “Well, maybe now she would.” He noticed my glare and held up a hand. “Sorry. Well, what about your phone company? Most of them can recover deleted texts, and if it’s on official phone company paper or whatever, she’d have to believe you.”
I sat up. “Is that a thing?”
“Sure. Cops do it all the time. They have a harder time because they’re trying to get someone else’s records, but you shouldn’t have any trouble getting your own. Then you just text her the picture, and bam.”
A little bit of hope fled into me. “Wait. That could work.” I deflated again. “She blocked my number.”
“Then I’ll send it to her, or you show up at her job or her house and show it to her. She’s crazy about you, too. She’ll probably be happy to listen if you have proof.”
“But then Wright’s gonna go on TV and say something that totally refutes that, and he’ll have Lila backing him up. He did all this for views and money.”
Daniel’s eyebrow raised. “What if you did the same thing?”
“What?”
“Play him at his own game. Go public. Get the texts and take it to the streets.”
I looked over at him, and a smile grew on my face. “That’s not a bad idea.”
“It sucks that they lost semi-pro, and if that Wright guy is pissed, he’ll never be willing to give them another shot, but at least maybe you two can get back together.”
I thought about that a bit, and my smile got bigger. “I think I can do something about that, too.” I stood up and ruffled his hair. “You are the best brother. I’ve got a plan, but I need to go talk to someone at my phone company first, and…do you know how to use Snapchat?”
26
Quinn
One week later…
In the entire time that I had worked at MontRec, I had been accumulating vacation time. The owner insisted upon it, even when I was still just a part-time receptionist in high school. He could afford to let hours roll over a certain amount, and I had taken maybe ten vacation days in the entire six years I’d worked there. I’d always fantasized about how I would finally just take a whole two weeks off of work, and recently, I thought it might be on some vacation with Zeke. It turned out to be in order to recover from our breakup and my