Good Grades & Mystery Games (North University Series Book 2)

“Why do you look like this on a Wednesday night? I’m starting to think that you don’t have any friends, Branson.”

I ignore Miles’ comment for the hundredth time because he can’t let it go. Having housemates that are hockey players has one perk: they’re always practising. They’re out on campus for a few hours and then they usually hang out with their girlfriends. Except for today. Instead, both Xavier and Miles are up my ass as I try to get ready to go to my dad’s house to talk. While they get to sit topless on the couch and play ridiculous sports games all evening, I have to face the wrath of my dad in a tux.

“Just because I have plans with my family, doesn’t mean I don’t have any friends,” I retort, fixing the sleeves of my suit again. Tailored suits are all fun and games until you have pulsing anxiety running through your body while you feel like you’re sweating buckets. “Besides, I’d much rather have a professionally cooked meal in a mansion than sit around all day like you slobs.”

“If you’re jealous that we’re comfortable, just say it,” Xavier calls from the couch.

“Real question, Z,” I begin, looking at myself once more in the reflection of the refrigerator. I brush my hand through my blonde hair that is in desperate need of a cut. Another thing I’ve been putting off. I turn around and lean my forearms on the kitchen hatch that overlooks the living room.

“Shoot,” Xavier replies, not tearing his eyes away from the screen as his fingers fly rapidly over the controller.

“Do you ever do any schoolwork? Like, seriously. I only see you train or sit here all day and I’m genuinely curious as to how you manage to stay on this scholarship,” I ask with a head tilt.

“Are you being for real or not? I can never tell with you,” he responds, flickering his confused gaze to me for a second before turning back to the screen. “I’ll take your silence as a no. I do work, but you’re just never here when I’m doing it.”

“Huh,” I say disbelievingly, walking out of the kitchen to the entryway to grab my jacket. As I’m about to say bye and leave, I hear Miles call my name as if I’ve forgotten something important. I turn back to him, and he pauses the game before looking at me. “What?”

“Don’t you want to know how I manage it all? How I’m so incredible at going to school, playing hockey, and managing a relationship,” he grins.

“This feels like a trap, so, I’m going to say no. I don’t really want to know,” I groan, trying to suppress my laugh.

I don’t think I’ve ever met a man as dramatic as Miles Davis. I seriously don’t get how Wren has put up with him for the past year. This is my third year living with him and I can’t stand him most of the time. The only tolerable thing about him is that he’s a loyal friend.

“You’re right. It was a trap. I don’t know how I do it either. It’s exhausting. Every time I go to study, I just think about Wren and boom,” he gestures to his lap. “It’s over.”

“Good to know, Davis. The next time I want to know your sexploits, I’ll let you know in advance,” I say. Neither of them are listening to me anymore anyway. They both turn back to the game, grunting and shouting at each other as I slip out of the door.

As expected, my family’s driver, Charles, is waiting in the black Escalade outside. Charles has been a good friend to our family for years. He and my dad, Samuel, grew up together in a small town in Vermont and he’d always been in the loop with the Branson business that my great-great grandfather founded.

Branson & Co is one of the biggest clothing brands in the states right now, and it has been for decades. I still don’t know the inner workings as to how the business came to be and how it became such a hit here, but all I know is that my family is loaded for life.

My dad says that Charles was never interested in being a part of the business. Not only is it mostly family-run, but it’s also very competitive to even land an internship working at one of our branches. Charles got his licence before my dad did and he drove them around for years until my dad finally got a licence as well. Even now, after I was put on probation from the business, he’s stuck by me.

Charles rolls down the window and nods at me to get in. He’s dressed plainly in a black Pal Zileri suit and dark glasses, looking ever so serious. I can’t take it seriously when I know he’s the same guy who once leaned against a chocolate fountain at one of our events and ended up covered in chocolate without realising it. The same guy who embarrassed the hell out of me when I tried to go to second base with a girl in the back of the car in high school.

I slide into the backseat, picking up a bottle of water and downing most of it before leaning back in the chair. Is it cringe to have a playlist that Charles plays every time I go to my dad’s house? Maybe. As much as I know the guys would bully me for it, there is nothing better than listening to dark pop songs and driving on the interstate to the other side of town.

The fifth The Weeknd song is about to play before we stop outside of the Branson estate. Great. I take a deep breath, thank Charles, and climb out of the car, dusting off my suit.

I throw my head back before adjusting my collar and start up the gravel pathway. Growing up here was a dream. A ridiculously privileged and insane dream. We had weekly charity events in the backyard, we spent Easter’s doing huge treasure hunts around the whole house, Christmases with a tree almost as big as the one in Rockefeller. It was perfect for fourteen glorious years until my mom left. Then shit got really bad. Everything became about money, B & Co, power, and more money.

All the stupid family traditions ceased to exist when my mom couldn’t handle it anymore and she left. Since then, coming back home has felt like a chore just to be caught in another petty argument with my dad.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say he’s a great dad; he’s funny and he’s kind, but beneath it all, I can tell he’s not happy with me after the stunt I pulled two years ago. The man knows how to hold a grudge.

I was transferred from Drayton Hills to NU in the first few weeks of my first year after a very public break up with my ex-girlfriend and high school sweetheart Catherine Fables. Without the excessive details that I’m constantly replaying in my mind, let’s just say that there was a public screaming contest on campus which ended up with me on the doorstep of her dorm, sobbing into an empty packet of Oreo’s.

Although some girls dig the idea of the soft, cry-baby side of me, for the business, it was a PR disaster with popular gossip sites taking the issue into their own hands. It also meant that I was stripped from my usual privileges from the company and thrown into NU to gain some responsibility and to learn how to present myself better, meaning I keep my head down and I keep myself to myself. I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job at that so far.

When I slip into the sleek, black three-storey house the first thing I can hear is my dad’s voice echoing down the hallway. He’s on the phone.

I don’t get much time to process it before our family Labrador runs up to me. She’s a chubby girl named Mila. She’s pretty low maintenance after growing up with her, but she still tries to intertwine herself with my legs like she’s still a puppy while I try to get closer to my dad’s voice.

“Not now, Mila,” I whisper to her, scratching her ears before shoving her off to the side and she listens, whining softly.

As I inch closer towards the noise, I figure out who he’s talking to. It’s Damon. He’s only a few years older than me and has been my dad’s assistant for the last five years. Assistant is a bit of an understatement. Damon is the whole reason why my dad’s house is still on all its legs and the only reason he’s still breathing. He does a lot more than assist my dad on a day to day basis. Like right now, as he gets called a motherfucker for something that probably wasn’t even his fault.

I lean against the wall in the family room behind the kitchen. If I press my back against it hard enough, it can turn in on itself and it’ll swivel around to face the larger-than-life kitchen area, but I try and keep my weight off it.

“I told you to do one thing for me, Damon. One fucking thing. If you can’t do that, I’ll find someone else to do it and you know I can,” my dad threatens over the phone. There’s a muffled response from Damon which he grunts and sighs to before continuing. “If you don’t come back to me by the end of the week with a solid plan, I will cut you off and you can kiss that Lamborghini you wanted goodbye.”

His phone slams onto the table and I jump, almost knocking over the bronze statue on the mantelpiece to my right. I let out a sigh of relief when the statue teeters before falling soundly back into place.

“If you’re going to eavesdrop, at least be less obvious, boy,” my dad says cooly on the other side of the wall. He always catches me out somehow. I don’t have the energy to continue this stupid game, so I turn and push my hands against the wall until it opens to the kitchen.

My dad is sitting with his back to me, his greying blonde hair cut short at the nape of his neck which pinches as he throws back a glass of bourbon before slamming it down onto the bar. I walk cautiously towards him, trying my best to uphold any sort of composure that I used to have before I got kicked out.

“Eavesdropping has become my last resort as I have to find out all of the news from TMZ or a very cryptic message from Charles. And you know how he is with technology,” I say with ease as I stand across from my dad, taking in his tense features and furrowed eyebrows. He shakes his head.

“I’m glad you find this situation so amusing, Evan. Truly. When really you should be ashamed of yourself for getting yourself in this situation,” he responds, pouring himself another drink, but I snatch it up and drink it before setting it back down. He doesn’t flinch. Instead, he pulls himself a clean glass, pouring yet another drink.

“Whatever,” I say. “I have two questions, dad. One: what have I done to be summoned here again? And two: what did Damon do for you to rip him a new one?”

He blinks at me for a second, sipping his drink before placing it back down. “Damon is acting a fool, as per usual, but surprisingly you’ve done nothing particularly wrong.”

“‘Surprisingly?’ What’s surprising about me being the perfect kid I’ve always been?” I beam, pushing a hand through my hair for extra emphasis as I puff out my chest proudly.

He laughs a little at this before painting on his serious expression. He’s susceptible to my charm more often than not nowadays. Only because he doesn’t have to deal with it as frequently.

“You have not always been perfect, Evan.”

“I have. You were just too dumb to realise it, old man.” I push off the counter and rest my hands on the bar table, trying to regain control of the conversation. “But, really, what am I doing here? I’m sure you didn’t force me to come just to eavesdrop and have a good drink. I actually have classes and shit to do.”

He hums, sipping back the last of his bourbon as he thinks. “You have good grades, don’t you?”

“Perfect grades.” Straight A’s in fact. As much as people my age don’t give a shit about school, it’s one of the only things I’m actually good at. Plus, my classes are pretty easy.

“Right,” he replies cautiously. “I have something I’d like you to do, as long as it doesn’t mess with your studies. This is a perfect opportunity for you to earn your way back to B & Co since Damon is too damn slow.”

My heart almost leaps out of my ribcage. I have to take a step back and grip my chest for a beat before letting my heart rate settle. I’ve been trying to get my dad to trust me again to get back to how my life used to be. When I’m done having a mini freak-out, I finally focus back on my dad.

“Yes. Yeah, sure. I’ll do anything,” I say quickly, feeling the way my face burns. I clear my throat as my dad’s mouth lifts up in a smirk before smothering it with his glass.

“I heard the youngest of the Voss kids still go to North. Is that true?” he asks, his eyebrow arched.

Fuck me.

Why did the mention of Scarlett make me tense up and he didn’t even say her name?

I’ve gotten to know her a lot more in the past year with our friend groups being so close, but she would cut off my balls if I tried to look at her outside class or when our groups are forced to hang out.

She seems to hate me whenever we’re in the same room, but it’s hard to take her seriously when she tried to kidnap me a few weeks ago and accused me of stealing her ridiculous whiteboard.

It doesn’t help that our families have been deep in competition for decades. She’s a smartass and is always trying to one-up me in class but I let her. She hates me and I act like I hate her too. It’s how we work. What she doesn’t know is that we’re a lot more alike than she wants to admit.

“Yeah,” I say finally, swallowing the ball in my throat. “Only their daughter, though. She’s in my class, and one of her best friends is dating my housemate.”

“Great,” he begins. He pauses, murmuring to himself before meeting my gaze. “I’m sure you know that her dad’s in the hospital, don’t you? Well, he has been for weeks.”

I nod but he doesn’t follow it up with anything. “You…We…We didn’t have anything to do with that, did we? I know he’s seen as a threat, but I once caught him shrieking over a bee at an event. So, he seems harmless.”

He cuts my rambling with a wave of his hand in the air. “No, Evan, we – or anyone we’re associated with – didn’t have anything to do with it. That’s the problem. We’re his biggest competitors so it seems like we had something to do with it. I can assure you that we did not. It’s too much of a coincidence that around the time things started getting heated with their family, he mysteriously fell into a coma, but none of us were responsible.”

“And what do you want me to do about it?” I ask wearily.

“If you know his daughter, try, and get closer to her and find out what she thinks. If we can get a lead in this, we can find a way to take him down before it hits the press,” my dad explains, his eyes lighting up with the same fire and intensity as it always does when competition is in the mix.

“I, uh, I don’t know if I can do that,” I respond, taking a generous sip of my drink.

“Why not? You want to be back in don’t you?”

“Yes. Of course, I do. More than anything. But isn’t there a way we can do this without hurting anyone. Scarlett’s…” God, how do you describe the same girl who threatened to punch me in the dick when I spat out her cookies which she forced us eat at the BBQ we had in summer. The same girl who shoved bacon in my face last Christmas, yet still had it in her to drive my drunk ass home afterwards. I can’t tell my dad that. So, I lie. “She’s different from them. She’s a handful, she’s snarky and competitive. But, beneath that… she’s nice is all I mean.”

“You don’t have to play nice, Evan. If you want this badly enough, you’ll find a way to get more information without breaking her heart if that’s what you’re worried about.”

It’s one of the many things I’m worried about when it comes to her.

*  *  *

After Charles drops me off back home, I try to rack my brain for some sort of game-plan. I can’t just start texting her out of nowhere to get her to speak to me. Fuck. I don’t think Miles would even trust me with her number. Z probably has it, but he can’t keep a secret to save his life. Instead, I settle for the easiest option which is to wait for Miles and Xavier’s next hockey game, which Wren will drag her to and ambush her then.

“Do you know how to play the game, dude? How are you losing with the best squad in the game?” Miles shouts to Xavier as I walk behind the couch to the kitchen.

They continue shouting at each other until I sit down on the couch across from them with my tie loosened and a bottle of water in my hand. My dad and I had a huge steak dinner and I’m exhausted. Xavier shoots me a glance then turns back to the screen. Then back to me.

“You’re back already?” he asks, turning back to the screen again as his fingers fly over the buttons.

“I was gone for three hours, you idiots,” I retort.

“Oh,” Miles says.

“Have you really been playing this entire time?” I ask. They both nod in unison before Miles turns to me for a split second while Xavier takes a penalty on the screen.

“It’s a no-breaks-allowed kind of game,” he replies, howling at the screen when Xavier ’s goal goes in.

“What if one of you needs to take a leak?”

“That’s what the buckets are for,” Xavier replies, nodding his head to a bucket I hadn’t noticed was there and I grimace. “I’m kidding. That’s where we catch our trick shots with the ping-pong ball, obviously.”

“Right. Obviously,” I respond sarcastically. Every day I learn something new about the people I live with. The game ends and Miles sighs heavily at his defeat as he turns to me.

“Wanna play?”

I pause for a second before nodding. Why the hell not? He throws the controller at me and walks me through the first few steps of the game.

I look from the controller to the screen every few seconds as I watch the avatar move around in a zigzag. I try to gain control, but Xavier is not going easy on me, and he tackles me as he shoots into the net, earning me a loud whoop in response.

“Jesus, Evan, you really can’t play for shit,” Miles hollers, laughing as he sinks back into the couch, folding his arms across his chest. “You need to have better coordination than that. Don’t you play the guitar or something?”

“Piano,” I correct, trying to think of the last time I sat in front of a Steinway. It’s been too long. I try to concentrate on the screen, my player running down in the wrong direction. “And they’re really not the same thing.”

“Potato, potahto,” Miles grumbles. “You’re too stressed out for a twenty-year-old. Just chill. When was the last time you slept with someone, seriously?”

“I dunno,” I say, not ready to engage in this kind of conversation with one of the most talkative people I’ve ever met. I don’t know how Wren copes.

“It might help you loosen up,” Xavier chimes in.

“Yeah, maybe,” I murmur, still trying to figure out how to play this fucking game. I throw the controller back to Miles who has been itching his hands like he can’t deal without playing for a few minutes. “Hey, Miles. How’s, uh… how’s Scarlett?”

Miles’ head whips around at me, his eyebrows drawn together as his lips pull up into a smirk. “Why are you asking me? Didn’t she hold you hostage when Wren and I were at her sister’s wedding?”

“Yeah, but not much talking happened. Kinda hard to ask how she’s doing when it was more her shouting at me and trying to get me to confess to something I didn’t do. I haven’t spoken to her since then.”

“She’s fine…I guess,” Miles says, shrugging. “Wait? You’re not asking because of what I said about needing to get laid, are you?”

My breath catches in my throat. “No!” I’m practically yelling. Jesus. This is going great. “No,” I say more calmly. “I was just wondering. You know, mutual friends and all that.”

“Good. You guys hate each other. And if you ever touched her, Wren would have an aneurysm and I would somehow get blamed for it. So don’t think about it,” Miles warns, and I nod. “Plus, she has, like, four brothers. That’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

“People love me,” I say proudly. Miles and Xavier throw each other a glance before bursting into a fit of laughter. It’s not long before I join in on their hysterical screams.