Loving Knight: Book One of the Cresswell Series (COMPLETED)

27. ALIYAH

I turned my head towards Deion, whose skin had turned pale and whose expression just looked like he had seen a ghost. The same question flies out of my mouth again. “Deion. What is she talking about?”

I slowly got up off his lap, my eyes still glued to him. “Deion.”

“We don’t have to discuss this here,” he finally speaks, getting up from the couch. “Look, I’ll take you home and–”

I raise an eyebrow, crossing my arms. “Why do you have to take me home all of a sudden? Anything you can say in front of me, you can say in front of anyone else.”

“Aliyah, please.” Deion takes my hands in his.

I quickly pull them away, my concern growing into annoyance. “What is it that’s so secretive that you can't tell me right here?”

“It’s not secretive.” He lets out a breath, wiping his face. “Let me take you home, okay? I’ll tell you everything.”

Everything? “What have you been keeping from me, Deion?”

It took me a while to notice that the music that was blasting throughout the mansion was now off, everyone who was scattered about now gathered in the large living room.

“Hasn’t this game gone on long enough?” Brooke asks, her eyes fixated on me.

An uneasy feeling starts bubbling in the pit of my stomach. “Game? What game?”

Brooke’s eyes then land on Deion. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

“Shut up, Brooke,” Deion hisses.

Brooke throws her hands up. “Hey. I’m not the one keeping secrets here.”

I grab Deion’s arm, making him turn his head to me. “What secrets have you been keeping from me, Deion? I’m not asking you again.”

He doesn’t answer, making that feeling of uneasiness bubble more. The whole room went silent for only a few seconds when Theo sighed, standing up from where he was sitting.

“You have to tell her, Deion.”

“Theo,” Deion starts, but Theo doesn’t let him finish.

“No, Deion. I’m sorry, but this has gone on long enough. You have to tell her.”

I come in between them. “Tell me what?” When Deion doesn’t answer for the second time, I turn to Theo for an answer.

Theo’s eyes are filled with guilt, but he lets out another sigh before he starts to explain. “There’s this game that some of the football team participates in. More like a tradition that they do every year. They choose one of the teammates out of all of them to be the main player of the game, basically. Once a main player is chosen, the rest of the team chooses a girl for that player to go out with for a certain amount of time. They date for that amount of time until they eventually have sex.”

I feel my head start to spin. No…

“After that happens,” Theo continues, “the player breaks up with the girl then ranks her on a scale of one to ten. On her looks and how good she was in bed. And in this case…”

No…

“The guy that everyone chose as the main player was Deion…and the girl that everyone chose for Deion to go out with…”

No…

“…was you.”

As if right on cue, that uneasy feeling that was boiling in the pit of my stomach was now slithering throughout my entire body. It was as if I could hear my heart cracking slowly before shattering into a bunch of tiny pieces.