She takes in a shaky breath since I’m not cutting off her air. Yet. She needs to take my hint and leave me the fuck alone!
“I’m so sorry.” Tears spill over her eyes and run down her cheeks.
Usually, tears would turn me on, but hers disgust me. I should have never let Eli leave with her. I should have been driving. Maybe if I had, Eli would have been in the passenger seat. And maybe he would have survived? Maybe not taking her would have saved all of them.
I should have left her there on the side of the street at that party—where she belonged.
“You shouldn’t have taken the fall.” She sniffs.
Too late. “You shouldn’t have been there at all!”
Her watery eyes narrow on me. “I was responsible—”
“You wanna owe me, Becky? Huh? Is that why you came here? To tell me that you’re fucking sorry that my friends are dead?” I interrupt her. I don’t care to hear what kind of relationship she had with Eli. It doesn’t fucking matter anymore. Nothing does!
They’re all fucking dead!
She swallows nervously against my hand that holds her hostage. Owing me is like owing the devil. And when I come to collect, nothing less than your soul will suffice.
“I owe you, Cole,” she whispers after a long second.
“When I need you for something, you will do what I say?” I ask, arching a brow.
Think long and hard before you agree to that, Becky!
She gives me a slow nod, and whispers, “Whatever you need.”
“I don’t wanna talk to you or fucking see you until then, do you understand?”
“Yes.” Her response is soft. Her shoulders physically shake, and tears run down her face.
“Good. Now leave.” I let go of her neck and take a step back from her. Then I turn and dismiss her before diving back into the pool.
“I blackmailed her to be your friend so I could keep you close,” I growl at Austin. “Does that sound like someone who is good?”
“You took the fall for her,” she says.
“For a price!” I snap.
She wraps her arms around her stomach as though she’s trying to protect herself from me. I take a step toward her. “Austin—”
“She’s right.” Deke interrupts me. He sighs. “You were in a very bad place for a long time, Cole. Months.” He looks over at Austin, and his eyes soften. “Until she came along, things were … different. I understand why you did what you did. But you should have come to me.”
The room falls silent. These people should be mad at me. I was evil. Nothing I did was good. I couldn’t save my friends. I couldn’t save myself from the hole I got buried under. Hell, I couldn’t even save Austin. She did it herself.
“What happened to the baby?” Austin asks softly.
I run a hand through my hair. “You have to understand after that, Becky and I didn’t talk. We didn’t even look at one another until that night I threw you a party to force you into the group, and I told her it was time to pay up. That was like eight months.” I can’t do the math at the moment. “And even after then, our conversations were limited.”
“What happened to the baby?” It’s Deke who asks this time.
They’re not going to give up. “I don’t know—”
“Bullshit!” he snaps, interrupting me.
I lift my hands, hating to see him hurting over this. Over something I did. “I’m being a hundred percent truthful with you, Deke. I’ve never asked, okay? I was a bastard and never cared to ask what happened to her or the baby. And she never offered any info. Hell, for all we know, it was David’s. I never got to ask how long she … and Eli had been fucking.” He flinches. “Sorry,” I mutter.
Austin sniffs, looking down at the floor. Her watery eyes unable to meet mine.
I hate that look on her face. Too many people have made her feel that way—hurt. Betrayed. I love it when she raises her chin. When she gets in my face and challenges me.
She lets out a long breath, and Deke just stands there. Without a word, she turns and walks up the stairs to the loft.
“Austin—” I call after her, but Deke interrupts me again.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
How was I supposed to explain to my best friend that our other best friend was fucking the girl he was in love with and she was pregnant? Possibly with his best friend’s kid? “Because I knew you loved her. Her being with Eli and involved in the wreck … it was just too much. I didn’t tell her to run for nothing just to get caught up in it months down the road.”
“That’s why she was so upset.” He sighs. “That day you skipped school after reading the emails we found on Jerrold’s laptop. Austin stopped me in the hall at school and demanded to know where you were. Later that day, Becky kept calling her. When she didn’t answer, she asked me what I knew. I told her that we had found evidence that you weren’t at fault for the accident. Bruce had paid to kill you.” He shakes his head. “She started bawling. I thought … I just thought that she felt bad for blaming you like the rest of this town did.” His blue eyes meet mine. “She shouldn’t have let you take the fall.”
“She was scared. Terrified. I may have been a fucking heartless bastard, but the poor thing couldn’t take that kind of pressure. She wasn’t a shark. And I wasn’t gonna let this town drag her to the deep end and drown her.”
After the wreck, kids feared me. Parents hated me. They all wanted me in jail. I never once disagreed with them. My father chose to get me off. I never asked for his help. I would have taken whatever punishment the courts thought I deserved at the time. Just because it wasn’t really an accident doesn’t mean I wasn’t at fault. They’re all dead because of me.
“Now you’re defending her?” he asks with an arch of his brow.
I throw my hands out to my sides. “What do you want from me, Deke? I didn’t know what was going to happen to us. I just told her to go, and she went. I had three friends who were missing. They weren’t in the car. We were both bloody. She was in pain and sobbing while sitting in the middle of the road.” He flinches at my words. “I could handle whatever they were gonna throw at me. She wouldn’t have.” I take a breath. “I told her when we went to Bruce’s to get the recordings Austin had that we needed to come clean. It was time. She panicked all over again. Saying you could never forgive her.”
He stands and turns for the door.
“Deke …?”
He ignores me as well, leaving and slamming the door shut on his way out.
I make my way up to the loft. It’s the middle of the fucking day, and I find Austin lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Her clothes on the floor. I sit down on the edge with my back to her.
“How long are you gonna be mad at me?” I hate it! We finally got to a good place, and now here we are, back to square fucking one. Cole Reynolds being the fucking bastard he is.
I turn to see her face.
She sits up, her green eyes soften. “I’m not mad at you, Cole. I’m mad at everyone else in this town who turned their back on you.”
“It wasn’t their fault.”