Stone hadn’t told me any of this. Then again, I hadn’t asked.
“I didn’t realize all that happened.”
“Just so you know, we all took a vow. We didn’t tell anyone what happened. Nothing. No one knows about you knowing Stone Reeves.”
“Really?” The ‘we’ she talked about was probably twenty-plus people. That seemed to be the core of their partying group. The football team. Them. And they had a few extra girls sprinkled in. I’d paid attention the two weeks I was there.
“Yeah. I mean, our group, but we didn’t say anything to anyone else.”
“Well, I got three Google alerts. I think it’s out there.”
“I’m just letting you know that since you’re big on privacy, there’s probably a whole sector of nerds on campus who don’t know. So you know that much.”
That was comforting. “Thank you.”
“But I mean, like the regular sixty percent of campus probably knows. And when you come back, only maybe thirty percent will remember. And from even that, ten percent will recognize you. From that, maybe three percent will say something.”
Around sixty-nine-thousand students went to our school. I got to look forward to a little over two thousand of them mentioning something about Stone and myself.
Two weeks in isolation at his house suddenly started to look good.
“So, yeah.” Nicole’s smile was still awed. “I just, I can’t get over how much you know Stone. I mean, coming in and seeing you in his lap, and I know you said you and he aren’t, you know, but man. Mia and Lisa are such bitches. They were saying you sucked his cock somewhere, but this—” She motioned to the bed where she’d seen me in his lap. “That’s not what they’re saying. I don’t think they know how to handle this. It’s awesome.”
Awesome.
My dad and Gail died.
So awesome.
“Right.”
There was nothing else to say. I was fine letting Nicole think what she thought, and I picked up the rest of my stuff. “Okay. I’m going to go.”
“You need homework gathered for you or anything?”
I went to the door, but looked back. I thought about it, really thought about it. “No. I don’t need that, but I do need to come back here after these two weeks are done. I need to be a normal student, and I need Mia and Lisa to continue being bitchy to me. I need that because—well, I don’t know why, I just need it. Please don’t say anything about me being in Stone’s lap. We have a weird history.”
“Oh.” She blinked. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. No problem. I won’t say a word.”
Right.
Awesome.
Chapter Twenty
“Your friends are just great.”
Stone greeted me with that biting comment as I slid into the passenger seat, shutting the door. I knew what he saw. He knew I knew what he saw. There was no point in arguing. I just sat back and held my bag on my lap. “I told you before, I didn’t know anyone before I moved down here.”
A few of them were sitting on the steps outside, pretending to talk, but mostly still watching Stone. They waved as Stone pulled from the curb.
“Yeah.” His hand flexed over the steering wheel. “Let’s talk about that.”
Which was code where he said the command and I was expected to confess everything.
Fuck that. I wasn’t his bitch. I looked out the window instead.
“Dusty.” A low growl from him.
A snap back from me, “Stone.”
A second growl. “I care. Fucking hell. I care, okay? I wouldn’t be doing any of this shit if I didn’t still care about you. Those people didn’t give a fuck about you, except the one girl. Not a goddamn one of them, and you’re asking me to look away from that? I can’t. Me being a guy and caring about a girl, I can’t do that. It’s not how I was raised.”
He cared?
I couldn’t.
That statement was swimming around in my head, but I couldn’t. Not right now.
I focused on what I could process. “There’s a big fucking debate that could be had for your last statement, so I’m not sure I’d be all high and mighty over that comment.”
“I am trying to make up for that.”
Low and quiet and controlled by him. I’d pushed a button and he was reacting, but he was trying to contain it. And I knew that was just another extension of the whole ‘I’m trying to make up for that’ part.
But still.
I wanted to clip out, wanted to throw it in his face by saying, ‘Do better.’
I didn’t, but I wanted to. “A movie. A blanket. We shared snacks. Then the next day, I was a stranger to you.”
He sighed, his shoulders falling down. “Dusty.”
“That was years ago.” It was pent-up, and I had to get this out. “You were my best friend growing up. I loved your dog like he was mine. I know you were hurt when you walked away from me. I know you missed my mom, but since then, during those years, I lost my best friend. I lost my mom. I lost my childhood home.” I had to skip a beat. He didn’t need to know what else I lost before coming here. “And I have now lost my father, my stepmother, my car, and the second home that was never really a home to me. But I got you back? Is that the takeaway for me? The consolation prize?”
He cursed silently under his breath, hitting the turn signal and easing onto the interstate ramp.
“I would give you up in a heartbeat to get them back.”
Still, he remained silent. A beat. Then, “So would I.”
Oh. Damn.
Damn!
That broke the wall. I felt it crack in two, heard it even, and everything I’d been stuffing away and suppressing, I had a second’s notice before I turned to him. I knew the tears were already shining in my eyes.
He saw, and his jaw firmed as he reached over for my hand. He kept a death grip on me. “Just let it out. You have to let it out.”
The hole inside me was there. His words, my words, had punched a fucking fist through it and I felt as if the roof was caving in. The entire building in me was crashing. I was demolished inside and I’d been holding onto a thin fucking frame to keep me upright. That was gone now, and I was crumbling.
No. It was worse than that.
I couldn’t keep it together.
“Stone.”
His hand tightened on mine. “Just hold on. I promise.”
I tried. I did. I was failing.
But then we were pausing. The gate was opening. And we pulled into his garage.
I didn’t have to think about moving. Stone was out of his door and mine was thrown open in a flash. His arms went under me, and he scooped me out. Cradled to his chest, he maneuvered us through the house. Me, I was useless. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear what he was doing until we were in a room, on a bed.
A phone was ringing.
It was silenced.
He moved us both back so he was sitting against the headboard. It was similar to the other night, but this time, crying wasn’t enough. My insides were being ripped out. One organ at a time. One tendon being slowly pulled from inside, shredding and being dropped on the floor.
I couldn’t handle it.
My dad.
Gail.