Broken Hill Hurt: The Broken Hill High Series (Book 3)

by Sheridan Anne

  "Yeah, I guess," he grunts, lifting a shoulder in a shrug and being way too blasé about the whole thing while also letting me know he'd rather not talk about it.

  "Ok," I say, letting out a breath. I mean, if he wasn’t feeling great about the whole thing, he'd tell me, though, he would probably wait until we were home alone in bed.

  We walk the rest of the way, hand in hand until we get to our favorite spot which just happens to have the best view of the track.

  We watch a few races and by the end of the third, Nate can hardly keep still. "What's the matter with you?" I question with a smirk. "Would you quit fidgeting?"

  He pursues his lips and tears his eyes off the track to look down at me. "Puck said I could race his car," he tells me.

  Ahhhh, and it suddenly makes sense. He's itching to get out on the track. "So, why don't you?"

  “Nope,” he says, shaking his head. “It sucks seeing your car as a mangled heap of metal. I’m not going to risk racing and doing that to someone else’s pride and joy. Especially not Puck. He’d kill me if I destroyed his car.”

  “But you wouldn’t destroy it,” I argue. “You’re one of the best racers around here and what happened to your Camaro wasn’t your fault.”

  “Nope. I’m not risking it,” he says as the scrawny guy who runs these races walks by and gives Nate a nod. Though, I can’t think of his name. It might have been Aiden or Adrian. No, it’s Aaron.

  Aaron stops and walks towards Nate, holding his hand out. “No hard feelings?” he says.

  “Nah, man. We’re good,” Nate tells him. “I’ll be back in a few months with a new car.”

  “A few months?” he scoffs in surprise.

  “Yeah,” Nate grunts. “I’m rebuilding a Mustang. It’s going to take a while.”

  “Alright, sure,” he says. “Give me a call when you’re good and I’ll get you back on the track.”

  Nate nods and Aaron walks away.

  We watch a few more races with the guys and eventually, Puck and Ty show up. Though, luckily for Brooke, Max isn’t here. I doubt she’ll be that lucky at the party tonight. When the races come to an end and all the guys from Haven Falls Private are starting to get a bit rowdy and stoned, Nate calls it. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “You read my mind,” Puck says. “I want to get to the lake already.”

  “You just want to go skinny dipping with Courtney,” Jesse laughs, making a wicked grin spread across Puck’s face.

  “Are you serious?” I shriek. “It’s way too cold to go skinny dipping. Your balls will shrivel up and fall off.”

  “Hey, never you mind about my balls,” he says. “They can handle it and if not, I’m sure Courtney will help me warm them up.”

  “Ugh,” I groan. “I don’t want to know.”

  “Come on,” Nate laughs, taking my hand and pulling me away. “Let’s go. I want to get you drunk and take advantage of that sexy body of yours.”

  I shake my head and try to hold in my laughter but it’s too damn hard. “I’m down for that.”

  We get back to Jesse’s Range Rover and pile in before Nate takes off down the dirt road to get out of here. He pulls up at Broken Hill lake twenty minutes later to find the place already packed with dancing bodies, grinding against one another as others loiter by the water.

  “Now, this is what I’m talking about,” Jesse grins from the backseat.

  “For once, I think I agree with you,” Brooke laughs as she grabs her heels and slips them back on her feet. “Now, get me drunk.”

  “My pleasure,” he says before they both hop out of the backseat and hurry towards the party.

  “Shit,” I groan. “I’m going to have to keep an eye on her tonight.”

  “Nah, she’s fine. Jesse will make sure she’s safe,” he says. “She just needs to let her hair down and forgot about this week.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  I climb out of the car and get my ass over to the dancing bodies. I find Brooke right in the middle with Jesse dancing up on her. I push him away and trade places. If anyone is going to be dancing like a skank ass bitch tonight, it’s going to be me.

  Nate finds me a little while later and brings me a drink. He goes to walk away but I grab him and pull him back, not allowing him a chance to escape. He’s never liked dancing but right now, he’s got no choice. Though it doesn’t take him long to get into it, especially when I push my ass back into him and he grinds against me.

  We find Courtney and Brylee, and ten minutes later, Elle stumbles up, looking as though she’s already drunk a little too much. “Hey,” she cheers holding her drink up before throwing it back.

  “I’ll drink to that,” I tell her before doing the same with mine.

  The girls follow suit as the song is changed to one of Brooke’s ultimate favorites. We all squeal as she starts jumping up and down.

  Nate groans behind me. “And that’s my cue to go,” he says as he pulls me in tighter. “Don’t go far,” he tells me. “There are some guys here we don’t know.”

  “Ok,” I grin. “Same goes for you. I’m sure there’s a lot of tramps here, dying to bag themselves a Ryder brother.”

  “In that case, I better let them know where I am.”

  “Shut up,” I laugh, pushing him away.

  He leaves me with my girls and it’s not long before we find ourselves getting up to mischief, especially when we see Maxen arrive with a girl on his arm. I expect Brooke to break down and want to leave, but instead, she surprises the shit out of me and we put a plan in place.

  “Alright, ladies,” she says putting her hand in the center of our circle. “You all know your jobs?”

  “Got it,” I say, putting my hand in the center, on top of hers.

  The girls do the same and on three, we break.

  I laugh like a hyena as I duck down and dart out of the middle of the dancers. I run around the tables of food and drinks, knowing there’ll be a box or bucket hiding around here somewhere. I spy Brooke out the corner of my eye and burst out laughing.

  Nate catches my eye next and with one look from him he knows we’re up to something, but I’m too excited to stop. I throw every ounce of my concentration back into searching for my boxes and find two little tubs filled with ice that aren’t actually being used.

  Perfect. My grin rips across my face so big that it’s nearly to the point of pain.

  I grab the two tubs and go to tip the ice out when I think better of it. I’ll definitely keep the ice. I hurry down to the water’s edge and go to start filling the bucket with water when Brooke’s laugh cuts me off. “Wait,” she cackles. “I’ve got something better.”

  She produces two big bottles of red soda and I burst out laughing as she cracks them open and starts filling the tubs. I mean, this is going to be incredible.

  A few minutes later, we meet the girls at our rendezvous spot and look over what we’ve all managed to come up with. Elle holds a bag of crusty old leaves and has practically mulched them into tiny little pieces. Courtney managed to find some baby powder, though, I have absolutely no idea how she found that here, and Brylee must have raided an old bird’s nest in the woods as she’s found a whole bunch of dirty feathers. “I hope you’re going to wash your hands after touching that,” I grunt with a grin.

  “Well, duh,” she grunts, rolling her eyes.

  “Right,” Brooke says, too eager for our bullshit banter. “So, this is how it’s going to happen.”

  Precisely three minutes later, we all look over our shoulders and double check that Maxen is still with his date and we make our move.

  We split up so he doesn’t see us coming and I walk right by Nate and Jesse who look at me with deep curiosity, but I don’t dare stop. Brooke needs this as bad as I want to be a part of it.

  We surround Max at all angles and the idiot doesn’t even look up to notice us here. “NOW,” Brooke yells.

  In the blink of an eye, Brooke and I throw our icy red soda all over Maxen from eith
er side, making sure to drench him from head to toe. He gasps out in shock as the girl shrieks. Before Max has a second to even figure out what the hell is going on, Elle and Brylee come in with the leaves and feathers which magically stick to the red soda that’s busy soaking into his white shirt.

  As soon as they step out of the way, Courtney faces him front on. “This is for cheating on my girl,” she scolds him before raising the baby powder and letting him have it.

  I fall to my knees in uncontrollable laughter with Brooke by my side. My stomach hurts and protests but I can’t stop. “He,” gasp, “looks like,” gasp, “a red snowman,” Brooke howls.

  “I know,” I laugh, wrapping my arms around my stomach.

  I can’t stop watching him. The guy is furious but he doesn’t dare come and face the wrath of Brooke, especially with the eye of every person at this party on him. Instead, he pulls his keys, wallet, and phone out of his pocket, slams them into Tyson’s chest and rips his shirt off over his head before stalking towards the water and washing off the sticky red and white mess.

  “How humiliating,” I grunt beside Brooke. “Washing off in front of everyone here.”

  “Yep,” Brooke agrees, but when I look across at her, the fun has gone from her eyes and I realize that she hates herself for hurting him like this. After all, she’s still in love with the guy, but deep down, she knows she needed it to help her move on.

  “Well, that was interesting,” a familiar voice says from behind us.

  I turn around to find Nate looking down at me. He holds a hand out and helps both me and Brooke to our feet before dusting off the dirt stuck to my ass, though, I’m pretty sure he was just trying to cop a feel. “He deserved it,” I defend.

  Nate nods and turns his attention on Brooke, but something tells me he’s not so thrilled about the whole thing. “Is it all out of your system now?”

  A small smile plays on her lips. “Yeah, I think so,” she tells me, straightening up as she recognizes the challenge from Nate. “It felt pretty damn good.”

  “Good,” he says. “I’ll let you have that. He wronged you. But pull shit like that on one of my guys in front of a crowd like this, and you’ll be dealing with me,” he says, reminding me of the old Nate.

  I narrow my eyes on him, but he refuses to look at me.

  How dare he? I mean, yes, he is Nate Ryder, the school bad boy who has built a whole reputation on the fact that if he or his boys are messed with, they’ll mess with you right back, and we just challenged that. But this is Brooke. This is me. What’s he going to do? Set her car on fire?

  “Back off,” I tell him, stealing his attention before Brooke decides to say anything that will ignite a fire.

  Nate slowly turns towards me and I see the hesitation behind his eyes. He doesn’t want to put me in my place, but with all these people watching, he’ll do it. “Don’t,” he warns me, quietly.

  I raise my chin. Right now, I don’t care that he’s the guy I’m madly in love with. I don’t care that he’s my rock. Right now, he’s the douchebag that just threatened my best friend. “Don’t what, Nate?”

  “Trouble in paradise?” shrill laughter is heard from the people surrounding us. I recognize the voice as Phoenix Reilly’s and watch as Nate’s jaw clenches, but I don’t dare give her the attention she’s looking for.

  This is not a good position to be in. We need to deal with this without the eyes of the whole senior year on us. “What are you doing?” he demands quietly.

  I narrow my eyes. There are so many things I want to say right now, but nothing that needs to be said with the eyes of the world on us, besides, with Nate’s need to be on top and my need to never have him treat me like the bully he used to, we’ll never get anywhere. So, I turn and stalk away, knowing without a doubt, he’ll follow right behind me.

  Chapter 9

  I storm into the boat shed at Broken Hill Lake and look at the couple about to get naked against the wall. They gasp at my sudden appearance but look on in fear as Nate storms in behind me. “Get out,” he roars.

  They blanch and hurriedly collect their things and straighten their clothes before high-tailing it out of there.

  Nate slams the door behind them and turns his fury on me. “What the hell was that?” he demands.

  “Are you kidding me right now?” I shriek. “What about you? Why the hell did you do that?”

  He shakes his head and looks at me as though I’m some sort of stranger, one who doesn’t know the rules around here. “You guys fucked with Max in front of hundreds of people. What did you expect me to do?”

  “He cheated on Brooke,” I yell as obviously he’s forgotten about all that. “He made her fall in love with him and then he crushed her.”

  “I know,” he yells right back at me. “I told you, I dealt with it already. You should have left it alone.”

  “He showed up with another girl,” I say outraged.

  “So?” he grunts. “She ended it. What’s he supposed to do? Pine over her for the rest of his life?”

  “No,” I growl. “It’s called having common courtesy, which clearly none of you assholes are capable of.”

  “Don’t start that shit,” he tells me. “If you weren’t so drunk maybe you would have realized it was a stupid idea.”

  “I’m not fucking drunk,” I seethe. “I had one drink.”

  “So, why the hell did you do it? You know how things are. I couldn’t just stand back and let him get humiliated like that.”

  “Brooke needed to deal with it herself. She’ll never be able to move on if she didn’t stick it to him.”

  “And you thought doing it in front of the whole fucking party was the right way to go?” he questions, shaking his head. “Surely, you couldn’t have thought there’d be no consequences for that?”

  “Are you kidding me?” I ask, wide-eyed.

  “He’s my boy. Did you forget that?” he says. “Fuck, I would have thought with all the bullshit going on with Jackson, you’d understand that. Nobody messes with my boys and gets away with it.”

  “Even me?”

  “Just because we're together, doesn’t mean things change.”

  Well, that fucking stung. I flinch back from him as tears of anger begin to well in my eyes. “You’re messed up,” I tell him. “Why are you so intent on being perceived as an asshole? That’s not who you are.”

  He turns away, refusing to answer the question as he looks out the window at the party which is still going strong. “Just, back down, ok?”

  I walk up to him with my head held high. “No,” I tell him. “For five years, you made my life a living hell. I hated coming to school, I hated going to parties, all because Nate Ryder was going to be there, and yes, I know now why you did it but your actions forced me to grow a backbone.”

  “Babe,” he sighs, reaching for me.

  “No,” I demand, moving away from his touch. “I promised myself that I’ll never let you treat me that way again. So, when you try, which I know you will, I’m always going to fight back. Every single time.”

  He grabs me and pulls me into him. “Tora, I fucking love you,” he tells me. “That shit is in the past. I’d never go after you the way I used to.”

  I lean my head against his chest, needing his touch even though I desperately want to hate him right now. “But you’d still hurt me just to prove a point to the rest of the world.”

  “Babe,” he says, rubbing his hands up and down my arms. “No,” he finally says. “I wouldn’t, but Brooke isn’t you.”

  “She’s my best friend,” I remind him. “I’m always going to stick up for her, the same way you would for Max.”

  “But-”

  “No,” I cut him off. “She was hurting. She said herself that she was done. Why can’t you just leave it?”

  “I did,” he says. “I told her she could have that.”

  “But you should have stopped at that. Instead, you tried to intimidate her with a warning knowing she’ll never back down to yo
u,” I say. “What if that was us, Nate? What if it was me one of the boys were trying to intimidate like that?”

  “They wouldn’t,” he says with his eyes hardening.

  “They would.”

  He lets out a sigh. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to just… leave it. She’s not going to go after him again.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine,” he groans. “But if she makes a scene, I won’t be holding back.”

  “You know it would be an all out war, right? Brooke isn’t the kind to go down easy.”

  “Yeah,” he says, pressing his lips into a straight line. “I never thought she would.”

  I let out a breath and wrap my arms around him before sliding my hands under his shirt to feel his warm skin against mine. “I hate this,” I tell him.

  “I know,” he says, reaching down and lifting me. I wrap my legs around his waist as he sits down on a bench with me firmly in his arms. I sink into him and let this moment wrap around me. He kisses the soft skin of my neck before resting his head on my shoulder. “I’d never let the boys hurt you,” he tells me. “I didn’t mean to remind you of the way things used to be.”

  “It was five years of torture,” I remind him. “Just seeing you glaring at someone reminds me. It’s not something I can just forget about.”

  “I’ll never forgive myself for all that,” he tells me. “It makes me sick that I treated you so bad.”

  “I know,” I tell him as I untangle my hands from under his shirt and pull back to look at him. “It’s all in the past now,” I say, leaning in and pressing my lips against his. “Just don’t ever cheat on me. You won’t be able to handle the hell I bring down on you.”

  “Really, now?” he says, kissing me again. “And what exactly do you plan on doing?”

  “Oh, I’m going to let the whole world know that you’re not the hardass you pretend to be. I’m going to tell them that you prefer strawberry milkshakes over chocolate ones, that you sing in the shower when you think I can’t hear, and that under all the bullshit, you’re actually the sweetest guy I’ve ever met.”