by Anna Paige
“Stop, goddamn it. Both of you,” he barked, scowling. “You are not to blame for anyone else’s actions.” He zeroed in on Charli, giving her a steady, heated look. “Introducing him to Blair does not mean anything he did was your responsibility. You were trying to do something nice and it backfired but not because of anything you did. Stop taking the blame when it all, every fucking bit of it, belongs to him.”
He turned to me and narrowed his eyes. “And don’t you ever, ever fucking say going along with what some guy wanted would have been easier than saying no. You didn’t want to be on a date with him and you told him that in clear and honest terms. His reaction to it is his problem.”
“Oh yeah, it’s his problem. Except when he had a gun and could have shot innocent people.” My gaze flickered to Ash, who was standing stock-still at the end of the table, his eyes closed as if the nature of the conversation was bothering him. Or maybe it was the volume.
My brother rarely raised his voice.
I continued, needing to vent this before I exploded. “Charli could have gotten shot. You could have gotten shot. Anyone else on that beach could have gotten shot. All because I couldn’t stomach a few hours with him.” My stomach clenched so hard I nearly gagged as I added, “Ash nearly did get shot wrestling with Tommy for that gun. How would I have lived with that?”
Ash suddenly bent forward, his jaw set in a hard line, eyes still closed, and slammed his beer onto the table, sending foam spatter all the way to the ceiling. “What if you’d continued the date and he dragged you off somewhere any-fucking-way and fucking raped you? What if everything had been cordial, but he tried to make a move and you said no, so he got pissed, hauled you down the beach or behind those same goddamn dunes, and still raped you or shot you or both?”
His voice wavered and he punched the top of the table, eyes still closed. “I saw his face, Blair. When I stepped between those dunes and saw him there, pinning you to the ground, his hands on you, a fucking gun practically shoved in your ear . . . there’s no way this night was going to end with him shyly trying to kiss you outside your door. He had this in his mind from the beginning. He intended it to happen no matter what. I saw it on his face, the cruelty, the depravity. And I can’t stop fucking seeing it. So, don’t you sit there and talk about how you could have done it differently. Don’t you dare. It. Is. Not. On. You.”
Even Becker was stunned into silence, watching his best friend have a total freak-out moment. My eyes burned as I considered his words, thinking how he must have felt when he saw what was happening to me.
Charli grabbed onto my hand and squeezed, near tears herself.
Ash still hadn’t looked up, but his shoulders were shaking.
After a couple minutes of complete silence, he spoke again, much lower this time. “Your instincts told you to stay away and you listened to them. You ended the date. You did exactly the right thing. That would still be true even if I’d ended tonight with a goddamn bullet in me. So, both of you stop taking the blame for someone else’s twisted, disgusting actions. Please.”
He grabbed his beer and left the dining room, muttering something about needing a shower.
The three of us watched him leave in utter silence.
There were no words.
Ashton
Get your shit together, Ash.
You’re supposed to be holding it together for her. For all of them.
I stood in the shower with my head bowed, the water blisteringly hot as it ran down the back of my neck.
Visions of Tommy with his hands all over her kept playing in my head. Over and over. Her crying, pushing him away, him holding a gun on her as he rutted on top of her like a fucking animal, intent on having what he wanted whether she agreed or not.
My hands curled into fists.
Stop it.
Dear God, make it stop.
Hearing her take the blame, as if she should have just gone along with the date to keep the peace, was more than I could handle. Physical pain, it had caused me actual pain in my chest to hear those words coming out of her mouth.
And I felt like a complete asshole because, despite my assertions to the contrary, a small part of me was angry at Charli for setting her up with Tommy in the first place. To be fair, though, I wasn’t sure if that was because of the events of the night or my own jealousy, which had started long before he showed his true colors.
I knew it wasn’t right to blame her, and I kept telling myself that she meant well, but that protective part of me still had a problem with it.
I’d never in a million years tell her—or anyone else—that, but the thoughts were there, nonetheless.
There was no controlling how I felt. I could only control what I did about those feelings. And for the benefit of everyone involved, I would do exactly nothing. Chances were, it was my own jealousy making me resent her, resent seeing Blair on a date with another man, and that had nothing to do with Charli and everything to do with me.
Of course, no matter whether I blamed her or not, she was blaming herself enough for the both of us.
They both were.
And I hated that. God, how I hated it.
But I couldn’t change it. Couldn’t make them stop feeling the way they felt any more than I could stop feeling the way I felt. They had to work through it. All I could do was support them while they did.
I’d work through my shit later, assuming I didn’t have any more outbursts, of course.
I mentally kicked myself again, thinking how none of them needed to see me that way, how my loss of composure probably only made it worse for them, for Blair. How was she supposed to feel confident that things would be okay if she saw how little confidence I had?
I couldn’t have another slip.
Not until this was over anyway.
I’d have to ignore the awful, hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, the one that reminded me of the free-fall moment on my favorite roller coaster and focus on something else.
Like how great it felt to beat the shit out of that guy.
Yep, the only thing that made me feel even slightly better was replaying the feel of my fist pounding his disgusting face, the sound of his nose breaking under my knuckles, and the way his head had snapped back at that first blow so hard I thought his neck would snap. I kind of wished it had.
No, there was no kind of about it.
I wished I’d broken his fucking neck.
And that was disturbing in and of itself, but I didn’t care.
Better him than Blair or Beck or Charli or any of the other people on that beach.
There was a knock at the door that startled me out of my thoughts.
“Yeah?”
The door cracked open and Beck stuck his head in. “Just me. Charli said she used the last of the towels, so I thought I’d bring you one.”
I watched through the opaque shower door as a blurry arm sat a fuzzy blob of blue fabric on the sink. “Thanks.”
He cleared his throat. “You, um, you good?”
“Yep,” I said a little too quickly.
“You sound like it,” he quipped dryly.
I blew out a breath, leaning back to rinse the last of the shampoo from my hair. “I’m trying to get my shit together so I can be there for the girls. Just need a few more minutes under the spray and I’ll be good as new.”
“It’d be fine if you weren’t, you know,” he offered.
I rubbed both hands over my face, my stubble scraping my palms. “Dude, can we not emote right now? In case you hadn’t realized . . . I’m naked, which takes it to a whole new level of awkward.”
“All right. Just worried about you, is all.”
“Well, don’t be,” I snipped, hating myself for it immediately but needing him to go the fuck away before I lost my shit again.
He blew out an exasperated breath and a moment later the door clicked shut.
Beck, more than anyone, knew I was far from okay. So, he wasn’t really asking that. He was asking me to let
him help and I didn’t know how to do that, not with this.
He probably realized I was taking the whole thing exceptionally hard because it was Blair. I wasn’t sure if he was angry or not now that he knew how I felt about his baby sister.
Guess I’d find out soon enough.
In the next few days, maybe even tomorrow depending on how Blair was holding up.
I had no idea how that conversation would go, and like Becker, I was entirely too wrung out to attempt it just yet.
He knew I loved her, and he didn’t take a swing—yet—so that was better than I expected.
I’d deal with the rest later.
And of course, I still needed to mention it to Blair.
When I got to the living room, I inhaled deeply, and my stomach grumbled long and loud.
“Popcorn?” Blair held up a bowl and smiled at me in a tentative, “are you still mad at me” kind of way. She was sitting on one of the two enormous, plush couches her parents barely used with a thin throw blanket over her lap.
I looked around the room but didn’t see Beck or Charli. “Where is everybody?” I asked as I walked over and flopped onto the cushion next to Blair, immediately reaching into the bowl in her lap.
“Beck jumped in the shower, and Charli is in the kitchen making another bowl of corn. She likes a ton of salt but no butter, so she was forced to make her own.”
“Who the hell eats dry popcorn?” I mused, popping several buttery, perfectly salted pieces into my mouth.
“Crazy people, that’s who.” She nodded back toward the kitchen. “But at least it means I always get my own bowl when we watch movies at home.”
I looked down at the huge fistful I’d just taken and gave her a timid smile. “I can pop my own, if you want—”
I made like I was about to get up, but she grabbed my arm and pulled me back down.
“No, silly. I offered to share with you, remember?” She was being overly sweet, and I realized it was because of my earlier outburst. This was confirmed—though not in the way I suspected—when a moment later she dropped her voice and said, “Besides, you can’t stay mad at someone who shares their popcorn with you, right?”
“Wait, why would you think I was mad at you?” I thought she was being so accommodating because she was embarrassed for me or felt sorry for me after I lost my shit earlier.
She peered down at the bowl in her lap, idly picking up one kernel at a time but not eating them. “You yelled at me. You punched the table and spilled your beer. You even shook and teared up. I only do the shaky, angry-cry thing when I’m in a complete rage.”
“And you think I was that angry . . . at you?”
She shrugged, continuing to pick at the popcorn.
“Blair, I need you to look at me when I say this.”
Her eyes stayed locked on the bowl.
I reached out and took it from her lap, placing it on the coffee table. “Dammit, Blair, look at me. Please.”
She lifted her head, but her eyes were averted.
“Not good enough.” I reached out and cupped her chin with one hand, tilting her head until she finally met my eyes. I blew out a relieved breath and offered her a small smile of encouragement, though I needed her to see I was deadly serious about what I was saying. “I have never been, nor could I ever be, angry with you that way. It wasn’t anger you saw anyway. It was helplessness and fear and frustration. No anger. No rage. Just me losing my shit for a second because the thought of what happened to you—and what could have happened—damn near broke me.”
She searched my face for a second, not shying away from the hand that still cupped her face. “You called me yours.”
I blinked, confused. “I what?”
“When you were fighting with Tommy.” She cringed as she said his name. “He was saying all these awful things . . .”
My jaw cracked, it clenched so hard. “I know what he said, Blair. I followed his voice. That’s how I found you.” I’d never forget it as long as I lived and I didn’t need it repeated, especially in her sweet voice.
“You got him away from me and got the gun away. You were hitting him and hitting him.” Her voice was soft, her eyes far away for a moment before she shook herself and went on. “When you got in his face between punches, you said you’d break his neck and then you said, ‘she’s mine.’”
Fuck.
Did I really say that?
What else did I say?
In my head, I was screaming “I love this girl, goddamn you” over and over again.
Did I say it out loud?
She must have misunderstood the worry on my face because she flinched away, pulling out of my grasp and reaching for her glass on the coffee table beside her. “I know you only said it in the heat of the moment. Because you’re protective like Beck. I never thought you actually meant it or anything.”
There was so much static in my head just then, so much to process, that I didn’t respond to what she’d said, focusing only on the damage my little declaration might have caused. “I really said that? Did I say anything else?”
“No. Just a lot of swearing. Why do you look so pale all of a sudden?”
I tried to think of a way to explain it, but nothing sprang to mind. I didn’t want to make any declarations tonight, especially with Charli and Beck present.
She must have mistaken my hesitation for regret, since she said, “Don’t stress it. Like I said, I know it didn’t . . . that you didn’t mean it.” Her tone was cold, maybe even a little angry, but I knew her better than she knew herself. She wasn’t angry. She was hurt.
“It’s true I don’t remember saying it, but—”
“So, what are we watching? I vote comedy.” Charli strolled in with a huge bowl of popcorn and a tall glass of soda, effectively cutting the conversation short.
Goddammit.
Blair
I stared at the television but didn’t really see it. My mind was a million miles away and split between about a hundred different thoughts at once.
It was making my head hurt.
Charli had taken up a spot in the corner of the adjacent couch, while Beck had perched on the other end, giving her a wide berth. She’d offered him some of her popcorn but after nearly choking on his first dry handful, he waved off her offer.
Ash was still sharing a couch with me, but I’d put a little distance between us, practically climbing on the sofa arm to get away from him until he got the hint and scooted down a ways.
He’d had a frustrated look on his face for the last hour, not bothering to laugh at the appropriate times like the rest of us. He had on a pair of athletic pants and a thin, snug T-shirt that showed off his arms. Currently, he had his right ankle propped on his left knee and was picking at the hem of his pants, looking decidedly stoic.
I knew better.
Every once in a while, he glanced over at me and I could see it on his face that he wanted to say something, but then his gaze would travel to Beck and Charli and he’d go back to pulling threads.
He did it again, this time holding my eye longer than before, and I felt a stirring inside, a flutter behind my ribs that always happened when he stared at me. Over the years he’d done it a lot, but every time I caught him, and those flutters started, he’d ruin it by saying something snarky, like he’d just been waiting for me to notice him so he could pick on me.
Tonight, he didn’t say anything, he just kept giving me those looks.
And I had no idea what to think.
I remembered some of what we said on the beach earlier, though the events that followed had somehow blurred it all in my head. That and the fact I’d been fairly buzzed for the whole conversation.
I was pretty sure he flirted with me. He may have even said some racy things that made me blush, but I was less certain about that part.
Did I accuse him of only wanting me because I moaned his name? Or was it him who said that? I distinctly remembered talking about the moaning, but I couldn’t be sure who said what.
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Stupid beer.
Why’d I have to drink so much?
Why was it that I could barely remember what he said to me on that beach but as soon as everything started with Tommy, I was stone-cold sober and now all that shit was permanently etched into my memory?
Frustrated, I took out my phone and started typing. A minute later, his phone buzzed in his pocket.
I watched as he took it out and glanced at the screen, his eyes darting to me a second later.
Me: What did we talk about on the beach? I can only remember bits and pieces.
He typed for a second then looked back at me as my phone lit up in my hand.
Ash: What do you remember?
I could feel his eyes on me as I typed.
Me: I don’t know. It’s all jumbled up. Just tell me everything we said so I can put it all in order.
His mouth pressed into a thin line as he answered.
Ash: Let’s just talk later. I wasn’t done with what I had to say earlier anyway, but I wasn’t gonna talk in front of Charli. Maybe after everyone else crashes we can discuss things. Old and new.
Me: Tell me one thing at least.
Ash: Depends. What’s the one thing?
Me: I remember talking about a kiss. Did you kiss me?
Ash: No. THAT you would definitely remember, I promise you.
If that wasn’t a typical Ashton Hunter response, I didn’t know what was.
Of course, Charli had said the same thing.
I snorted quietly and glanced up at him. He was staring at my lips with a lopsided smile on his face.
Cocky bastard.
Me: You’re so full of yourself.
Ash: Made you smile, though.
Me: Because your arrogance is laughable.
Ash: And your smile is beautiful.
Me: Ugh. Stop trying to charm me.
Ash: I’m not trying to do anything. I’m just naturally charming. Don’t act like you haven’t noticed.
“What are the two of you grinning about?” Beck asked, eyeing us from across the room.