“Before this.”
The way she looks at me gives me hope that even with the stupid and cruel way I behaved towards her, she knows that I care and that I’ll do better.
The rain has turned into a light, chilly drizzle and the dusk has given way to a stormy night, I really want to stay and sleep with her in my arms, if she lets me.
I’m about to ask her that, when we hear a loud knocking at the front door.
“Were you expecting anyone?”
She shakes her head and rushes to fasten her dress and I retrieve and put on my discarded underwear and jeans as she makes her way to the front door.
I really don't like the thought of her being all alone in this big, empty house.
I walk towards her just as she opens the door and launches herself into Knox's arms.
They share a passionate kiss and if I thought that I could win her heart easily, the way he looks at her and the warmth in his voice when they finally break that kiss tells me that whatever she has with Knox is just as real.
I try to swallow the raw jealousy I feel when I see the way his eyes soften when he looks at her and I realise that he really isn't playing games here, he isn't just trying to fuck Aubrey and then move onto his next conquest.
“I looked for you at the end of first period. You weren't at school, you didn't pick up your phone, I was going insane with worry. I almost skipped practice but coach saw me in the parking lot and—”
Her voice quivers a little when she tells him how upset she was.
“You didn't even look at me, Knox. You said that you didn't have time.”
“Pretty girl, I heard that people were starting to say that you were behind the guys’ suspension from the team and I needed to find the others to talk and do some damage control. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound distant, I was only preoccupied that you could get into some serious trouble.”
She nods.
“I know that now.”
Knox places a finger under her chin, bringing her gaze up to his and asks her:
“How could you ever think that I didn't care about you after yesterday?”
“I don't know, Knox. I thought that maybe, once you had what you wanted—”
“Aubrey, if that wasn't clear yesterday, I want you. All of you. It's not just about getting laid.”
“I know now, Knox. I'm sorry. You looked so uninterested this morning, that I thought that maybe I wasn't ... I don't know. I guess I let my insecurities take over. After—”
“After the way I behaved straight after sleeping with you?”
Devon’s voice reaches us from behind Knox.
He and Landon are standing on the threshold and if Devon was expecting the same warm greeting Knox got, he’s sorely disappointed.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Devon? Move over, please. Hey, sweetie.”
She literally shoves Devon aside to go and hug Landon but our former QB1 isn't easily intimidated.
“I’m here to talk to you, Aubrey. There's some things I need to say to you. Can I please come in?”
She turns a hard gaze towards him, she almost doesn't look like herself for a second but I recognise the hurt in her voice and in the rigid posture of her shoulders.
“I thought I was clear that there's nothing left to say between us, Devon.”
“Please, Aubrey. Hear me out. One last time. If after you want nothing to do with me, I swear I'll leave you alone. I’m here to grovel. Please, baby.”
16.
Hostile Truce
Devon
“I’M HERE TO GROVEL. Please, baby.”
“I thought I asked you to stop calling me baby.”
Her voice is still hard but she moves aside to let me and Landon in.
We follow her to the living room and normally I’d appreciate the huge black furniture and the cool edgy objects that decorate the room to give it a rockstar lair kind of vibe.
However I can't help but notice that Teague was standing behind her and that while he's wearing jeans, he’s shirtless.
My eyes skim over Aubrey's dark red dress and I notice that a couple of the buttons that close the whole front of her dress have been fastened in the wrong eyelet, giving her dress a skewed appearance.
I swallow the hard lump that forms in my throat: we obviously walked into something here.
Just the idea of Teague fucking my Aubrey, makes me wanna kick his sorry ass but I remind myself that she isn't ‘my Aubrey’ and that regardless of my stupid behaviour since that night on the beach, after she hears what I’m here to say, she might not want anything to do with me anyway.
I almost chicken out when I see the look in her eyes, the diffidence, the hurt that reflects in her body language as she folds her arms against her chest in a protective stance.
“So, whatever you're here to say, let's get it over and done with, Devon. This has been a hard day and I'm exhausted.”
I bite back what's on the tip of my tongue: that obviously she wasn't too exhausted to hook up with Teague but I know I have no right.
And I know that would be exactly in line with the shit I’m having to apologise for.
“Sure. Can we have some privacy, though?”
Aubrey's expression remains stony when she says that whatever I have to say to her, I can say in front of Knox, Landon, and Teague.
I guess I fucking deserve it and I'm lucky that she's hearing me out in the first place.
And after all, I'm pretty sure that she'd share our conversation with them anyway, so I might as well save her the trouble.
I sigh and I can't help but notice that while the guys sit down on the black leather couches, Aubrey remains standing by the side of one of the couches, with her hand on Knox’s shoulder.
The way he closes his hand around hers in a supportive and protective way feels like a punch in the guts, as jealousy corrodes my insides and I almost bail out from my apology.
But weakness is what got me here and if I want the hope to be the one she turns to for comfort one day, I need to man up and own my stupidity and egoism.
So I begin:
“Can I start with telling you how sorry I am about accusing you of fucking with my drink? I know very well that it isn't like you to do something like that. The reality is that I knew I’d been an asshole to you in so many ways ... I knew deep down that if you wanted to get even, you’d have faced me head on, not drugged me and tried to get me expelled. I’m so sorry I didn't believe you when you said that you had nothing to do with that shit.”
Aubrey surprises me by shaking her head.
“I don't know, Devon. Out of all the things you should be sorry about, maybe that's the one I find easier to understand. I did have something to do with what happened, in the way that I handed you the fucked up drinks. So I understand why you believed that I was involved. The fact that you didn't believe me when I told you that I didn't fuck up your drink is what hurt me the most. And also the way you treated me.”
I nod.
“You're right. I was so mad and I know I sound like a total shitbag but I got madder because I knew that I fucking deserved it after how I acted towards you.”
She meets my gaze head on.
“You should've believed me when I told you that I had nothing to do with it. We could've worked together to figure out what happened. There's a number of people that had access to those drinks, even days before the game. But I swear that I just handed them to you guys, I had no idea that something was wrong with those drinks.”
I agree.
“I know, baby.”
She shoots me a pissed off look: she has asked me countless time not to call her ‘baby’.
“The reality is that I knew that I was such an asshole to you since that last night in Hilton Head that a big part of me believed, and still believes that I deserved it. So in my fucking twisted mind, it made sense if you had tried to get even that way.”
She considers my warped logic but she retorts that even admitting that she’d stoop
that low to drug my drink, she’d never have gotten other people caught up in it.
“And by the way Devon, you believing that I’d hurt you and the others to get to you and the way you basically bullied me after, telling everyone that I was a shitty fuck—”
Her voice breaks for a moment but she continues.
“That isn't even what hurt me the most. I can understand how scared and angry you must've felt. You too, Teague. What I don't understand and can't forgive, is how you ghosted me the minute I left South Carolina. And how you pretended that you didn't even know me when we saw each other again at school. If South Carolina meant nothing to you and you didn't want a relationship, you could've just said so. We could've stayed friends. Being ignored like that hurt because I really cared about you.”
The way she says ‘cared’ using the past tense, makes me panic but what's the fucking point?
She'll want nothing to do with me once she knows where I come from.
“You're completely right, bab—”
I correct myself.
“Aubrey. You're right and I acted that way first because I knew how much I screwed up that last night on the beach. How ‘I was a lousy fuck’. I felt ashamed and I was convinced that you wouldn't wanna repeat the experience anyway. And then the shit really hit the fan at home a couple of days later and—”
She snickers.
“Oh, right! The famous mystery reason why I shouldn't tell anyone how we met? The very convenient reason you refuse to talk about?”
I don't blame her for sounding sceptical, so I tell her everything.
How I needed to work to help my mom keep a roof over our heads, how when I got back home, I found a subpoena to give a sample for a DNA test because my biological father had countersued Mom to have his own experts prove my paternity. How I was the product of a sordid affair and how my mom let Caroline, my dad's wife, buy her silence for eighteen years.
How my dad had no idea that I existed until he was sued for child support when Mom got really out of money and thought I was her way to a quick payday.
“How could I have told you all this, Aubrey? Not only did I grow up on the wrong side of the tracks but my mom is a conniving gold digger who's still using me to milk my father for money. It got so bad that he just filed for a restraining order against her. How could I even entertain the notion of a relationship with you, when I don't know if my father will get fed up with my mom’s schemes and throw me out, back to downtown LA where I belong? I won't have access to my trust fund until I’m twenty one, so if he kicks me out, I’ll be back working in an auto shop as a mechanic. With the difference that I couldn't live with my mom again, so I’d have nowhere to go. This is why I freaked out so much, Aubrey. Getting into college on a football scholarship is the only way to stand on my own two feet, and whoever drugged my drink, put that in serious jeopardy. If you can't forgive me, I understand. And I also understand if you think that I’m not even worthy of the scum under your shoe. The only thing I blame you for? You should've told me that night on the beach that it was your first time. By not telling me, you gave me something else to feel sorry about. If I’d known, I would've... I would've acted differently. Not that it justifies what a selfish prick I was that night but—”
Aubrey
DEVON LOOKS AT ME WITH so many emotions in his green eyes: there's definitely contrition, fear, anger, resignation, hope and something else.
Something warmer that I haven’t seen in his gaze since South Carolina.
But I don't wanna fall for the false promises that gaze carries, I’ve done it before and I gave myself to him and the only thing he did was to ghost me and treat me like the enemy.
He broke my heart in every possible way he could.
But what I can't ignore is that he is looking at me for the first time.
Really looking at me.
And I know that I could get even by dismissing him the same way he's been dismissing me and my feelings.
I could tell him that it's too late, like I think he expects.
But aside from my stubborn heart that still wants him despite everything that has gone down between us, he wasn't completely wrong.
I should've told him that it was my first time or maybe I should've told him no.
And there's the fact that finally I know why he treated me the way he did.
Again, it's no justification for his behaviour but fuck me if I don't understand the way he feels about his Mom lying to him his whole life.
So I force myself to keep looking into those eyes and to tell him how I feel for the first time.
I don't hold back because if we stand a chance to ever be anything to each other, even just friends, we have to end this vicious cycle of lies and suspicion that we’ve been caught in since that last night on the beach.
I inhale deeply and begin from the easiest thing.
“You're right that I should've told you that night that it was my first time. I guess we both made mistakes. It was our last night together and I was feeling so emotional and sad that whatever we had had to end. I know I sound crazy but the way I felt about you Devon ... that’s why I didn't say no. But you're right. If I told you that it was my first time, you might have handled it differently.”
He shakes his head and I see that barely repressed anger flash in his eyes again.
“Look, I know I made a fool of myself that night. I wanted you so bad that I ruined everything because I was too scared that you’d change your mind. But if I’d known that it was your first time, I would have handled it totally differently.”
And now to the huge, painful elephant in the room.
“You know, now I understand why you ignored me with all the stuff that was going on in your life. But like I was wrong to not tell you the truth that night on the beach, you could've told me what was going on with you, Devon. And I would've given you all the space you needed. I would've also understood if, for you, I was just a summer fling and I’d have just been your friend. You would've had someone to talk to.”
Devon scoffs.
“Really? Didn't you hear me when I told you where I come from? And that up until two months ago, I had nothing to my name but the clothes on my back? Shit, I still do. My trust fund won't be mine for another three years and I’m at the mercy of my father. Granted, none of this is his fault, he didn't know that I existed until my mom sued him for eighteen years of child support. Is this what you’d have taken home to your parents? Mom, Dad, this is Devon. Oh, if his daddy kicks him out of the house because his white trash, lying, scheming Mom can't stay away, he’s an excellent mechanic. I know how any parents of any girl at BHPA would react if I dated their daughter.”
I stand up and get closer to him: the pain in his eyes, the shame about his origins, is something that I understand very well.
“Devon, you should've let me be the one to decide how I felt about you. And trust me, where you come from really doesn't matter to me. Especially because I'm really the last person that could judge you.”
So I tell him how my mom fell pregnant with me after a foolish weekend of passion with a business man she met on a flight she was working on as a flight attendant.
“My dad didn't tell her that he was married and his wife was sick. At first they weren't even together after Dad learned that he got Mom pregnant. Then his wife got worse and somehow my parents got together but not only didn't they take in my half siblings, who were little children at the time, they never told any of us about each other. I learned that I had a brother and a sister only last year, when Dad’s wife died and my father could finally marry my mom. So now we're his legitimate family but until twelve months ago, I was in a very similar situation to your own. Sure, my dad knew about me and raised me but those circumstances could've definitely been different.”
All the boys are looking at me now: my daddy was really good at keeping his huge indiscretion under wraps, and after all, he didn't really have a wife around, so my mom naturally filled that role.
“I
f anything, Devon, I respect that you worked hard to help your mom make ends meet. Hard work is nothing to be ashamed of. Did you think that you were just a little roll in the hay, or sand I should say, with the sexy lifeguard? I don't care about how much money you have or don't have. I can understand why you thought that I fucked with your drink wanting revenge for being dumped. And now it makes sense that you didn't believe me, if you didn't even trust me enough not to judge you for your family history.”
He takes my hand in his and I let him, I’m still hurt and really mad at him but I let his touch comfort me because it's the first time that he touches me without lying to me.
“Aubrey, I know I fucked things up between us in so many ways. You're right, I should have trusted you. I should've trusted you not to judge me and to like me for me. I should've believed you when you said that you didn't do anything to punish me. The reality is that I know that I would've deserved it. That’s why it was so easy to believe. But I care about you, so much. So much that I couldn't stay away from you even when I thought that you hated me. I’ve been stupid, clueless, and a bully. I wish I could go back in time and take it all back but I care about you. Please give me a chance to prove myself. To show you that I'm not the guy I’ve been since that last night in the beach. That I can be worthy of you and make you happy.”
The way he's looking at me is very similar to how he was in Hilton Head.
And that's fucking confusing.
I open my mouth to ask him what he means with ‘make you happy’ when he clarifies it for me.
“I know that you're seeing Knox, Landon, and Teague. Before you make a choice about who you want, please give me a chance to be your boyfriend. See me too like you are them. We agreed to work together to find out what happened with those drinks and to protect you, and give you time to get to know us all so you can choose. Please Aubrey, forgive me and give me a chance to date you too.”
I shake my head, trying to make sense of all of this.
“Devon, I don't know. I care about you, that never went away. This is why your behaviour hurt so much. But I don't know if we can be anything to each other. I don't know if the mistakes we both made are too big to recover the chance of a relationship between us.”
Beverly Hills Prep Academy The Complete Boxset : A Light Bully Romance Page 82