“After everything you’ve pulled, your promises don’t mean shit anymore. Even if you were telling me the truth, I still wouldn’t believe you.” Tears stream down my cheeks, and I choke out a sob that sears my throat. “I’m done. This is where you finally pay for your choices, and I finally get to make my own.” On one exhaled breath, I cement my decision and crush the only relationship I was certain I’d have through eternity. Headstrong, but fighting collapse, I look around at a room full of people and feel more alone than I have at any point in my life.
“We have a pact! No boys can come between us. You swore it!” Bristol screams at me in one last ditch effort to control me. “You fucking swore it!”
I feel every word as it builds in my chest, exaggerating every thump of my heartbeat. “A boy isn’t coming between us. You are!”
“Brenna, step outside with me.” Uncle Rodney grabs my arm, ushering me toward the door without my consent. I shake his grip loose, pinning him with a look he doesn’t deserve.
“Don’t.” It’s barely a decipherable whisper, and I feel guilt immediately. “You can’t fix this.”
He nods once, eyes glistening with unshed tears, and I gasp on a sob I catch in the side of my clenched fist. He’ll never know the depth to which his tears are gutting me or just how much his support means to me.
Bristol sobs, squatting down to hold her head between both hands, crying her innocence into her chest. Anything I had left dissipates. I’m a shell. I’m a fucking wreck and ten seconds away from losing it when my mom grabs hold of my arm, her grip strong, hurtful.
“Not so fast, Missy.”
My eyes full of tears meet the anger in hers.
“You don’t get to walk out. You both made mistakes—her on the pinky swear, you on the pact. You were children. For God’s sake let it go.”
I yank my arm free, eyes cold, tears temporarily dried while I heave anger and hurt. “Congratulations! You just picked a side.” I brush past her, our shoulders crashing, the heat of my anger showing no boundaries.
Outside I gasp for air, my entire torso heaving with my breaths as I hastily fill and empty my lungs.
“Calm down. Slow breaths.” Uncle Rodney’s soft voice soothes me enough to ward off hyperventilation.
When I can focus, I look up, finding more concern than judgment in his eyes. His authority, tender but commanding, doesn’t lord over me, but I know it expects accountability.
“You have other options, Brenna. Are you sure you want to leave it like this?”
Tears resurface, but they can’t drown out the bitterness in my voice. “She swore an oath, Uncle Rodney. She promised to keep his secret.”
He sighs, tilts his head ever so gently to the sympathetic side of his right shoulder and speaks softly. “So did you, love.”
I swallow hard as realization floods my brain like the mother of all tsunamis. Waves of guilt crash into me along with the debris of my own duplicity. She would never have had the ammo had I not given it to her. Had I kept my promise to Vance not to tell anyone, we wouldn’t be here. Uncle Rodney’s right. The blame lands on me and me alone. Bristol betrayed me, but I betrayed Vance.
“I don’t think she would have done it without something very powerful driving her, and I think you need to know more before you do something you can’t take back.”
Nothing he says matters. There is no justifying what either of us has done. Another swallow knots in my throat and my stomach threatens eruption. I swallow again, and the next time I do, I’m racing to the planter beside Ocean Avenue to relieve my stomach of its contents. I heave, the action doing nothing to stop the reels of footage playing in my mind of all the reasons Bristol would have for betraying me. Without my blind faith in her, I have no insulation from her underhanded tactics. Unwavering confidence in her has protected me for many years, and now that it’s gone, all I see is selfish Bristol concerned with what she might lose.
Uncle Rodney touches my back, offering me the bar towel from his shoulder to wipe my mouth. I look up at him with my eyes full of tears and my heart breaking for all that comes next. “I have to tell him.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
I walk the blocks between The Seam and Vance’s beach house on autopilot. After tripping over nothing twice, ignoring a dog walker who called me a bitch when I didn’t respond to her hello, and pacing in front of Vance’s gate for ten minutes, I finally punch in the code to open it.
Standing on the front step, I stare at the white door and the glass that borders both sides of it. What I wouldn’t give to be in his bed right now debating sleep over sex again.
Taking a deep breath, laden with indecision and guilt, I knock, wait, and then knock again as the door jerks open and Vance is on the other side of the threshold, phone to his ear talking angrily as he waves me in.
“NO!” he barks. “I’m not going to let them say that about her and not defend her.” Vance shoves the door closed, and it slams, rattling a picture hanging on the wall.
“Stop trying to manage me and find out who they have as a source. That’s it. I’ll handle me. You handle that.” Together, we walk up the steps, him slightly ahead and continuing to rant into his phone. He stops at the top of the stairs where living room connects with kitchen, and I stop short of that, facing the glass doors to the deck. “I know what I pay you for. And now I’m paying you to find me a name, not manage my reactions. Chip, I need to know if it was Eric.”
Hearing his brother’s name, my heart drops into my stomach. Any thought of not saying a word about mine and Bristol’s involvement just slipped away, not that it was ever really an option.
“It’s him. He spoke to Candid just like he did the last two times . . . To express how certain I am, Chip, stop all payments going to his rent and therapy.”
I grab Vance’s forearm, shaking my head vehemently, and the look he gives me turns my blood cold.
Staring at me, he speaks into his phone. “I’m gonna have to call you back.”
My body nearly collapses under the weight of my knowledge and what I now have to do to save his brother.
“Brenna?”
I look up to find Vance, head tilted to the side, staring at me through narrowed eyes. His brow, clenched into tight white lines, creases deeper. My stomach rolls with that sick, sinking feeling you get when you know you’ve done something wrong and you must now atone for it.
“It wasn’t Eric,” I say softly, shaking my head a few times for emphasis.
The tilt of Vance’s head deepens. “How would you know?”
I stare straight ahead at him, but I can’t speak. My words are trapped behind my ingrained loyalty to Bristol and the natural instinct to protect her. He is everything I’ve ever wanted, but she is everything I’ve ever needed. He is the balance I’ve longed for, and she is the air I breathe. How am I supposed to choose?
“Brenna?” His tone hovers on the edge of sharp. His eyes plead with me, and then I see the turn. I see the click of the switch when it hits him. I see the pain as it hits his eyes and bleeds his face of color. I see when realization strikes, and he no longer has a buffer. “You?”
My time has run out. I have to decide between my heart and my lungs. Vance or Bristol. One breath. Just one. That’s all it takes to get a single nod out.
“No. Tell me it wasn’t you.”
I’m guilty. Maybe not for Candid, but I’m still guilty. I’m at a pivotal crossroads. I can do what I’ve always done and protect Bristol, taking the blame for it all in hopes that he’ll forgive me, since I know he’ll never forgive her. Tears blanket my cheeks, my heart breaking beneath them. And I realize that more than anything, Vance deserves the truth, and I would never be able to live with the weight of a lie.
“It was Bristol.” It’s the first time I’ve ever actively incriminated her. It’s the first time I haven’t taken the blame for her. My stomach lurches with my betrayal. None of this feels right. Not one damn thing. Not the truth. Not the lie I wish I could give. Not one damn thin
g. “But I’m the one who told her. I didn’t know she’d . . . I didn’t know she’d run to Candid.”
He’s red like Uncle Rodney, a sign I’ve always feared to mean Uncle Rodney was having another heart attack, but on Vance, it’s pure anger, a sign of his blood boiling close to the surface. “How could you not fucking know?” he yells, pacing with no clear destination. “When has Bristol ever done anything that didn’t benefit Bristol? Keeping that secret didn’t fucking benefit her, Brenna. She has school to pay for. What pays more? Secrets or loyalty?”
“I didn’t know. It wasn’t—”
“How much?” he asks, an eerie calm in his delivery.
“How much?” I don’t know what he’s asking me.
Vance’s phone connects with the wall, and I jump, cowering behind my raised shoulders as it shatters into parts and glass. “Yeah, how fucking much was she paid?”
“I—I—nothing, I don’t think. I d-don’t know.”
“Oh, there was payment, Brenna. You’re fucking naive if you think there wasn’t. It all has a price, and school isn’t cheap.” His fingers dig into the back of his neck as he turns away from me, facing the kitchen.
Crying, I try to explain, but how do I explain what I don’t know for sure? I never once considered why she did it, only that she had. “I didn’t—”
He spins, a full-bodied twist driven by his anger. “You fucking did!”
“Vance, I—”
“Save it, Brenna. Save it for someone who gives a shit about your excuses. You knew when you told her that you were divulging something not yours to divulge. You put my family at risk for what? To maintain a bond only one of you fucking cares about? Some stupid fucking pact she only honors when it suits her?”
“Don’t,” I say, willing to take only so much of his angry observations. “That’s not fair.”
“You don’t get to decide what’s fair today.”
My voice raised and fueled a bit by his animosity, I try and reason with him. “I walked in on you with a naked girl in your bed and still let you speak. The least you could do is hear me out.”
“You walked in on a girl. Not me with her. I didn’t do anything wrong. That’s the difference here, Brenna. You may not have gone to Candid with the story, but you’re every bit as responsible as Bristol for them having it.”
“I swear to you, this isn’t like Bristol. I don’t know why—”
“Stop fucking defending her!” he yells, veins popping in his neck like roots beneath a tree. “Don’t betray me twice by trying to justify it.”
“Pl-Please don’t say that. I made a mistake.” Close to sobbing, my chest heaves, sputters, as I strive futilely for a seamless breath. This isn’t how I pictured things going. This isn’t how I worked things out in my head. “Va-ance . . .” I manage his name, but nothing comes after it except my hand that reaches for him. He shirks it, pulling away so callously, I feel his contempt like a cloak of thorns.
“Don’t, Brenna,” he says, eyes cold, my name spoken like a curse on his tongue.
“I—I . . .” I catch a breath, hold it for precious seconds and continue. “I—I didn’t know she’d tell. I trusted her.”
“And I trusted youuuuu!” he yells, extending the last word for emphasis.
“Y-you have to know I love-love you.”
He laughs bitterly, his expression unchanged. “No, Brenna, love doesn’t look like this.” Spinning, he grabs his wallet from the top of the breakfast bar. He opens it, peers inside a pocket, and retrieves something. He turns, jaw set hard, body precise in its movement as he walks toward me. He lifts his hand, index finger pointed at me, and on the tip of it is a diamond ring. I stare at it, blurry-eyed and sobbing. “This is what love looks like.” He flicks it into the air with the upward thrust of his thumb, and the ring flies over my head landing somewhere behind me. His tears fall and he wipes them away angrily, taking with them the last of my composure.
Seeing his pain is the last thing I can take, and the heaves in my chest collapse upon hiccups. I am wrecked, and not for what I’ve lost, but for what I’ve cost him with my betrayal.
“Sad. I would rather it had been my own fucking brother than you. What kind of fucked-up is that?” He walks past me toward the stairs we just came up, a purpose to his step, a stubborn set to his shoulders.
“Are—are you . . .? Please, don’t!” Everything in me feels broken. I don’t know if any of what I wanted to say translated, but he pauses before hitting the top step and I look over my shoulder at him, hopeful that his pause means something good for me. “Please, don’t go.” I hear my mom’s voice in my plea. I hear all the times she ever begged a man to stay with her, and I hear the ghost of myself berating her weakness and judging her choices. It’s now, as I’m about to lose Vance and a piece of me he’ll own forever, that I finally get it. I finally understand her, and while I may have viewed it as weakness before, now I see it as self-preservation.
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t turn to look back at me. He stands there, shoulders rigid, head laid back on them, hands clenched at his sides. “If you’re looking for resolution, Brenna, this is it. Don’t be here when I get back.” His voice cracks on the last word before I collapse over myself and he runs down the stairs.
I hear his exit as something else shatters against the wall. Pieces scatter and then settle with a finality I feel to the core. I’m on my knees, collapsed over my legs, sobbing into the cold tile. It’s here, lying on the floor, that I realize my mistake. I know now what I didn’t calculate correctly. Vance, having been betrayed by his brother before and a girlfriend before that, demands loyalty above all else. He lives in a world where it’s required. The LOYALTY tattoo down his right side isn’t just a word, it’s a reminder. He was never going to forgive me no matter what I said. No matter my pleas, I failed him. For him, forgiveness was never an option.
CHAPTER FORTY
My nerves kick in double-time the second I walk through the glass doors of Jock magazine’s L.A. headquarters with an idea, a prayer, and a hope. I thought calling Camille to apologize and ask for permission to give a more enlightened rundown of her profession was hard. Entering here may be harder. Encased in tinted glass, the lobby is open and inviting. The scent of freshly brewed coffee is the second thing I notice, and off to the left, I see a barista. I am small-town U.S.A. if I think that’s the coolest thing since online pizza orders.
Pausing between the front doors and the sleek, granite desk in front of me, I waver on my decision to move forward. I haven’t committed to anything yet. I can bail and never look back, but if I do, Candid will have the final word on Camille.
Two days ago, Camille’s story headlined Candid magazine, and their depiction of her was harsh, inaccurate, downright cruel, and not at all about the Camille I’ve come to know. I would never want her son to read that bullshit someday and ever question his mother’s character.
I take a deep breath before checking in at the desk, and five minutes later the blonde behind it instructs me to head up to the eleventh floor via the bank of elevators to my left. When the doors on the eleventh-floor slide open, I’m greeted by another woman who leads me to an office down several corridors. I wait there another five minutes, sweaty palms pressed to my thighs, for Katherine Symons, head of Jock magazine’s editorial staff.
“Good morning,” she says, entering the room. Rather than sit in the high-backed chair behind her desk, she parks her ass on the edge of the desk itself. She is in her mid-forties but looks timeless with her red hair in a French twist that ends below the nape of her neck. I’ve heard she’s shrewd and without compromise, so I wonder if I’m about to be eaten for lunch.
“Well, Miss Sloan.” She looks at me, her deep green eyes roaming intimidatingly over my business attire. “I don’t have a lot of time, and you’re low on my priority list. You’re only here because Lena thinks you have something with potential.” She shimmies a little, parking more of her ass on the desk. “I’ve reviewed your pitch on Camille
Hatfield’s profession, and I’ve discussed it with a number of the staff here who, unlike me, don’t think it’s a terrible idea.” She grabs a folder off her desk, opens it and reads from one of the papers inside. “They seem to think you’re more than just a pretty face with an ax to grind.” She lifts her eyes to mine. “That remains to be seen. Furthermore, I don’t necessarily think stripping is a sport. Forgive me for still thinking it’s trashy and just barely on the upside of prostitution. Convince me and we have a deal. Don’t, and Miss Hatfield will have to be content with Candid’s trash piece.”
Unsure how to respond, I shift uncomfortably and wait for her to continue.
“I will commit Nancy to the Hatfield piece, and if I’m not convinced there is more to stripping than a pole and glitter, I’m trashing it. Are we clear?”
I nod silently, knowing Camille’s strict commitment to the gym, her diet, and her dance rehearsals are enough to convince anyone, even Katherine Symons, that Camille is indeed an athlete.
“I can’t proceed without doing my due diligence in vetting this. I’m meeting with both Hatfields shortly. I don’t suppose you’d want to stay for that?”
I shake my head. I’m sure that’s the last thing they’d want, and I don’t think they need any more reminders of my connection to the story. “Only if it’s required.”
Her lips pinch, and she stares at me for a second past comfortable and then shakes her head. “No, it’s not required. How can I reach you? I’m sure there will be some questions, and I don’t want to have to hunt you down.”
I give her my cell number, which she writes on the outside of the file she’s holding.
“What hours can you be reached? Lena said you’re attending school.”
I don’t tell her I’ve taken a month-long leave of absence from school to get my shit together. I also leave out that I’m subsisting on some booked freelance work that’s about to run out, sleeping on Tori’s floor, and doing everything I can just to keep upright. A simple, “I’m flexible,” appeases her perfectly, and I’m free of having to admit I’m a loser.
Rumor Has It (Jock Star Book 1) Page 29