"Save your breath, Beck." I pressed my hand farther against him and his
cock strained against his pants. I somehow felt powerful at that moment with Beck’s eyes on me, his breathing rushed, his eyes dilated, and his mouth open as if begging me to close the distance between us. "I don’t give a fuck about what you have to say."
I pushed away from him and grabbed my bag from the floor before he could stop me. He didn’t say another word as I walked away from him.
But I could feel his gaze on me the entire time. I had Beck’s attention whether I wanted it or not, and the worst part of all was that I did. His attention felt like power. The power that I needed to get over what had happened.
The power I wanted to make him pay for what he did.
But I knew that power was fleeting. Beck could turn it on me at any moment, and I would crumble under his command. He had more power over me than I cared to admit. Even after everything that had happened.
I was still hanging on to every word, every glance, and I didn’t know how to stop caring. Everything had been fake for him, but it hadn’t been for me.
Now, I just had to remind myself that nothing I felt was real.
I just needed to forget Beck, and not worry about him or what he was thinking or the way he made me feel. I wanted to forget everything.
I pulled out my phone and text Allie back from earlier in the day.
You’re right. Let’s do something tonight.
CHAPTER FOUR
BECK
Ihad no idea what I was doing. Olly and Carson had talked me into this fucking party, but I knew I didn’t want to be here. There is only one place I wanted to be and that was with her.
After the way we left things today, after seeing her on her fucking knees in front of me, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. She was driving me crazy.
I knew that wasn’t fair. I knew that I was the one who put us in this situation. I was the one who made her hate me, but I still hated that we were here.
I hated that I had made us into enemies when I never really hated her at all. I had hated what she represented. I hated her family, and I hated her last name.
I still hated all of those things.
But she wasn’t those things.
She was so different than they were. Not an ounce of her was the same.
And it took me fucking up everything to realize that.
"You just gonna sit there and sulk all night?" Olly plopped down on the couch beside me, and I finally raised my lukewarm beer to my mouth.
"This party fucking sucks." It wasn’t like this party was any different from any of the others, but I wasn’t interested in any of these people anymore. I didn’t give a shit what they were drinking or how their day had been or who was screwing who. None of these people mattered to me outside of Olly and Carson. They were just noise. They were noise that used to fill up my life until I met her.
Olly nudged my shoulder before handing me his phone with a smirk on his face. He also had a beer in his hand, but I knew that he wasn’t drinking it.
Not really. Carson was off taking shots with who the hell only knew, and Olly was far too responsible to let all three of us get fucked up.
He had always been responsible but much more so after what had happened to Frankie.
I think he took as much responsibility as I did for what happened to her.
What Lucas did hit him in a way that was irreparable, and I knew the feeling.
I think that he hated how much he had trusted Lucas before he turned his back on us. On me. Lucas had betrayed our trust in the most extreme way, and Olly would never forget that.
"What the hell is this?" I clicked on his phone and played the Instagram story that he had pulled up. It was one of the guys from Clermont High baseball team, and he was bullshitting around with a bunch of his friends. I had no idea why Olly was showing me this because I didn’t give a shit. I cared even less about them than I did about people at this party.
I went to hand him back his phone just as the next video played, but then it caught my eye. There was Josie in the background laughing with Allie by her side. I had no idea what she was laughing at or who she was with besides Allie, but I could feel my blood heat just knowing that she was there.
I was here and she was there, and I hated that they all had access to her. I hated that they all had seen her in a way that only I should have seen her.
They’d seen how she looked when she writhed underneath me and begged me for more.
It was my fucking fault, every bit of it, but I still hated it. They should have never been able to see her that way. That should have been a privilege for me and me alone.
But I had given them all that privilege. I had taken it from her.
I had exposed her in front of them all, and that small part of herself that she had given to me was completely tainted.
I handed him his phone and stood.
"Where are you going?" He sounded like he had expected me to just sit there after he had shown me that, but there was no way in hell.
I turned back to look at him. "You know exactly where I’m going."
Olly quickly stood and set his beer down on the table. "You don’t even know where that party’s at."
He was right, but I didn’t care. We knew everybody on that damn
baseball team, and I would find out where she was. If she was out and about and no longer hiding in her house then I had to be around her.
I knew that was probably the last thing she wanted. That was probably why she was there instead of here. Not that I would have ever expected her to be here. The only parties I had ever seen her at before, she was completely uncomfortable, and I had only increased that for her.
I knew she didn’t want to be around these people. Most of them were as cruel and selfish as I was.
Not that many of the people at the Clermont High party were any better.
They may not have had as much money and privilege as we had, but they were still a bunch of teenagers who only thought about themselves.
The lines between Prep and High had always been pretty clear, and most of us typically stayed on our side of the line.
But not her.
I should’ve known the moment she got a job at the country club that she was going to be nothing like her brother, but I couldn’t see anything besides how much I hated him.
"Then I’ll find her." I clenched my jaw to stop myself from saying more.
Olly thought me having anything to do with her was a bad idea. After everything I had done, he knew that I was toxic for her.
I knew it too.
I knew what I had done was completely fucked up. It was so similar to what Lucas did to Frankie. I was the same monster, the same kind of trash, but I couldn’t stay away from her.
I knew that probably made me even worse than him because he had never bothered Frankie again after what he had done.
I had made sure of it. I made sure that he never even spoke her name again after I ran my fist through his face over and over. I could still remember it too. The crunch of his nose beneath my fist, the feel of his blood running down my knuckles when they pulled me off.
But more than anything, I remembered the look of fear in his eyes when he saw me coming for him. It was the moment that he knew that I knew what he had done. He couldn’t take it back. He couldn’t talk his way out of it, and I had fed on that one look every day since then.
But I couldn’t just sit here knowing she was there with all of those guys who I knew probably wanted her just as badly as I did. And nothing I did to her had hindered their want in any way. Even though I knew the video was