I couldn’t be foolish around him anymore.
I couldn’t let him break me again when he had shown me exactly who he was.
I wouldn’t allow myself to do that again. Even though every part of me craved to be back in his touch. When I kissed him the other night, it had felt like I was releasing a tension inside of myself that I couldn’t bear for even one more minute.
His touch was oppressive and freeing at the exact same time. I felt like I was drowning while taking my first real breath since seeing that damn video.
It didn’t make any sense. None of it did, but I couldn’t help it.
I hated him yet I craved him.
I wanted to push him away while simultaneously searching the hallways just to catch a glimpse.
I knew how big of an idiot that made me.
"No. I can’t." Cami’s words were barely a whisper. "And neither can he."
CHAPTER SIX
BECK
The hot water rained over me as I leaned my elbow against the shower wall. Today had been rough already.
All I could think about was Josie, but she had been avoiding me.
Not that I blamed her, but it was weighing down on me in a way that I felt like was going to make me explode.
All I could think about was her hands on me at that damn party. Her lips.
I had never wanted it to end, and I was almost certain that it would never happen again.
So instead of doing every single thing I wanted to do with her, I was dealing with Lucas's shit instead. It was the last thing I wanted to do. I had to watch his arrogance as he walked around school like he was untouchable.
I knew that fucker sent that video out. We both did. He was the only other person to have it, due to my own idiotic fucking plan, and he was more than capable.
He had ruined my sister, and he didn’t give two shits about ruining his own.
It was obvious in the way he looked at me. He had a cocky smile on his face, so full of himself and pride in what he had done. He didn’t care that he played a hand in helping me hurt his sister. All that mattered to him was that he had also hurt me.
Because even though I had been an idiot, it was evident that others had seen what Josie meant to me even when I didn’t. Lucas knew that I was somehow going to destroy myself while trying to destroy him, and he played his hand so well.
I was the idiot who fell for his sister while trying to use her as a pawn, and he saw it for exactly what it was.
Lucas and I hated each other, but we had known each other like brothers at one point in our lives. At least, I thought we did.
If I hadn’t seen that video for myself, I would have never believed it.
He was one of my best friends, and I had trusted him.
I had trusted him, and he took advantage of that fact.
Lucas had a lot of pressure on him. Joseph Vos had treated him like a damn apprentice rather than a son, and I knew that it got to him. He had a real father who had never given a shit about him, and a new one that demanded excellence in everything he did.
But he never complained. Lucas was just as privileged as I was. The only difference between us was that my father saw me for more than what I could do for him, and I was pretty sure that Mr. Vos never had.
And the way he treated Lucas changed him. It hardened him and drove him to want to be better in anything he did. At first, I thought that drive was simple competitiveness, but it wasn’t. That ambition had become cutthroat, and he was becoming exactly who Mr. Vos wanted him to be.
I should’ve known from the beginning that he wasn’t going to care about Josie.
But there was a spark in his eyes when he first saw us together that fueled something inside of me. Even though I knew he was an asshole who cared about nobody, it was the glimpse of territorial protectiveness that made me think otherwise.
Even if Lucas didn’t care for her as he should have, there wasn’t a single part of him that wanted me to have her, and I thought that would be enough.
He may not have cared for my sister. He may have used her and abused her and ruined that fragile thing inside of her that made her smile become different after he was through, but I knew how much he feared Joseph Vos. I saw it in his eyes when Mr. Vos found out about the video of Frankie. Even if he defended Lucas and demanded that wasn’t him in that video, he knew it was. He knew it with the certainty that I felt in my bones.
And if I were Lucas, I would have feared that flash of fury too.
I was one of the only ones left in the locker room. The baseball team had a weight training class just before lunch, and I had decided to let the heat of the shower tamp down my temper rather than heading out to the lunchroom with the rest of them.
The hard use of my muscles during our workout had taken the slightest bit of edge off, but every time I looked up and saw Lucas, it would return even stronger. It was a mad chase that I never seemed to win.
I leaned back, letting the water rain down over my face. Every time I had seen Lucas, it just reminded me of what I had done to Josie. It reminded me that I couldn’t have her.
That I had once had her fully in my grasp, and I had forced her to slip through my fingers. I had forced her to hate me.
The water rolled down my body, and it did nothing to soothe the ache inside of me. Nothing seemed to. Not my hand in the quiet of my bedroom as I imagined what it had been like with her there.
Nothing took the edge off like I needed it to.
"Where’s Lucas?" A female voice carried through the locker room and into the shower, and I quickly turned off the water and grabbed a towel. I was still dripping wet, but I didn’t care.
I wrapped the towel around my waist and pushed the dripping strands of my hair out of my face. As soon as I rounded the corner into the locker room, I saw her. Josie was standing there talking to Benny, our right fielder, and every bit of her body was stiff.
"What are you doing in here?" My voice boomed through the almost empty locker room, and I tried to rein myself in. Seeing her in here while I still felt so out of control did nothing to help me.
It made me feel chaotic and turbulent. Every emotion swirling through me with no restraint.
Her gaze slammed into me, and I could see the same storm of emotions swirling in her eyes. She stalked toward me, and I held my ground. I planted my feet and waited for whatever she was going to do.
I would allow her whatever she needed. I would stand and take it from her. I would take all of that swirling anger and hurt from her if I could.
"Where’s Lucas?" she repeated the question that had distracted me from my shower.
"I have no idea." I held on to the small bit of towel that knotted at my stomach and shrugged. "I was in the showers."
Her gaze roamed down my body slowly and heat tinted her cheeks as her eyes stopped exactly where my hand held the only fabric that was between us. It was as if she had just noticed that I was standing almost completely bare in front of her. Whatever reason she came in here for had her distracted.
But at that moment, her eyes burned with a completely different kind of storm, and she seemed to forget everything and everyone except for me. She swallowed, deep and loudly, and I could feel every bit of my body going rigid.
She could see it too. She bit down on her bottom lip as her eyes trailed back up my body, and I could barely remember what she had asked me by the time her gaze hit mine again.
Josie may have hated me, but she wanted me.
About that, I was absolutely certain, and I wanted her just as badly. Even if I thought it was a horrible idea.
I needed to prove myself to her. I needed to earn her forgiveness before I let anything else happen between us, but I couldn’t seem to remember that when she was looking at me the way she was.