I stopped behind her, just out of his view unless he moved to this side of
the locker room. I knew she knew I was there. It was in the way her body tensed, her hands balling to small fists at her sides.
"It does fucking matter." Lucas slammed his locker, and everything inside of me went on alert. If I didn’t fear her becoming even angrier with me, I would have stepped out then and let him know exactly who the fuck she was with. "You know how pissed Dad is already. The last thing he needs is to find out you’re in the boys’ locker room with anyone. You already look like a whore."
Every muscle in my body bunched together, and I couldn’t take another second of listening to him talk to her like that. It didn’t matter that she didn’t want him to know that it was me in here with her, that I had just done things to her body that neither he nor their father would approve of.
But her next words stopped me in my tracks.
"I’m not too sure that he should be worried about me at all after what I have heard about you."
My thundering pulse turned painful as if my heart might pump straight from my chest. Was she really going to confront him about Frankie with me right here?
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"This isn’t the right place to have this discussion." Her eyes glanced in my direction, but she didn’t meet my eyes. But every part of me wanted to hear it. I wanted to know whether Lucas would lie about what he had done or if he was brazen enough to admit it.
Did he and his friends laugh about what they had done and how they had gotten away with it?
"No. Let’s have it." Lucas’s voice sounded closer and filled with rage.
"Tell me exactly what you’ve heard about me, Josie."
"Fine." She lifted her chin, but I could see the slight shake of her hands.
"Is it true about what you did to Frankie?"
"Which part?" Lucas laughed. "The part that your little boyfriend believes or the truth?"
"Beck isn’t my boyfriend." I hated how hard her voice got as she made sure he knew I wasn’t hers and she sure as hell wasn’t mine. It shouldn’t have bothered me like it did. I knew where the two of us stood, but I couldn’t stand the thought of him thinking she wasn’t mine. "What’s the truth then, Lucas?
Because you and Dad have told me nothing."
"The truth is." His locker slammed shut, and she jolted the tiniest bit at
the sound. "Frankie Clermont has wanted me for years now. Everyone knows it."
I couldn’t control myself as my fists tightened and my chest heaved. I was going to kill him. I was going to bury him for everything he did and for everything he said.
"So, what?" Josie shifted on her feet. "She had a crush on you, so you thought you could do whatever you wanted?"
"I didn’t do what I wanted. We did what she wanted."
"What?"
"Frankie begged me to touch her. She begged me for what I gave her." I slammed my eyes shut and prayed that I didn’t lose my shit. I wanted nothing more than to move Josie out of my way and slam his head into those lockers.
My body vibrated with that need.
"From what I hear, she was drunk. I heard she couldn’t even keep her eyes open when you were touching her."
"You do realize you’re a Vos, right?" Lucas was over being nice. His voice was laced with venom, and I knew that I wouldn’t let this conversation go on much longer. Josie had to live in the same house with him, she was forced to be his family, but I refused to allow this when I could prevent it.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"All you do is believe what the fuck he says. You’ve already made up your mind about what happened before you even asked me."
"Beck isn’t the one who told me." Her spine straightened, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe past the anger that radiated through me. "Just be honest for once."
"Like you were with Dad?"
I knew how much Lucas looked up to Joseph Vos, but hearing the way he called him dad in front of Josie was almost shocking. There was an air to his voice that felt a lot like he was claiming him as his own. As if Josie had no right to the name.
"Do you know what that was like for him to hear you say that you wanted what Beck did to you? That you made a decision to let Beck touch you that way after Dad strictly forbid you to even be around him?"
I was shocked by his words. Not the part where her dad forbid it, that I expected, but to hear she admitted to wanting me. She admitting that what happened between us had been as much her fault as it was mine.
And I guess it was.
At least until I took that choice away from her and recorded something that had been special to her. It had been to me too, but I had been too foolish to see it. I had been too foolish to let it be perfect exactly the way it was.
"I don’t care what it was like for him." She took a step forward, and everything inside of me begged for me to reach out and stop her. I wanted to pull her back to me and never let her out of my sight. "It was the truth. Beck may have been a complete asshole for posting that video. For making me think we were ever anything more than what we were, but he didn’t force me."
"So, what?" Lucas’s low growl vibrated off the lockers. "You think he’s better than me? He posted a video that made you look like nothing but a whore and you think he’s better than me?"
Josie opened her mouth to answer, but I couldn’t take another second of it. I couldn’t listen to him talking to her like she didn’t even matter. Like her feelings were inconsequential.
I stepped around the corner and not even the shock of his face could make me smile. I was ready to murder him. Every part of me burning with my need to make him pay not only for what he did to Frankie but Josie too.
"What the fuck are you doing in here?" His gaze snapped from me back to Josie, and his eyes darkened so quickly that I knew he truly hadn’t thought that she’d been in here with anyone before.
He had believed her when she said she was just looking for him.
He would die to know what I had just been doing to her, that I could still taste her on my tongue.
"I’m getting dressed." I shrugged my shoulders like it was no big deal, but I couldn’t help noticing the way Josie winced at my words.
She may have been as desperate for me as I was for her, but she was still ashamed of what we had just done. She was ashamed and possibly even angry with herself, and I knew that I deserved that.
I deserved it, but it still hurt. It was irrational, but nothing felt rational when I was around her.
Nothing I did or said made any damn sense.
"Why are you here?"
He nodded toward his stepsister before turning his stern eyes back to me.
"Can we have some privacy?"
"No." I stepped closer to her until I could feel the heat of her body against mine, and his eyes narrowed at the movement. He didn’t want me anywhere
near her, and my feelings toward him were the same.
"Get the fuck away from her." His chest puffed out and there was a dare in his eyes. If he wanted to do this here and now, then we could. I didn’t fear him or the consequences I would face because of him.
The only thing that mattered to me was making sure that Frankie wasn’t hurt by those ramifications and now Josie. I couldn’t stand the thought of something happening to either of them because of a hotheaded decision that I made. I had already been there once, and I knew what that had cost my family. What it had cost Frankie.
"After what you did." Lucas ran his fingers through his hair. "You’re really going to sit here and act like you give a shit about her. We both know you were just using her to get back at me."