I pointed in the general direction of my car. "I have to get to work. I was just about to head out."
Frankie stepped forward as if she was going to stop me, but Olly caught her hand in his. The touch was almost too intimate for a girl and her brother’s best friend, but I was sure that all three of them had to be more protective of her after what happened with Lucas. I couldn’t imagine that any of them would stand by and watch her get hurt again.
"I’m glad we got a chance to talk." She looked down at her fingers, then back to me.
"Me too." I nodded.
And I was being honest. Regardless of what Beck and Lucas had done, the two of us were nothing more than collateral damage. And I didn’t want her to hate me. If I were her, I would have hated me knowing what my stepbrother had done to her, but I didn’t realize until that moment how badly I didn’t want that from her.
I wasn’t Lucas, I wasn’t my father, and I wanted to be so far detached from them that no one would think twice about bunching me under their name.
My mother was nothing like him, like these people, and even though she had tried to make me think positively about my father until the day she died, his actions spoke so much louder than anything she would have to say about him.
And it mattered that Frankie didn’t think I was like them; it mattered that she knew that I was disgusted by what he had done to her.
It didn’t matter that she had wanted me to have a good relationship with my father. All that mattered was that he had never cared one way or another.
Lucas was my stepbrother, but I would hate him for the rest of my life knowing what he had done. He had irrevocably hurt the girl that stood in front of me, and I would never forgive him for the pain in her eyes. I would never forgive him for the things that haunted her.
And I hope she knew that.
"I’ll see you around?" She sounds so hopeful, and I couldn’t stand the thought of telling her no. I didn’t want to see the disappointment in her eyes.
"Yeah." I nodded and backed away toward my car. I couldn’t stop my gaze from trailing over to Olly who still held her hand. I knew that he would tell Beck that the two of us were talking.
But I didn’t care what he told Beck. Beck wasn’t my concern, and I wasn’t his.
I was nothing to him.
"Just make sure your brother isn’t with you."
She grinned, and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling back at her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BECK
Everything inside me screamed for me to go find her as the last bell of the day rang. I hated the way we left things.
It was a constant circle of how I felt. I felt like I was dying to be around her, but every time I was, we left in a worse place than we started.
I had no intentions of letting things go where they went when she walked into that locker room. I hadn’t even known she would be there, but once she was, I could let her go. I couldn’t stop myself from touching her, from consuming every moment with her I could get.
Because I knew that sooner or later those moments were going to run out.
They should have run out already. If Josie was smart, she would never let a guy like me touch her again, but I didn’t want that. I didn’t want her to wise up when it came to me.
Because I would be doomed.
If she didn’t want me, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
But I knew she did. The proof was in the way she reacted to my touch, the way she begged me even though I knew part of her wanted to push me away.
It was the only thing I had. The way she physically wanted me, and I knew that it made me an even bigger asshole, but I was willing to use it. If it meant that I got more time with her, that I could possibly convince her to forgive me for what I had done, I would exploit that want until she no longer had it.
My dick was hard just thinking about it.
But that wasn’t what I wanted from her. Of course, I wanted her. I wanted
her in every way she would possibly let me have her.
But I wanted more. I wanted her to see that I was capable of more. Of more than being this guy who fucked everything up.
Because that was what I did.
I fucked up everything.
I had fucked up things when it came to Frankie, and I had fucked them up with Josie.
I had been so wrapped up in my rage for Lucas both times that I hadn’t thought of what the consequences would be. I had known, but I hadn’t cared.
Nothing had mattered to me either time as much as making Lucas pay, and I knew how fucked up that was.
I kept telling myself that I needed to quit thinking about her. I needed to stop obsessing and give her space. I would do nothing but continue to push her away otherwise.
"Where are we going?" Carson asked from the back seat as I drummed my fingers against my steering wheel.
"My house. Then to the water." They both knew what that meant. It had been so long since any of us had been out on the water, especially together, and I needed that today. I needed it to clear my head and dampen my want.
Frankie was quieter than normal in the back seat, and every few moments I couldn’t help but look back at her through the rearview mirror. She stared out the window the whole time, and I was dying to know what was in her head.
I wanted to know what she thought about day to day, moment to moment.
I wondered if the memories of Lucas haunted her as they did me. And there was no comparison. What she had gone through was heinous, and the guilt of not being there for her ate me alive.
It kept me up at night as I dreamed about what it had to be like for her.
Did she think that I was going to come to save her? Did she hate me the moment she realized I wasn’t? Did she hate me like I hated myself?
Knowing that she had feelings for Lucas, whether she called it a crush or something more. I didn’t know how far her feelings went, but she had liked Lucas and he took advantage of that fact.
We pulled up to the house, and she climbed out of the back seat without a word. It wasn’t abnormal, but something just felt off today. It felt like she wanted to get as far away from me as she could, and I hated just the thought of that.
Carson and Olly followed me into the house where all three of us quickly changed into a pair of my boardshorts. This used to be one of our things to do. We had survived on surfing and baseball. They had been our only loves before we realized that girls had tits.
And I knew they had to be jonesing for the water as hard as I was. None of us spoke as we grabbed the surfboards from the garage and made our way out to the beach. The sun was strong overhead, and the waves crashed against the shore, teasing me with their beauty.
They were exquisite yet deadly, so unpredictable and so perfectly disguised. It wasn’t until that moment when you picked a wave that you could feel the truth beneath you.
That was the part that I loved and needed so much. My heart raced at the unpredictability, my soul craved it.
Carson was the first one in the water. He paddled out toward the waiting sea, and I knew that he loved this as much as I did. Carson had always needed this rush, the fear of not knowing what was going to happen, it settled him in a way that I wasn’t sure even I felt.
All three of us reached a point in the ocean, a couple of dozen yards from the shore, and we sat up on our boards and stared out at the ocean.
"Frankie seemed off today." This came from Carson, and I knew they had felt that same shift in her that I felt.
"She was talking to Josie when I got to the car," Olly said nonchalantly, and my head spun in his direction so quickly I almost fell from my board.
"What? What the fuck were they talking about?"