Tapping my fingers on the black tabletop, I said, “What did you need to say, Miles?”
“I just . . .” He adjusted the sleeves of his button-down. My thoughts immediately drifted to Kai and how differently he’d dressed from someone like Miles. Miles was so prep school, with his starched shirt and loose jeans. He wouldn’t be caught dead with any piercings on his body. I used to love that clean-cut look in a guy. Had sought it out, even.
What had changed in a couple weeks’ time?
I’d gotten it on with a bad-boy musician with more holes in his ears than in mine, and he’d made me feel damn good. He’d made me forget. So fucking what?
Kai was somewhere in this casino working one odd job or another, and I forced my gaze back to Miles. I needed to be present no matter how much I was fighting it. The dread of what Miles was about to say was difficult to tamp down. And the longing to meet Kai’s gaze—to have him silently tell me all would be okay—before Miles got on with it was tugging at me.
“Could you listen to me first without interrupting?” Miles said, his voice low, timid even.
I started to protest and tell him where to stick it, but he cut me off by saying, “I’m afraid I won’t be able to get it all out. And I want to. Please.”
I nodded and then waited for him to begin, all the while scanning the bar area, hoping to see a comforting face. But all I saw were drunk guys and hard-up girls. And it occurred to me that on any other night during college, those girls would have been me. Just looking for a good time for a couple of hours.
“Listen, Rachel,” Miles said. My eyes sprang back to his. “What I did to you was wrong. So damn wrong. And I’d never make any excuses about it.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping his apology would finally register. I’d wanted to hear it for so long that now the words just sounded hollow in my ears.
“But I need you to understand what was going on in my head at the time.” He took a quick sip of beer, maybe for courage. “I just . . .”
Just get it out already was the phrase screaming inside my head. So I could get the hell out of there and do whatever I needed to do to lose myself. To forget the ache in my heart.
“Look, I though maybe I could make it up to you somehow. See if we still had what it took . . . to date again. That’s one of the reasons why I kept asking to see you.”
Anger lapped at my neck and heat crawled across my cheeks. “I’m pretty sure you don’t get to make that decision alone, dill weed.”
“I know that, okay?” he said, clenching his teeth. “You promised not to say anything until I was done.”
I gave a curt nod. “Whatever. Go on.”
“See, before the accident, I was already questioning our relationship,” he said, looking away from me. Like a goddamn coward. “Wondering how to break it off.”
I sucked in a deep breath. That certainly was news to me.
I hadn’t been expecting that confession, and it felt like a hard slap across the face.
An old wound being ripped open.
Was his damn promise ring some last-ditch effort to keep me happy? Fucking promise ring. What a crock. A racket. A bucket load of shit. So glad that puppy had been lost after the accident.
I was so stunned I didn’t even know how to arrange my face. So I just sat there, unblinking. Unable to move my lips into any semblance of words.
Chapter Nineteen Kai
I was filling in for a cashier who’d called in sick at the casino that day and only had about an hour left on the clock. My father had looked impressed when I arrived ten minutes early for my shift. I wasn’t about to fuck around where the casino’s money was concerned, even though I was bored stiff and my fingers were numb from counting out change.
Rachel had slept almost until morning in my room the previous night, and when she awoke, we both agreed to be more careful. I had no clue what in the hell we were doing. All I knew was that it felt damn good.
I figured it was nice for her, too. Probably in a different way. This is what she’d been doing with random guys for the past three years. But I knew we shared something more—a history. She loved me like a brother. Okay, maybe not like a brother anymore. Maybe more like a guy friend.
I still thought she was only using me instead of going out to the local bar to work out her issues or whatever the hell it was that she’d been doing with those guys. And I was fine with that. It was going to hurt like a bitch at the end of the summer when all of this ended, but at least I’d have those memories to hold on to.
Her soft and smooth skin. How she watched me when I touched her. The excitement in her eyes when I took control. How she thrilled at taking it back. Watching her shudder when she came. The way her tits were perfectly round and full in my hands.
She’d have no clue I was thinking or feeling any of this, and it would remain that way. She probably figured this was what I did with all the girls I’d been with. Except she’d be so wrong.
I didn’t savor or revere those girls or even remember some of their names. But I didn’t want to give Rachel the impression that I liked being with her too much—she might pull away if she knew. I needed to act natural and confident like I always had around the opposite sex.
So when this super hot chick headed toward me at the cashier’s counter, I gave her a good look up and down. I tried to push the image of Rachel far away. “What can I do for you?”
“Lots of things.” She hesitated a moment while allowing her gaze to roll over me. “But first I need to cash these in.”
She handed me a pile of ten-dollar chips through the Plexiglas window.
“Been playing some roulette?”
“Yep, been playing lots of games.” She was full-on flirting with me now. And I was all for getting my mind off Rachel, until I looked over her shoulder and saw Miles heading straight to the bar. He looked like he was alone, and I wondered what in the fuck he was doing here.
He stopped briefly to talk to Shane, who was on security duty tonight. Shane met my gaze across a row of Lucky Seven slot machines and gave me a firm nod.
“Is everything okay?” the blond in front of me asked.
“Everything’s cool. Sorry about that.” I handed her the cash and turned to break open a new stack of one-dollar bills, essentially giving her the message that our little flirting session was over. She huffed before walking away, and I blew out a breath of my own.
Shane strode toward me and stuck his head in the window before the next customer could step up. “Rachel’s meeting Miles at the bar tonight.”
I clenched a row of hundred-dollar chips as my entire body tensed.
“What the fuck for?”
“Calm down, big brother,” he said quiet enough for only me to hear. “She told Dakota that if she was going to meet him again, it would be in a public place close to where her friends were.”
My shoulders instantly unwound. She wanted the security of her friends in case things went south fast.
I raised an eyebrow. “And how is it that you know this when I live with the girl?”
Shane looked momentarily guilty and then shrugged. “Just ran into Dakota. She told me to look out for Rachel. My shift’s over soon anyway.”
“Yeah, mine, too,” I said, looking at the giant clock behind me. “Meet you in the bar in a few.”
After he moved away, I called up the next customer, an older gentleman with some five-hundred-dollar chips. Man, the amount of money that filtered through this place was mind-boggling. I made sure to concentrate on my task instead of on the douche bag at the bar. I didn’t want to count the bills wrong or make any other stupid mistakes that would get back to my father. He’d hand me my ass on a silver platter.