“Tora?” a voice calls out into the night. I stand up a little straighter as I peer into the darkness. It’s definitely not Jesse. “Tora?” the voice calls again.
Crap. It’s Jackson.
“Tora, where the fuck are ya, babe?”
He’s either heard about what just happened in there or he’s legitimately looking for me. Maybe he’s concerned as he hasn’t seen me in a while, or maybe this whole friendship thing is bullshit and this is some ploy to get under Nate’s skin. Whatever it is, I don’t care to figure it out tonight. I just want to get under my blanket and pull out my Kindle, like I was supposed to be doing all along.
At least this has solved my earlier issue. I step back out of the light from the lamppost and hide amongst some bushes while I wait. My phone buzzes in my hand and I look down, hoping it’s Jesse telling me he’s nearly here, but disappointment floods me the second I unlock the screen.
Jackson – Where did you go? Can’t find you anywhere.
I let out a sigh and consider not replying but I’m so damn pissed off that I can’t help it.
Tora – Home. Your friends are douchebags. Next time hire a fucking stripper. I didn’t come so I could be their fucking entertainment so if any of those dickheads try to touch me again, I’ll be handling it my way.
I hit send and don’t need to bother explaining that ‘my way’ means releasing my boys on their asses.
Jackson – Shit. I didn’t fucking know. Where are you? I’ll come find you.
Tora – Don’t bother. I’m with Jess.
That should do the trick. I can deal with his questions on Monday, for now, all I want is to go home and forget I did yet another stupid thing.
As I lock my phone, a familiar Range Rover pulls up and I let out a relieved sigh. I’ve never been so happy to meet my doom in the form of a Jesse lecture. I hurry around the car and see there’s no one in the passenger seat and another wave a relief slams into me. At least there’ll be no one here to witness my ass getting handed to me.
I pull open the door and a cloud of cigarette smoke hits me in the face as I look up into the car to face Jesse’s wrath.
My heart sinks. It’s not Jess.
That back-stabbing swamp turd. He sold me out.
Nate stares straight ahead, refusing to look at me and the anger on his face is as clear as day. “Get in,” he demands, when I hesitate a second too long.
Shit. I swallow my pride and pull myself up into the Range Rover and quietly get myself comfortable. I don’t know how this is going to go. Especially when my phone lights up with an incoming call and Jackson’s name scrawled across the screen.
Fuck my life. This couldn’t possibly get worse.
I ignore the call and jam my phone back down my bra as I wait for him to rip me a new asshole, only it never comes. He silently pulls out into the street and floors it until we’re back on our side of town.
Nate finishes off his cigarette and instantly pulls out another, making me wonder how Jesse would feel about him smoking in his car. But more importantly, it makes me cringe and l have no doubt in my mind that’s why he’s doing it.
He pulls up at my home twenty minutes later and brings the car to a stop. I reach for the door handle when his voice cuts through the silence. “We’re going to talk about this.”
Wanting nothing more than to stick it to him, I pull confidence out of my ass and practically puff out my chest. I open the door and get out. “No,” I tell him defiantly as I turn to face him. “We’re not.”
I close the door and before he can curse me out, I head up the stairs to my front door and don’t look back despite my heart and soul screaming at me to throw myself into his arms.
Chapter 21
I sit in the cafeteria on Wednesday afternoon, trying to enjoy my lunch, but the way Puck and Courtney are playing tonsil hockey has me wanting to throat punch them. I mean, don’t they know me and Brooke are suffering from broken hearts? There’s nothing I want to see less than that shit.
I look over at Brooke and scrunch up my face. She does the same but adds a roll of her eyes, somehow managing to make me feel better.
Brylee flicks a French fry at them. “Would you two knock it off?” she grunts. “I can hear the sound of your saliva moshing together and it’s making me want to barf.”
Courtney pulls back from Puck and narrows her eyes on her best friend before looking at the rest of us. “You bitches are so jealous.”
“Jealous of what?” Brooke snaps back. “Every girl in school has already been with him.”
Puck holds his hands up in defense. “Hey, what did I do?”
Courtney ignores him as she glares across the table at Brooke. “You’d know,” she snaps. “You’re the biggest whore around.”
“Guys,” Elle cuts in.
Brooke flies to her feet. “Says you? You’re the one with your tongue down your boyfriend's throat.”
Now Court gets to her feet as I watch with my mouth hanging open. “Well, at least my boyfriend doesn’t cheat on me.” With that, she grabs her phone off the table and storms out of the cafeteria.
“Shit,” Puck grunts as he narrows his eyes on Brooke. “Did you really have to do that?”
“I didn’t do anything,” she yells at him. “Brylee was the one who asked you to stop and that cow was the one who claimed we were all jealous. So, why don’t you go and run after your precious little girl and remind her that all this bullshit is on her.”
Brylee lets out a heavy sigh as Puck shakes his head and gets up from the table, hopefully, to go and do what Brooke has just said. “What the hell was that?” Brylee questions. “Are you feeling ok?”
“No,” Brooke grunts. “If they want to make babies then they should go and do it privately.”
Brylee's lips pull into a tight line and it’s clear as day she’s pissed with Brooke, but then, Brooke is right, Brylee and Court are the ones who started this shit. Brooke just finished it, though, Court took it way too far.
Brylee gets up and hauls ass after Puck and Courtney, leaving me and Elle to turn on Brooke. “Alright, now that they’re gone,” I say. “You want to tell me what the hell that was about?”
“You know what that was about,” she tells me. “Courtney’s big mouth.”
“Brooke,” I scold. “Spill it.”
She lets out a frustrated groan and leans forward onto her elbow. “Maxen asked out that whore, Holly, today.”
“Fuck,” I curse before letting out a heavy breath. “You ok?”
She silently shakes her head as Elle leans in closer. “OK, here’s the plan. I’ll hold him down while you two beat the shit out of him.”
Brooke lets out a big booming laugh and just like that, I know she’s feeling a shitload better, even though I know she’s filled with hurt and betrayal inside. “Besides,” I tell her. “Holly is a bitch ass skank. She went down on a linebacker last week. It’s only a matter of time before they cheat on each other. We can make it a game,” I say as the excitement overtakes me. “NO. A bet.”
Brooke grins. “You’re on. Twenty says she tries to fuck Tyson by the end of the week.”
I reach out and shake her hand. “Twenty says she does ‘an Elle’ and tries to do them at the same time.”
“Hey,” Elle demands, pretending to look offended.
“You going to deny it?” I tease.
She rolls her eyes and quickly glances around. “Don’t knock it till you tried it.”
“Ewwww,” I groan as Brooke raises a curious eyebrow. “You two are such skanks.”
“Don’t give me that innocent bullshit,” Elle says as I watch Jesse across the cafeteria storming his way through the door with a desperate urgency that has me straightening in my seat. “You were with Nate Fucking Ryder for months. You can’t tell me that a guy like that didn’t want to get a bit… nasty in the bedroom.”
My face flushes but I can’t take my eyes off Jess. Especially as he drops down beside Nate and starts hauling something o
ut of his bag. “I am so not talking about this with you guys.”
Brooke gasps as her eyes widen. “Tell me,” she begs. “What did you do?”
Nate’s eyes flick up to mine for the quickest moment, but the second he sees me already looking, he turns straight back to Jess, telling me this is something important, and there’s only one thing that could be so important to have Jesse storming in here, desperate to show Nate whatever he’s got hiding in his bag. The fire.
I push up to my feet as I grin down at Brooke and Elle. “You whores can get lost. I’m not spilling anything.”
They call after me to get my ass back there, but I’m on a mission. I need to know what he’s got in his bag. I practically barge people out of my way as I watch Nate and Jesse focused on a whispered conversation. They both get up and head for the door but I’m right behind them, neither of them in the right mind to even notice me here.
I slow and wait until they push out the doors before I call them out. “Hey,” I demand, making them both spin around with wide eyes. I’m sure if this is about the fire, they were going to try their hardest to keep it from me. “What’s going on?”
Jesse blanches as Nate’s eyes take me in. I haven’t spoken to him since Friday night. It’s only been looks from afar and they’re killing me. I haven’t had a chance to call Jesse out for sending his brother either, but when I do, he better watch out. But now is not the time.
“Nothing,” Nate says. “Go back and eat your lunch.”
“I did eat my lunch,” I tell him with narrowed eyes as I turn on Jesse. “What’s in the bag?”
His eyes widen a fraction. He’s not beyond lying but to me, he wouldn’t and besides, I can see right through him. Nate cuts off whatever he was still trying to come up with and softens his eyes, trying to pull one over on me. “Really,” he says softly. “It’s nothing.”
I step into him and he can’t help but lift his hand to my waist. “Nate, are you forgetting that I’m madly in love with you?” I ask, looking up with an impatient raised eyebrow while secretly loving being so close to him, despite how pissed off I am with him. “That means that you can bullshit everyone else except for me.”
“Tora,” he groans. “Please, just stay out of this one.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. It’s about the fire, isn’t it?” He doesn’t say, but it’s clear in his eyes. I turn to Jess. “What’s in the bag?”
Jesse’s eyes flick up to Nate for a brief moment before he drops down and starts pulling something out. “It’s the jacket.”
My eyes widen as he hands it over. “You mean, the one the person used to ‘try’ and put out the fire?”
“The very one,” he confirms.
“How the hell did you get this?” I ask as Nate drops his hand to give me room to hold the jacket and look it over. “It’s a girl’s jacket,” I gasp.
“Yeah,” Jess says, skipping over my question on how he got it in the first place. “That’s what I was just telling Nate.”
“Shit, I could have sworn it was a guy who did it,” I sigh as I look back to Nate. I mean, all this time I’ve been studying every move of all the guys around me. At one stage I would have said it was Jackson, but he’s more of a fist kind of guy. Actually, come to think of it; a fire is more of a girl thing to do. You know, that way she has something doing the dirty work for her. “Apart from me, which girls have you fucked over lately?”
“Me?” he gasps. “What about you?”
“Really?” I grunt. “You think I have crazy psycho bitches trying to burn us alive? Nuh uh, this is on you. You’ve screwed over the wrong girl and now she’s fucking pissed. All I’ve got is girls hating me because they want you.”
“I hate to say it,” Jesse says. “She’s right. You probably have a whole list of bat-shit crazy chicks you don’t even remember screwing.”
“Fuck,” he grunts.
An idea strikes and I thrust the jacket into Nate’s chest. I feel my pockets and realize my phone isn’t here. I must have left it on the table in the cafeteria. “Shit,” I say to both of them. “I need a phone.”
Nate digs into his pocket and hands me his phone with his eyebrows pulled down. I type in his passcode and open his Facebook app to start searching for Sarah McKay’s page. She wants to be a photographer and generally posts photos of the parties she went to and with any luck, she was at that one.
“Who the fuck is Sarah McKay?” Jesse grunts as he looks over my shoulder.
“You’d probably know if your head wasn’t shoved so far up your ass all the time,” I tell him as Nate scoffs his agreement.
I get busy scrolling through the hundreds of pictures she has on here as Nate steps into me, taking advantage of this stolen moment. His hand claims my waist once again and I find myself leaning into him.
“Shit,” I gasp as I come across the photos of the boat shed lit up like the fourth of July. “It’s nice to see she was busy taking photos while we were dying,” I say, trying my hardest to cover my panic with humor, though if I know these boys, I know it didn’t work. But seeing these pictures and remembering what we went through… shit. I can’t even.
Nate grunts low in his throat as he protectively pulls me into his chest. “Keep scrolling,” he tells me, not wanting me to dwell on it, but too late. The image is burned into my mind.
I do as I’m told and keep going. I see photos of me and Brooke facing off against Nate, us girls dousing Maxen in crap, and everyone dancing. On closer inspection, there are shots of Jesse minding his own business, Nate watching me in the distance with nothing but desire in the depths of his dark eyes. There are all the boys, all the girls, and people I’ve never met before in my life.
“Wait,” Jesse calls. “Go back.” I scroll back up and Jesse tells me when to stop. “Look,” he says, leaning over and using his fingers to zoom in. “Is that the right jacket?”
I look up at the jacket in Nate’s hands before looking down at the girl in the picture. It certainly looks similar, but who the hell is it? The picture is kind of blurry zoomed in this much but the way Nate’s fingers are digging into my waist tells me he knows something.
“What is it?” I whisper, looking up at him.
He looks down at me with overwhelming regret and it nearly bowls me over. “It’s Ashley.”
“What?” I grunt in surprise as I reconsider the picture. It couldn’t be. “How can you tell?”
“You don’t want to know,” he warns.
“Nate,” I scold.
“Babe,” he sighs as though he can’t stand the sound of his own voice. “I was screwing her for four months. I know every inch of her fucking body.”
I try to pretend I didn’t hear that. “You’re right,” I murmur. “I didn’t want to hear that.”
Nate drops the jacket from his hands and grabs me. He pulls me in and rests his forehead against mine. “I’m so fucking sorry. This is all my fault,” he murmurs for only us to hear. “You nearly fucking died because of something I did.”
I bring my hands up between us and rest them against his racing heart. “Don’t,” I tell him. “It’s not your fault. It’s hers.”
“I’m going to make this right,” he vows.
I slide my hands from his chest up and around his neck. I hold on for dear life and risk tilting my chin. He doesn’t pull away from me so I brush my lips softly over his. In this moment, I don’t know if it’s me or him who needs the other more, but right now, I’m more than happy to keep pretending that the whole break up bullshit never happened. “No,” I tell him. “Let the police handle it.”
“So her parents can pay someone off and get her a slap on the wrist?” he scoffs in disgust. “I’m sorry, but no. I won’t be able to sleep until this is done.”
I pull back and search his eyes and for the first time in a long time, I don’t like what I see, in fact, it’s downright terrifying. I pull out of his arms and he reluctantly lets me go. I glance over to Jesse before focusing back on Nate. “What are you go
ing to do?”
He shakes his head as he watches me. “I don’t know,” he whispers. “But whatever it is, I won’t stop until it’s right.”
There’s no doubt about it, he blames himself. The torture behind his eyes is enough to see that, which is why I can’t let him do this. He’s going to go too far and it will be something his parents can’t bail him out of. This will destroy him and in doing that, he’ll destroy me. Telling him that though, it’s as pointless as talking to a brick wall. He won’t hear me until he’s had a chance to calm down.
So instead of trying to talk him down, I give him something else to think about. “I want in.”
He pulls back and looks at me as though I’m some kind of stranger. “No. No way in fucking hell. I want you far away from this bullshit. You’re better than this.”
I shake my head and move back into him. “She did this to me too, Nate. It wasn’t just you who nearly lost your life. I deserve this just as much as you do.”
“I won’t let you,” he growls as his hands ball into fists at his side.
I put a hand upon his strong shoulder and stretch up on my tippy toes. I press my lips to his cheek and love that I still have the ability to calm his wild emotions. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I need this.”
With that, I pull away, give Jesse a tight smile, and turn my back.
I walk back into the cafeteria as the sound of Nate’s fists slamming into someone’s locker echoes through the room. I ignore it as I scan the room, searching out the one person who thinks she’s gotten away with murder.
I find her a moment later. Ashley Samuels, sitting amongst her friends laughing and joking without a care in the world. Well, that’s about to change. I don’t know how and I don’t know when, but soon, she will pay for what she did to us and I can guarantee, with Nate involved it will be brutal and unforgiving.
I somehow tear my eyes away, not wanting her to catch me looking. After all, I wouldn’t want to tip her off that we know, otherwise she’ll be expecting it and I can’t have that. I want to blindside her, just like she did to us.
Broken Hill Hurt: The Broken Hill High Series (Book 3) Page 19
