Fire

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Fire Page 20

by McAdams, Molly


  In the hallway, apparently. And—what the hell? Why am I naked and holding a trash can?

  I used the small trash can to push myself to standing, then staggered down the hall to the room Savannah and I were staying in.

  “Babe,” I murmured when I stumbled in, but she wasn’t there.

  The sheets were messed up, but the bed was empty.

  I wanted that bed. I wanted to fall into it and not move for a long, damn time. But if Savannah was already awake, then I needed to be awake with her.

  I bit back another groan to save my fiercely pounding head and went to my bag. Once I had a pair of boxer briefs and shorts on, I grabbed a shirt and left the way I’d come.

  My steps so unsteady that I wasn’t sure if I was that hungover or still drunk.

  Over a dozen of us had come out to Alex and Adrianna’s parents’ lake house for spring break. Their parents and a couple relatives had come too, but they’d only stayed for a night before looking to Alex, his girlfriend, Savannah, and me to keep the rest of the kids in line . . .

  All with sly smiles on their faces as they’d stocked the house full of enough food and alcohol to keep a fraternity going for a month. Then they’d left for Oklahoma to gamble for a couple days, leaving a bunch of seventeen- to nineteen-year-olds to their own devices.

  And from the punishing rhythm that had taken residence in my skull, I wondered if they’d thought they were doing us a favor or teaching us a lesson.

  The world seemed to tilt as I lifted my shirt, and I decided right then it had been a lesson.

  I caught sight of Hunter and Madison and mumbled, “I’m gonna fucking kill you,” loud enough for Hunter to hear as I descended the stairs and succeeded in pulling my shirt over my head.

  Hunter gave me an amused look as he gestured to Madison. “My girl had to see your ugly ass. You deserved it.”

  I huffed . . . and regretted it.

  Jesus fucking Christ.

  “Wait,” Madison began, voice all kinds of confused as she looked at my brother. “Didn’t you see him when you left the room?”

  He looked pointedly toward the back door. “I woke up on the table.”

  I glanced that way, then followed the cluster of people still passed out on the floor as Madison hesitantly claimed, “No, you came to bed.”

  “I don’t think so,” Hunter said softly.

  I looked around the rest of the main room and then back up the stairs when I didn’t see Savannah, rubbing at my head as I settled on where my brother was grabbing a container of orange juice from the fridge.

  “You did,” Madison argued.

  “Okay,” Hunter said, trying to placate her. “But the last thing I remember was being outside with everyone. You said you needed to change clothes because pandas make you wanna cry. Then I woke up on the table.”

  “Pandas are cute,” Madison whispered in defense.

  My eyes rolled as I stepped closer to my brother, earning an irritated look from him.

  Or that could’ve been because I took the juice from him.

  I wasn’t sure. At that moment, I really didn’t care about anything other than hydrating, finding somewhere steady, and figuring out where my girl was.

  I trudged over to the table and sat on top of it, letting my head fall into my free hand. Dragging my fingers through my hair over and over again as I tried to take calming breaths. As I tried to sort through the blur that was last night.

  It wasn’t the same as when I lost control of my anger. When that happened, it was like I saw everything in bursts. Speeding through parts and pausing for one crucial second. Only to continue until it was over.

  Or until Savannah snapped me out of it.

  Last night was different. I’d already been well into being wasted when someone had the brilliant idea of starting the Beer Olympics. With Savannah championing the idea, I hadn’t been able to tell her no. I also couldn’t really remember much of it even though I somehow knew I’d taken part in it.

  I remembered the cheerleader pyramid that had gone all kinds of wrong right at the beginning. I remembered pressing Savannah up against a tree, and her begging me to take her upstairs before we’d been pulled into another round of . . .

  Fuck, I can’t remember. Something.

  And Savannah.

  Dancing around the way she always did . . . I remembered that. I remembered kissing the hell out of her.

  But all of it was a blur.

  The music. Our friends. The bonfire. The games.

  I couldn’t even remember how I’d ended up on the floor, let alone naked.

  As if on cue, Hunter asked, “And what the hell were you doing? What was with the trash can?”

  A breath fled from me. “The fuck if I know.”

  I rubbed at my dry, aching eyes as I struggled to remember. As my head raged in protest.

  “Come ge’me.”

  I’d buried my face in her neck, breathing her in. “Gonna hide from me?”

  I felt more than heard her giggle. “Never.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut against the hammering as that piece of the night faded as fast as it had appeared. Trashed. We’d been so fucking trashed then. I’d been struggling to hold her up, and she’d been falling out of my lap.

  All of our words more slurred than not.

  I was just about to stand up to go look for her when I remembered stumbling into our room last night. Falling onto the bed as I’d tripped out of my pants.

  Laughing as she’d pulled me closer. As I’d settled between her legs and pushed inside her. The room and the bed spinning, and I’d been struggling. Struggling to stay there with her. Stay awake. Going in and out of it before I’d collapsed on top of her.

  Laughing. Again. We’d been laughing before she’d—

  “I’m gon’be sick.”

  “Oh shit, Savannah got sick,” I said softly, my stomach sinking as everything started adding up.

  Waking up buck-ass naked in the hall. Trash can in hand.

  Savannah had probably passed out in the bathroom, and I hadn’t been there for her.

  Fuck.

  Hunter breathed out a laugh. “Yeah, don’t think you made it back to her, man.”

  “Shit,” I bit out as I pushed off the table and started for the stairs.

  But I’d just reached the second step when my entire world came walking into the kitchen . . . from the downstairs hall.

  Hunter laughed again, louder and full of amusement. “You sure as hell didn’t make it back to her.”

  “Voices,” Savannah whispered as she stumbled to a stop. “Volume. So loud.” Using both hands, she waved awkwardly at everyone and forced a pained smile. “Didn’t make it back to who?”

  You.

  Because you got sick, and I’d been trying to get back to you. To our room. Where we’d been . . .

  “Beau was passed out in the upstairs hall with your trash can,” Hunter said matter-of-factly.

  Savannah looked up at me, face scrunching adorably before her head fell into her hands. “What trash can?”

  “When did you go downstairs?” I asked, voice rough and demanding as that little blur I’d been given replayed in my mind.

  What little I remembered of the night before, I was positive happened. And Savannah had been upstairs. With me. In that bed.

  She shuffled in my direction and gestured down the hall she’d just come from. “As soon as we came in. Bunch of us passed out in Adrianna’s room.”

  I went still as I absorbed her words.

  As that fucking blur played again.

  My body jolted slightly when Savannah was suddenly there on the stairs with me, falling against my chest. My arms automatically went around her, holding her to me. Protecting her from the nightmare path my mind was racing down.

  “Drinking is the worst,” she said. “I vote no.”

  My head ached as the pieces I could remember burst through my mind like condemning flashes—all the way up to waking in the hall.

  Nak
ed. The sheets on our bed all messed up in a telling way. And Savannah, downstairs the entire—Oh God.

  My stomach twisted. Bile rose so fast I had to choke it back as Hunter and Madison’s words from just minutes before came rushing back.

  “My girl had to see your ugly ass. You deserved it.”

  “Wait, didn’t you see him when you left the room?”

  “I woke up on the table.”

  “No, you came to bed.”

  Savannah and Madison had shared a room on our first night at the lake house. Yesterday, we’d switched. I’d moved upstairs to be with Savannah. Madison had moved downstairs to be with Hunter.

  There was no reason for Madison to have seen me this morning because the room she was talking about wasn’t upstairs. Unless . . .

  Fuck.

  No. No, no, no.

  My gaze slowly shifted to find Madison watching me. Eyes wide and face pale, looking about as sick as I felt. Like she’d already come to the horrifying realization that I was now.

  “Why are you so tense?” Savannah mumbled against my chest.

  “Feel like I’m dying.” The words came out before I could filter myself, but they were the truth.

  I was dying. This couldn’t be real.

  I couldn’t have—I wouldn’t have touched someone who wasn’t the girl in my arms.

  I knew Savannah. I knew every inch of her body. I knew her heart. My soul responded to hers. I would’ve known the girl I was in bed with wasn’t her.

  Right?

  I drew Savannah even closer when Madison started toward us. Wanting to keep her far from the destruction happening between us. The way the world was shaking. Crumbling.

  Falling apart in my hands and—oh God, what have I done?

  “Beau, you’re shaking,” Savannah whispered as she inched back to look up at me, brow furrowed with worry. “Come on, let’s go sit down.”

  I let her lead me down the steps and across the kitchen, my stare catching on Madison as she slipped around us on her way to the stairs.

  Head down and expression twisted with the agony I was drowning in.

  What the hell did we do? What the hell did we do? Why the fuck were you in my bed?

  I roughly fell to the bench seat of the table and dropped my head into my hands. A trembling breath ripping from me as I drove my hands through my hair before sitting back. Wrapping an arm around Savannah and trying to breathe. To focus.

  But all I could see were those two, short pieces of last night.

  Savannah telling me to come get her and what I was sure was Savannah underneath me.

  It had been so dark in the room, and I’d been fading in and out, but it had been her. It had been the girl I’d known and loved most of my life. I was sure of it.

  But the twisting in my gut and the ice-cold pain ripping through my chest said differently.

  “Jesus, Beau.”

  My head snapped up. The pain there exploding from the sharp movement as I met Hunter’s watchful stare.

  My brother.

  My best friend.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  “You look . . .” He hesitated, his head shaking. “You look bad off.”

  “I’m gonna be sick.”

  His brows rose in surprise, and Savannah twisted next to me, worry pouring from her as her hand moved to rest on my back.

  “Really?” she asked softly. “What can I do? What do you need?”

  I needed to go back in time.

  I needed to make last night a bad dream.

  I wanted to die.

  “I gotta go,” I muttered as I stood.

  “Beau,” she said as she scrambled to follow. “Let me help. What do you need?”

  I turned and wrapped her in my arms, body trembling so damn bad for those few seconds I let myself hold her. “I’m good,” I whispered against the top of her head. “Gonna take a shower, and I’ll be fine.”

  I left before she could respond.

  Jaw clenched tight and heart aching as I headed up the stairs because, on top of everything else, I’d just lied to Savannah for the first time in my life.

  As soon as I was upstairs, I hurried across the hall and into the room that was supposed to be mine and Savannah’s—the room I could hear Madison moving around in. Shutting the door quietly behind me, I stalked over to where she stood on the far side.

  “No, no, no, no,” she said, the plea nothing more than a breath as I closed the distance between us.

  “The hell were you doing in here?” I ground out.

  “I—”

  I was so lost in my guilt and my denial that I hadn’t noticed the haze that had slipped in. The simmering in my blood. I hadn’t known I’d even reacted until suddenly, she was there. Staring up at me with a mixture of fear and grief.

  My hand was over her mouth, and we’d moved.

  I’d moved her.

  I had Madison pressed to the wall. Her body shaking and fueling my own tremors and feeding that rage. And I didn’t know how to make myself let go.

  Savannah. Savannah. God damnit . . .

  “This is mine and Savannah’s room,” I ground out as I struggled to calm myself—to rein it in. “You and Hunter are in the other room.”

  Her head shook when I forced my hand down so it was clenching her jaw. Struggling to control what I needed to control. Mentally repeating Savannah’s name and trying to hear her calming voice in my head, and dying a little more each time.

  “I don’t—I don’t—” Madison’s body lurched and her eyes filled with tears.

  I held her glassy stare as that haze started pulling back. As that burning anger in my veins began receding. “Stay the fuck away from me,” I muttered in a low warning before finally pushing away from her.

  A hushed cry burst from her, but instead of leaving, she stepped closer. Like being near me right then wasn’t one of the most dangerous things she’d ever done. “What do I do with this?” she asked, holding out her hand.

  I glanced at the balled-up Kleenex in her hand, confusion weaving through the storm of destructive emotions. “The hell—” Shit.

  I sucked in shallow breaths in a vain attempt to calm my twisting stomach when the thin tissue unfurled enough for the corner of a condom wrapper to be seen.

  Making it real. As if there had been some sliver of possibility that last night hadn’t happened.

  “Beau, we didn’t use it.”

  I looked at her. Hope trying desperately to build in my chest despite everything.

  “No. No,” Madison said quickly, her face creasing with sorrow and regret. “Beau, we didn’t use it.”

  I barely managed to lock my knees when they gave at her implication and dragged a hand over my face.

  I wouldn’t. I would—

  Oh God, Savannah, I’m sorry.

  My jaw clenched tight as my denial clashed with the absolute guilt and regret swirling inside me. Grabbing the partially crumpled tissue from Madison, I kept my stare on my tightly clenched hand as I warned, “Madison . . . get away from me. Now.”

  That time, she listened.

  Hurrying for the door as I stood there, wondering how I was supposed to ask Savannah to forgive me when I knew I would never forgive myself. Wondering how this could’ve happened at all.

  “Mads?”

  At Hunter’s muffled voice, my blood went ice-cold. My head snapped up to see Madison standing in front of the closed door, hand hovering over the doorknob and a look of utter horror on her face.

  Frozen.

  Fuck. Fuck.

  I rushed for her. Grabbing her and shoving her past a large wardrobe, out of sight, as the sound of the door clicking filled my head. Just as the door began opening, I grabbed it and threw it open the rest of the way.

  Hunter stood there, hand still extended and looking surprised at seeing me there and having had the door ripped away from him. “Hey . . .”

  “What?” I snapped.

  “I thought Madison came upstairs. Is she not in here?” />
  I lifted the arm that wasn’t gripping the door. “Does it look like she’s in here?”

  He rubbed at his forehead before letting his hand fall to the outer wall. Tapping a soft rhythm on it as his eyes narrowed on me. After a second, he shook his head and huffed. “Try being something other than an asshole every now and then. Yeah?”

  I didn’t respond as he turned and left.

  I couldn’t.

  It was hard enough looking him in the eye. And maybe if he was at least mad at me, it’d help get me through the next second. Minute. Hour of knowing what I’d done.

  God knew I deserved his hatred, but I had a feeling even that wouldn’t be enough.

  I shut the door and moved quietly to where Madison was pressed to the wall and wardrobe, trying to mute her cries.

  “Get out.”

  She nodded and pushed from the wall, but had only made it a step when I grabbed her arm and pulled her back to me. Her lips parted with a silent cry as she slammed into my side.

  “If Savannah ever finds out . . .” I tried to swallow around the jagged rock in my throat. Tried to speak around it. But I could barely breathe.

  Someone was gripping my heart in their hands and slowly crushing it, and I wasn’t sure what would remain of it after this—if anything.

  Madison looked up at me, her head bobbing before shaking quickly. “I can’t—I couldn’t—never. It would wreck us—him.”

  If there was anything I was sure of from that morning, it was that. Her ridiculous ramble of an agreement. I felt her anguish deep in my bones. Felt her guilt in my gut. Madison was suffering as badly as I was, but that didn’t change anything. It didn’t lessen what we’d done. It didn’t erase it.

  If anything, it made this more dangerous.

  Because there was only so long we could live with that kind of guilt before it destroyed us. Before we confessed everything.

  I gave her a subtle nod and left the room without another look back at her. Heading for the bathroom to discard the condom and start the shower.

  I turned the water almost as hot as it could go and waited for the steam to start pouring into the bathroom before stepping under the punishing spray. My body tensing and locking up tight as I stood there. As the overwhelming shame and hatred crashed down around me until I snapped.

 

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