Holding Out for You

by Anna Paige

  When he hugged me to his chest again, I turned my head toward Ash and caught his expression.

  It was anything but jovial.

  Like me, he’d been pretending because, like me, he knew Becker needed this moment or he’d break too.

  And neither of us wanted that.

  We both loved him far too much.

  Blair

  As it turned out, that handful of stuff Jake had when he was reading Tommy his rights was several wallets Tommy had lifted at the party.

  Four was the original total, but Jake said some people mentioned Tommy going back to his car a few times over the course of the evening, so the police were going to search it before it was hauled off to the impound.

  Because of the thefts, clearing the beach took longer than I’d hoped. They were having everyone come in later for written statements, but there was still a lot to go through before they left.

  I didn’t want to go down there while people were still milling around talking to the other officers. I just wanted to go get checked out and go home.

  Charli had plastered herself to my side from the moment she was brought to “the scene,” as Jake called it. She was borderline hysterical when she saw the bloody shirt in my hand and the way I flinched when one of the cops brushed me on his way past.

  It took a lot of hugs and assurances that I was okay before she would calm down. Even after twenty minutes standing there holding my hand, she still shook and tears leaked from her eyes every so often, but she was quiet now. I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not.

  For Charli, chatter was her default and when you added stress, she could out-talk an auctioneer on speed.

  Maybe there just weren’t any words.

  There weren’t for me.

  Jake came over after a while and said it was okay to go. Everyone had given preliminary statements—mine had been quietly given well out of range of prying ears—and been asked to leave so the crime scene investigators could work.

  We didn’t have CSI in our crappy little town, so I assumed they were borrowed from somewhere else.

  Becker put an arm around my shoulders and steered me through the dunes. “We’ll get you checked out first then I’m taking you back to Mom and Dad’s with me. You don’t need to be alone tonight.”

  Beck had been crashing at our parents while he and Ash figured out what they were doing about an apartment. Our folks were on vacation at the Grand Canyon, road tripping for their anniversary. Mom was going to bust a blood vessel when she heard about tonight.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  “Blair won’t be alone. She has me,” Charli reminded Beck, sounding wounded that she didn’t seem to count in his eyes. “Not that I’m much help.”

  “I know she has you. She’ll still have you because you’re coming with us. You can bunk with her in her old room like you did growing up.”

  “Ash too?” I asked, not even caring that it was an odd request. Or it would have been before tonight. Strange how one evening could spin your entire world around.

  “You want him there?”

  I nodded, leaning my head against Beck’s shoulder as we walked. I could feel Ash’s eyes on my back. “I need all of you.”

  “Ash?” Beck looked at him over his shoulder.

  “I was coming no matter what, but an invite is appreciated.” His hand rested briefly on my lower back, just that little point of contact sending a wave of peace through me, his touch a comfort I desperately needed.

  “Good, once we get Blair checked out and everyone is settled at the house, I’ll leave you to look after the girls while I come back and gather the trash from tonight. Jake said the only place they need to scour is the spot in the dunes where Tommy . . . they said not to mess with anything there.” He kissed the top of my head, like he felt bad for even mentioning the location. “But our slob friends left shit all over the beach in their haste to leave, and I can’t leave it like that. I also need to load up the keg, so I don’t lose my deposit.”

  “Just do it now,” I told him, frowning at the idea of him having to come out here in the middle of the night alone.

  “No. You’ve waited long enough to go to the ER.”

  “Becker—”

  He cut me off, squeezing me against his side. “It’s fine, Ash can keep you company while I clean up.”

  “No, let’s do it now. I kind of wanted a minute to breathe first anyway. Let us help you with the clean-up. That way you won’t have to leave once we get back home. I don’t want any of us apart right now.”

  I didn’t want him to leave. I just wanted this night to be over and everyone to be safe and together. “Please, Beck.”

  “Fine,” he acquiesced. “You guys stay here while I run to the truck for trash bags.” He practically shoved me at Ash. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”

  “Wasn’t planning on it,” Ash said, folding me into his arms.

  Beck hesitated a second, watching the way I sank into Ash’s embrace, the oddest expression on his face. Then it was gone and so was he.

  I stood there for several minutes, my face buried in Ash’s chest, fighting off another wave of nausea. That was one reason I wasn’t ready to leave. I wanted to be sure I wouldn’t get sick in Beck’s truck. Not that he’d be angry, but I’d been humiliated enough tonight without puking all over his upholstery. “I know he’s in jail, but I feel like he’s right behind me. Everywhere. And I can’t breathe. I just need to breathe.”

  Ash didn’t tell me I was being silly, didn’t offer any words of his own, he merely let me cling to him because right then, that was all I wanted. With his arms around me, I could breathe.

  After a few minutes, I could hear Beck trudging our way, the sound of trash bags rusting in the breeze tipping me off.

  A second later he asked, “Hey, where’d Charli go?”

  Ash tensed and I could feel his chin brush the top of my head as he scanned left and right, looking for her.

  I backed away from him and wiped at my eyes, instantly worried. “I thought she was right here.”

  “So did I,” Ash agreed. “She was behind us when Beck left to go to the truck.”

  “Charli!” I called, spinning in a slow circle. The beach was empty, as far as I could tell.

  Beck patted my arm and turned, heading back toward the parking area. “I’ll go this way. Maybe she slipped by me in the dark. You two check the beach.” He looked at Ash, gesturing to me. “Stay with her.”

  Ash nodded and reached for my hand, which was shaking more than ever now that Charli had disappeared.

  “We’ll find her. I bet she sneaked behind one of the dunes to take a leak or something. No big deal.” He reassured me even as I frantically dragged him toward the beach, calling her name.

  The CSIs’ lights cast enough of a glow over the south end of the beach that we could see she wasn’t there, so we went the other way.

  Ten minutes later, we were at the dunes at the north end of the beach, the same place we’d retreated to earlier when I had my wardrobe malfunction. Still no sign of Charli.

  “Where the hell could she have gone?” I tried her cell for the tenth time, but it went straight to voicemail.

  “She couldn’t have gotten far. Maybe she just needed a minute to process what happened.”

  “You mean to fall apart like I did?”

  “You didn’t fall apart. You had a perfectly normal reaction to a horrific situation.”

  “If it’s so normal, why aren’t you reacting that way?” He and Becker had both been dealing so well with everything. I only wished I were that strong.

  “Oh, I will. As soon as everyone’s home safe tonight, I totally intend to lose my shit. But there’s no time for that yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I need you to be okay first. Then I can freak the fuck out.” He shook his head, his eyes falling shut. “When I found you there, seeing what he was . . . how he had you . . .” He swallowed thickly, not continuing. When his eyes opened
, his gaze was on the waves and I felt gooseflesh on his arm where my hand had come to rest.

  “Ash?” I tried to get him to look at me.

  He cleared his throat and turned us back the way we came, suddenly done with the conversation. “Come on, she’s not down here. Let’s check the other end of the beach. If she’s on the other side of those lights, we might not have been able to see her.”

  Before I could say anything else, his phone chirped in his pocket and he let go of my hand to check it. He looked down at the screen for a moment, finally giving me a clear look at his face. He was pale in the soft light from the phone, but his eyes were shining like he was fighting back tears.

  He read for a minute before visibly relaxing. “Beck has her. She was at the truck. He said to give them a few minutes. He’s talking her down. She’s blaming herself for bringing Tommy here.”

  “God, I spent half the night telling her how angry I was at her for setting me up with him. Of course she would assume I’d blame her for what happened.” I hung my head, feeling like a total asshole. “Shit, I’m such a bad friend. I should never have let her slip away. I know how she is. Misplaced feelings of guilt are kind of her thing.”

  “We’ll set her straight, don’t worry. You’re not a bad friend. You needed a minute to process too, and there’s nothing wrong with that. You can’t help her without working through it yourself first. And, let’s be honest, your brother stands a better chance at getting through to her than anyone. She’s been hanging on his every word since we were kids. She’ll listen to him, I promise. A little Becker Martell hand-holding is exactly what she needs right now. You can swoop in later to do the best friend thing.”

  I had to smile when I thought about what he was saying. “You’re probably right. She kind of loves Beck, you know. She just doesn’t think he could ever see her that way.”

  Ash muttered something under his breath, reaching down to retrieve an empty cup from the sand.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I was just bitching about what slobs some of my friends are.” He reached for another cup, slipping it inside the first one.

  For some reason, I didn’t believe he’d been talking about the random beach litter, but I didn’t press him on it. Instead, I joined him in his search for more trash, refusing to acknowledge the ever-increasing pain in my face and head.

  Eventually the two of us dragged the not-quite-empty keg to the parking lot, where we joined up with Beck and a seemingly okay Charli.

  Before we all got into Beck’s quad-cab, my brother bear-hugged me again, crushing me so hard I winced in his arms.

  Then, to my immense pleasure, he hugged Charli just as fiercely.

  When he let go, there were tears in her eyes, and I could only hope they were happy ones.

  I sat in the back seat with her on the way to the ER.

  We didn’t talk, but I held tight to her hand the whole way there.

  To comfort her, but also to comfort myself.

  Ashton

  Why does it feel like I’m thirteen again, sitting in this waiting room?

  Maybe because, just like when she was nine, Blair could have died tonight.

  My hands fisted in my lap and I closed my eyes, fighting to clear that thought from my head.

  I looked over at my best friend and knew instantly that his mind had gone to the same dark, terrifying place.

  Blair had been called back a while ago, leaving Beck and me behind but insisting Charli go with her. From the way she looked at me and her brother, I thought maybe she was thinking of fighting to bring us, too.

  There was a brief moment where she opened her mouth like she was about to ask us to go. I could see it in her eyes when they locked onto mine, but she stopped herself, paling as she let the plump middle-aged nurse with the sweet smile take her and Charli down the hall and through the huge double doors to the emergency department.

  “I should call my folks,” Beck muttered, one hand running through his hair as he stared at those huge double doors. “But goddamn if I know what to say to them.”

  “Nothing. Don’t call yet, don’t say anything. Let Blair decide when they hear it, who they hear it from, and how much they’re told. It’s her story to tell, man. Let her take the lead.” I followed his gaze and felt that same sick feeling in my gut as I reminded him, “She couldn’t control what happened tonight, at least let her have control over this.”

  “You know my mom is going to go fucking nuclear, right?”

  “Yeah, and telling her that her daughter was almost”—I practically gagged trying to get the word out—“raped when she’s a thousand miles away is probably not the best idea. It can wait until morning at the very least. No one on the beach besides us knows what went down, so the rumor mill shouldn’t take off with it for a day or two. Other than the stolen wallets, no one else has enough details to talk.”

  “Doesn’t mean they won’t anyway. You know this town.”

  Unfortunately, I did. And I knew it was only a matter of time before someone posted something online or texted the Martells to ask for the details. I had to let my mom know something too, before she got bombarded with misinformation.

  But for tonight, it needed to be the four of us.

  We’d scare the fuck out of our parents in the morning.

  “Charli seemed pretty mellow when Blair and I got done cleaning up. What’d you say to her?” I was hoping to distract him so he’d stop staring at those doors and raking his hand through his hair. It was starting to take on a mohawk shape that was disturbing on such an Abercrombie dude.

  He glanced over at me briefly, finally dropping his hands from his poor, mangled mop. “She was a fucking mess, Ash. Blames herself for setting Blair up on the date in the first place, said Blair was already mad at her for that and now she probably hated her because what happened was all her fault. She said she should have refused to leave, even if it meant getting shot.” He stared down at his clasped hands. “I’ve only seen her this distraught one other time.”

  “I remember. Same hospital. Same waiting room.” I gestured around at the dated plastic chairs and plush seats that were likely the same stuff we’d sat on back then. “Same ugly-ass furniture,” I added, trying to make him smile.

  “Same baby sister almost dying,” he croaked out, his head dropping as his shoulders shook.

  I moved to stand beside his chair, putting one hand on his back. “We got to her in time, man. She’s gonna be okay.”

  “You got to her. I was walking down the beach with her torn shirt in my hand, wondering if . . .” He choked on a sob and took a while to recover before finishing. “Wondering if she was somewhere in that cold, dark water, her body floating away forever.”

  “But she wasn’t. She’s here and she’s okay and that’s all that matters.”

  He looked up at me then, my best friend since pre-school, his face streaked with tears, eyes more devastated than I’d ever seen them. “If it weren’t for you, she wouldn’t be. He would have . . . we know he intended to . . .” He drew in a breath and shook his head, but his face crumpled as he said, “He was going to kill her after he was through with her. While I was scanning the goddamned water for her body, he was trying to rape and murder my baby sister.”

  I ignored his statement, because I fucking had to in order to be able to function. “We were both looking in the wrong place at first. I thought it too. I scanned the beach and the water just like you.”

  “But you didn’t let it paralyze you, you kept going, kept looking. You saved her, Ash, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay you for that. There aren’t big enough words to say how grateful I am.”

  I fought back the lump in my throat and patted him hard on the back. “Don’t. Okay? Don’t thank me. I did the same thing you would have done.”

  “But I didn’t do it, did I? I panicked. I froze.”

  “Stop, dammit. You’re just as bad as Charli.” I folded myself into the seat beside his. “If you had found he
r first, if the roles were reversed, would you let me sit here and beat myself up for not being the first one there?”

  “You don’t get it. It’s different for me, okay?”

  “How is it different?”

  “Because I love her.” He clamped his jaw shut, blinking back tears.

  “News flash, Beck. So do I.”

  He scoffed, hearing my words but not listening. “Yeah, maybe you care but not like I do.”

  “Well, no. That would be gross. You’re her brother.”

  “And you’re like a brother. You’ve sure known her long enough, even if all you’ve done is pick on her since she was a kid. But you can’t love her the way I, her actual brother, do.”

  “I don’t love her in a brotherly way, Beck.”

  That time he was listening.

  Slowly, painfully so, he turned to look at me. “Wait . . . are you saying—”

  “Mr. Martell? Mr. Hunter?” The friendly nurse was back.

  We both jumped to our feet. “Yes,” we replied in unison.

  She smiled that sweet smile of hers and waved us along to follow her. “Miss Martell is almost ready to go. She was given a mild sedative and a little pain medication, which means we need someone to verify that she won’t be driving herself home. Her friend said she wasn’t driving and asked me to fetch the two of you.”

  “How is she, Nurse . . .” Becker leaned around to check her name tag. “Bellamy?”

  “She’s doing well,” was all she would say.

  Once we got to the cubicle-sized “room” that consisted of a bunch of curtains to cordon it off from the “rooms” on either side, the nurse greeted Blair with a pat on the hand and nodded toward us, immediately relaxing into a less formal posture. “Some handsome escorts you have here, girl. Hate to see them go. They sure do pretty up this dreary place.”

  Blair smiled back as she slipped on her shoes. Her eyes were a little glassy and she was wearing my hoodie again, a used hospital gown wadded on the hospital bed she’d been lying on. “Lady killers, the both of them.”

  “Since you and Blair could pass for fraternal twins, I assume you’re Becker,” Nurse Bellamy said as she handed Beck a clipboard and a pen. “Your sister says you’re the one with the keys, so I need you to verify that you’ll be driving her home. Our insurance insists on it.”