by Holly Renee
How could I love someone who could hurt me so easily?
It didn’t make any sense.
I knew that I felt something for him, I knew that I had been a fool, but saying out loud that I had thought I had loved her brother made me feel so idiotic. I wasn’t like her. Beck hadn’t been my friend before. I hadn’t known him for years.
From the moment I met Beck, I knew he didn’t like me. He didn’t like me, but I still fell for him. He had shown that he hated me, but I still gave him parts of me that I had never given to anyone else.
I shifted on my feet, and by the way Frankie watched me, I knew that she knew I was uncomfortable with what she said. She had been so brave, to admit that she had once loved someone who had hurt her the way Lucas had, I couldn’t imagine having that much strength.
I couldn’t imagine the amount of strength it took for her to get up in the morning and come to school and face him all day. For her to pretend as though nothing happened. That thought alone had my blood boiling inside of my veins.
Lucas had hurt her in unspeakable ways, and he suffered no consequences.
Simply because he was my father’s stepson. My father had gotten him out of things that he should’ve paid for. It didn’t matter that his own freedom was what afforded Beck his. It should’ve never been on the table. My father should’ve made Lucas pay for what he did. If he protected him from the legal system, he should have punished him at home, but I knew that Lucas hadn’t had those consequences.
He had disappointed my father, and that was the extent of it. But in a way, I knew that that part alone had to fuck with Lucas’s head.
He was so desperate to impress him, so desperate to be just like him, and instead, he embarrassed him in front of all the people he ruled. Because, even though I knew what had happened and how they had decided to keep everything hush-hush, a place like Clermont Bay couldn’t keep secrets that tightly. Everybody whispered, everybody talked, and eventually everybody’s secrets would come out.
It hit me then that that was why my father wanted me to stay so far away from Beck. It wasn’t because of what he had done to Lucas. He could probably give two shits less about that. But Lucas had hurt his image, and he knew that Beck and his family were the only ones who had the power to keep that secret for them.
They were the ones who held the key to this particular set of sins.
He never actually cared about me, or what he thought the Clermonts were capable of. That was all a part of his act. The caring, loving father who wanted people to see him for everything he wasn’t.
And I knew it was irrational, but part of me thought he was just as guilty as Lucas. I knew that was wrong, I knew that every bit of that was the deep-seated bitterness I had toward him, but I couldn’t stop myself from feeling it.
There wasn’t a thing I could do to change the way I felt.
"I know that what Beck did was wrong." Frankie leaned against his car and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. She looked nervous about what she would say to me next. Like she didn’t know how I would react. "But he does care about you."
I shook my head against her words. She saw Beck how she wanted to see him. She was his younger sister who loved him, and in her eyes, he could do no wrong.
He had been the one to protect her, to defend what had been taken from her, and I knew that she probably saw Beck as some sort of hero. I guess in her story, he was.
But he wasn’t in mine.
The way she felt about him wasn’t wrong, but she was wrong about this.
Beck may have wanted me, I was absolutely certain about that fact, but wanting someone and caring for someone are two different things.
They were incomparable.
Even if a small kernel of hope formed in my chest, I knew that I had to shut it down. I was already too naïve when it came to him, and I couldn’t afford for his little sister to make me believe anything other than what was right in front of me.
Beck had already shown me who he was, and it was time that I believed him.
"He doesn’t." I shook my head again. There is so much sympathy in her eyes that I had to look away. I didn’t need or want her sympathy even though I had given it to her.
Especially not from her.
"I know you don’t want to hear it, but he does. He’s just so fucked up in his own head right now."
Being fucked up in his head was nothing but an excuse. I understood why he did what he did. Why he felt the need.
Logically, I could make sense of his reasoning, but it didn’t mean that I would forgive it. He was fucked up in his head, but he still made a conscious decision to do what he did to me. He made a conscious decision to make me fall for him so that he could slap everything that I had done and said and hoped for right back in my face.
And even though I wanted to believe what she said, I wanted to believe it and cling to it and let everything else fall away, I knew that it would do nothing but end up getting me hurt.
Beck only led to one path, and I knew where that ended. Thinking anything else was insanity.
"I don’t…" I hesitated. "I don’t know that I’ll ever forgive him."
She stared at me for a few moments, and I knew that she understood what I was saying. But there was so much sympathy in her eyes, and I wasn’t sure whether it was meant for me or for her brother.
Because regardless of what he did to me, he was still her big brother, and I knew that she was going to have his back. But another part of me knew that she wouldn’t have said what she just said if she didn’t feel it was true. Frankie seemed so far from fake, and I knew she hated the position that Beck and put me in.
She loved him, but she still hated what he had done.
She opened her mouth to say something else just as someone walked in front of Beck’s car. My spine straightened as I heard the footsteps move closer to us, and I wanted to run away as fast as I could.
I didn’t want to see him.
I didn’t need him catching me here with his sister, especially after everything we had just done. I didn’t need to give him any ammunition or time to mess with my head.
I just needed to get as far away from him as I could and to stay there.
But it wasn’t Beck who rounded the hood of his expensive SUV, it was Olly, and when he looked up and saw me, I saw that same sympathy staring back at me that Frankie had shown. Regardless of how hard Olly acted when he was with his boys, I could see how much he hated what Beck had done from that one look alone.
"Hey." He gently knocked his shoulder into Frankie, and I watched a blush fill her cheek. "Hey, Josie." He nodded his head toward me, and I tighten my hands on my backpack straps.
"Hi." I took a step back, ready to retreat from him. He may not have been Beck, but I had no interest in being around any of them. It didn’t matter if he felt bad for what had happened.
Olly and Carson were his best friends, and I knew that they had known what he was going to do. They had known, they had watched, and I felt so foolish standing in front of him.
All I could think about was that night the three of them had come to the country club. How badly Beck had treated me. Olly and Carson had watched him do so, then he watched me fall for him anyway.
He had to think that I was a complete and total idiot. That I was nothing more than a desperate girl who couldn’t walk away from Beck even when he had been pushing me.
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?"
"I don’t know." He shook his head. "Frankie was telling her that she was glad they talked, though. She got spooked the moment I walked up."
"That’s it? That’s all they said." I wanted to know everything. Every word that was exchanged between them. Did Josie approach her? Did Josie ask her about what she had found out about her stepbrother?
"Well, Josie made a comment that she’d be seeing Frankie as long as her brother wasn’t around." Olly laughed, and I couldn’t help smiling just thinking about Josie’s sass.
I could imagine her saying just that.
"Of course she did." I chuckled and couldn’t stop thinking of her.
"So what’s the deal with her anyway?" Carson had his fingers wrapped around the edge of his board, and even though he was trying to act nonchalant, I knew both of them well enough to know they were dying to know my answer.
They had known my plan for her, known what I was capable of when it came to Luca
s, but neither of them knew what to think now. They had no idea where my head was at, and neither did I. It felt so fucked up that I didn’t even know how to explain it. I had accomplished exactly what I wanted with Josie, and I regretted every second of it.
I regretted it, and I never thought I would.
"There is no deal." It wasn’t exactly a lie. I had no idea what was going on with us. She was adamant that she wanted nothing to do with me, but everything about her screamed otherwise.
"When the hell are you gonna stop lying?" Olly didn’t look toward me as he spoke. He just stared out toward the water as if he was lost in his own head. "You know we can sniff out that bullshit faster than it takes for you to say it."
"What do you want me to say? That I was an idiot who pushed Josie away, who fucking forced her away, and now I wanted her back?" I ran my wet fingers through my hair.
"Well, that would be a start." Olly finally looked over at me, and there is a small smirk on his face. "Admitting you have a problem is the first step."
I rolled my eyes at him, but he was right. I had no idea why I was trying to keep this from them. We never kept anything from each other. Hell, I knew things about Carson that another person should never know. But each of us had our own secrets too. I knew that.
"Do you really think she’s going to forgive you?" Carson asked, and I knew it was a fair question. She had no reason to forgive me.
If she was smart, she wouldn’t.
"If I was her I wouldn’t, but I hope she does."
Olly drummed his fingers against his board, and he looked like he was hesitating with what he was saying next. "Are you sure that it was Lucas who posted the video?"
"Who the fuck else would it be?"
He lifted his hands in defense. "I’m just asking. I just can’t understand why he would want to do this to her. Like, what did he get out of it?"
It was the same question I’ve been asking myself every day. The question ran over and over through my mind.
What did Lucas have to gain from hurting Josie?
