Chapter 24
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Bow
I felt nauseous.
In fact, I’d felt this way for weeks.
Anytime I even thought about approaching Wells (or Bru) about what happened between all three of us, it brought on violent illness. I thought there was something seriously wrong with me. I’d even thrown up a time or two, and could barely eat.
I hugged my knees, staring at the pool in the Vesperton. I was the only one here because everyone was at Dorian’s party.
I laid my head on my knees. Tears burned at my eyes just thinking about Wells’s reaction to what I said.
I thought the answer to my illness, my sickness, was just to put myself out there.
I wanted to be brave and just go for what I wanted for once.
I did miss Wells, but not just his friendship.
I wanted him, my old best friend. I wanted Bruno too, and even though that was confusing, it’d just felt right, all three of us.
“What do you want from me?”
Wells let me know he didn’t want me, and what was worse was that Bru had seen the rejection too. I was completely mortified when he’d come over. He automatically tried to be there for me and that almost made things worse. I felt so pathetic.
Sniffling, I wiped my eyes before the tears could fall. Before I knew it, I did something crazy.
I took off my dress, shoes, and gloves.
I still had my bra and underwear on, but I wasn’t thinking at all as I exposed them. If I was thinking, I’d go back to Dorian’s party and pretend I never talked to Wells. I never told him I missed him and begged him for his forgiveness. I hadn’t sounded pathetic.
The water hit me in a rush. This was totally crazy, but I didn’t care.
I didn’t care.
I felt like I actually wanted to drown when I sank down. The pain hit me like an avalanche, but I waved my arms to keep me afloat.
“You see what he does to you? How he hurts you.”
A deep voice was in my head. I blocked his number, but he kept getting ways around it. The voice had made me feel special for a time, how much he cared…
I stopped waving my arms. I just fell, and I glanced up at the ceiling. I could see the light from the pool room beneath the water. It was blurry, but I could see it.
“He doesn’t care about you. None of them do. If they did, they wouldn’t have let him hurt you. I care, Bow. You’re so beautiful.”
It was funny. I felt beautiful when those words were first spoken to me. They were beautiful when they were just words.
They were beautiful until he touched me.
Starting to choke, I waved my arms. I used my legs to kick, and soon, I was above the water. My lungs gasping for air, I let them take it in. I breathed.
I closed my eyes, my hair around me as I started to swim. I was a good swimmer actually, and used to love swimming. I loved it until I didn’t.
I glided through the water, not caring about my makeup or my hair. I didn’t care about what people would ask me once I got out of the pool. I didn’t care about anything, and that was so unlike me.
I was doing a lot of things that weren’t like me recently. The latest was trying to get Wells to forgive me, even though he shouldn’t.
I wanted to drown again. I felt like that day I had on the balcony at the party. I’d wanted to fall, but Wells hadn’t let me.
They hadn’t let me.
Bru had saved me too that night, even though I hadn’t wanted to be. I’d wanted to drown, just like I did now. My humiliation because of Wells’s rejection and Bru watching it was too much. I didn’t want Bru to be there for me out of pity.
“They don’t care about you.”
I could hear that voice again, the one that told me I was nothing and no one wanted me.
It was that same voice that made me ignore Bru after what happened between all three of us at the boys’ house.
Bru had reached out several times. I told him I hadn’t wanted to talk.
For weeks, I did to him what Wells did to me tonight.
And all because of that voice.
“They don’t care about you.”
I was about to let myself go limp again. Maybe this time my body would hit the pool’s floor.
Maybe this time I would drown.
I closed my eyes, but I opened them when I heard a sound behind me. I immediately turned around.
My eyes flashed.
His didn’t though, his green eyes harsh, narrowed. Wells Ambrose had a way of pinning me in place every time, but this time, I was in a pool in a very vulnerable position.
I was basically naked.
Completely aware I was in nothing but my bra and panties, I lowered below the water.
In fact, the only thing I had above the water was my eyes, and that was enough to see Wells circulate the pool.
He strode along it in his fitted tux and black shoes, his hands in his pockets.
He stopped at the pool’s stairs and stared at me in a way that completely made me shrink.
As well as tighten my nipples.
I felt like an idiot for that and immediately hugged myself below the water as if he could see. I started to back away, but the mere shock of what Wells did next froze me in place.
He took off his jacket. In fact, he tugged it off, aggressive about it. He exposed the white button-up shirt beneath that was tailored perfectly to his broad shoulders. Then he took off his vest and tossed them both on a pile of clothes.
My pile of clothes.
I shrunk again as Wells went for his cuff links.
His face was red as he undid one, then the other.
The next thing I knew, he was working the shirt off and exposing a white tank.
I didn’t know what he was doing. Then, that went too, his tank.
He worked it off, revealing his tanned abs with an anger on his face I didn’t understand.
If I could have physically gone beneath the water, I would have.
I was frozen. After kicking away his shoes and pulling his socks off, he stripped his pants down to his boxers, then dove into the pool swimmer-style.
He glided across the top like the expert swimmer I knew he was.
I mean, he was a lifeguard in the past for a reason.
White-hot panic had me quickly swimming toward the nearest pool exit. I had no idea what Wells was doing, but it didn’t feel like a good thing.
He knew I wasn’t drowning, right?
This time, I’d been above the water when he spotted me, but I had considered letting myself sink to the bottom.
Dread hit me that maybe Wells did think I’d been drowning, and, when my back hit the pool wall near the stairs, I just stayed there.
I watched Wells swim toward me, his broad figure beneath the water now.
He looked like a shark before he breached the surface with a snap of his platinum-blond hair.
He pushed his hair back, his eyes open, narrowed.
He swam long strides toward me, and I hugged the wall.
My mouth parted as he came up on me, and again, I was very aware of my lack of clothing beneath the water.
I was aware of his lack of clothing too, and how beautiful he looked in the pool’s glowing lights.
His blond hair back, his dark roots were exposed, the water dripping down his chiseled jaw to the solid build of his shoulders.
Wells was a work of art and always had been.
“What are you,” I started to say, but then his strong jaw clenched. It was like my voice made him angry for some reason, and I didn’t understand why. I shook my head, water dripping from my chin to chest. I sucked in a breath. “I wasn’t drowning.”
There would be no other reason for him to come into the pool, and I wondered why he’d bother saving me at all. He obviously hated me and hated what happened between us. He hated what happened between all three of us because I’d seen him avoid Bru too. Not just me.
The fact made my chest sink, but I remained standing tall in front of him. I didn’t know how I had, but I managed.
Wells said nothing. His green eyes analyzed me, the water dripping down to my chest. His nostrils flared, and I hugged the wall again when he crowded me. He pressed one palm on either side of me. He had a long reach, but that still placed him a foot in front of my face.
I swallowed. “What are you doing?”
And how good he smelled. He smelled like him, Wells, and that had been one of my favorite parts that night at Legacy House. I loved how familiar Wells smelled to me. Between Bru and him, I’d been in euphoria.
I wished for that ally now, Bru. Especially when Wells managed to get closer to me. His jaw tightened. “I want to know something.”
Again, I didn’t understand.
“Who touched you, Squeak?” he asked, analyzing my body again. He followed the tremble in my chest, the race in my heart. His eyes flicked up. “Who did you let between your legs?”
What. The. Fuck.
That was my instinctual thought, even though I went out of my way not to curse if I could help it. I even tried not to in my thoughts. “Why would you ask me that?”
He had no right to. That wasn’t his business.
My answer displeased him, clearly, and I blinked when that foot between us turned into inches.
A heat rolled off him I physically felt, and it manifested as a deep red across his sharp jaw.
He gripped the pool’s ledge. “You’re Thatcher’s little sister.
Because of that, it’s my fucking business to know who touched you. ”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and the wild anger that surfaced…
My life, my body was not any of his business, and the fact that he brought Thatcher up? It was like he socked me in the freaking chest. My jaw clenched. “It’s not my brother’s business, so it’s definitely not yours.”
He blinked like I hit him.
I didn’t care.
I was so tired of Wells throwing his weight around when it came to me. I felt bad for what happened all those years ago. In fact, it ate me up so badly inside I doubt he ever had to punish me for all these years with public alienation. I punished myself enough for the both of us.
“He doesn’t care about you.”
I let the wrong person in because of him. I made mistakes, and, at the time, I believed I’d been empowered. I finally did something for me, what I wanted.
I hadn’t wanted it.
I hadn’t at all, and that was what all Wells’s hate did to me. I shook my head. “It’s not your business. It never was and you can stop punishing me now, Wells,” I said, blinking down tears. “I’m already broken because of what happened. You broke me, so if that’s what you wanted, you’ve already—”
His hands were on my shoulders.
He was shaking.
I felt the tremor in his hands, and it felt like he was using me just to stay upright. “Wells…”
He flinched when I put my hand on him, but I didn’t stop until I made it to his shoulder. I squeezed, and he winced.
“Don’t, Squeak,” he gritted through his teeth, but he forgot that he touched me first. He was still touching me, and when I placed my hand on his flushed jaw, his face screwed up. “Please.”
The plea sounded desperate, but I couldn’t tell whether it was for me to stop or keep going. He was still shaking, and he shook even more when I pushed my fingers into his wet hair. A sigh left his lips and goose bumps lined my skin.
“Please stop. Please,” he ground out, and it was just like what happened at Legacy House.
He was saying to stop but his body language, his body was saying something else.
His eyes were closed as I got closer, but he gripped my wrist before I could put my other hand in his hair.
He shook his head. “I don’t want to break you. ”
The words froze me in place. My fingers curled. “What?”
He didn’t say anything at first. He just cringed, and the next thing I knew, he had my face in his hands. I gasped, and I gasped again when he stared right at me. His expression was so serious, so pained it was like I felt it myself. “Wells?”
Again, he said nothing. He just shook his head again. He kept shaking his head. “I don’t want to break you, Squeak. Punish you? I don’t even hate you.”
My heart beat rapidly inside my chest.
“I’m sure you think I do but I…” His nostrils flared, and when he winced again, my heart only kicked up its beats. He looked me straight in the eyes again, and I’d never seen such anguish in his. His jaw clenched tight. “Squeak, I hate my-fucking-self.”