Chapter 194
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINETY-FOUR
NICOLE
“Your makeup looks good tonight, Nicole,” Dad said after the football game that night, following me to the sidewalk. “Almost like you didn’t fuck up your own face, making it so ugly that it’s irreparable.” He looped his thumb around the gun on his hip. “Why don’t you talk to Jace tonight?”
“Why?” I asked, regretting the word as soon as it left my lips.
“Because if you don’t work for me, then you’re worthless to me.” He ground his teeth together. “And you do remember what happened when Hannah became worthless to me, don’t you, sweetheart?”
I gulped. “Yes.”
“Now, invite Jace over tonight. Understand?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
Though I had wanted to go see Akio tonight. He had come to the game.
For me. At least, I hoped it was for me.
I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since this morning and our little hookup in the hallway. God, he had given me so much pleasure.
Once the boys changed out of their gear in the locker room, the cheer squad, the football team, and a group of students chatted in the student parking lot about the game.
I walked over to them, scanned the crowd for Jace, and finally made eye contact with him, Dad’s gaze burning into my back from the far lot.
Jace offered me a smirk, which was unusual for him. I usually had to work for it.
When he tilted his head to the sidewalk, as if he wanted me to walk over to chat, I excused myself from the other cheer girls who didn’t really give a fuck about me anyway. I walked over to him, nipples taut because of this damn cold and not because I actually wanted to do this with him right now.
“Good game.” I bit my lower lip to stop it from chattering. “But you looked a bit stressed the entire time.” Not that I had actually watched the game, more like I stared at the bleachers, looking for Akio. “Why don’t you come over tonight? I can help with that.”
I would much rather not help Jace with anything.
But Dad had given me the entire week off, so he expected something from me now.
“Party tonight.” He slung an arm around my waist. “But what about tomorrow?”
While I stiffened at the thought of anyone except Akio touching me, I forced myself to relax and sprawled my hand across his muscular abdomen.
“Mmm, Jacey … why don’t we sneak into my car and get it over with?
” I peeked over at Dad, who was now looming behind his police car.
“I bet you’ve been aching to fuck me hard, get all that anger out, hurt me. ”
That was all guys liked to do to me anyway. Except Akio.
Jace snatched my jaw in his hand, and I resisted the urge to flinch. “I said tomorrow.”
I forced a giggle. “I love when you get all dominant like that. If you want to wait until tomorrow”—I glanced down at my body and pressed my tits against his chest—“for this, then I’ll see you at my house at seven.
” An urge to puke after saying those words bubbled up inside my throat, but I swallowed it down and headed toward my car. “Don’t be late, lover boy.”
Once I climbed inside the car, I shoved my key into the ignition with a shaky hand and sped off in a hyperventilating fit. I drove all the way around the school to the student drop-off section and parked on the side of the road, just staring at the group of people to calm myself.
Before Dad showed up and asked me what had happened.
Except …
When I looked across the field, Allie Hall—Jace’s stepsister—now stood across from Jace and stared at him with a mix of horror, despair, and sadness. I gripped the steering wheel and looked at her through wide, teary eyes because I recognized that pain on her face.
Helplessness.
Loneliness.
Heartbreak.
Jace stared back at her with wide brown eyes, like a deer in fucking headlights on one of Redwood’s back roads. They exchanged a few words, and then he stepped toward her, causing her to move backward and wrap her arms around her body.
Pain shot through my chest.
They loved each other, and I … and I … had caused this.
I caused every bad thing to happen in Redwood.
After another few words, she barreled toward him and shoved him back, tears streaming down her cheeks. Through my slightly rolled down window, I listened to her scream at him, the pain in her voice unbearable.
“What was that? What was it? Tell me! Are you fucking sleeping with her again?”
My hands tightened around the steering wheel, manicured nails digging into my palms. I bit back a cry and tried desperately to pull my gaze away from them, but I couldn’t do it. They loved each other—it had been obvious to me since sophomore year—and I had destroyed their relationship.
Twice.
Jace grabbed her wrists and said something quiet to her.
“No! I’m not going to drop it. This is my business, Jace. So, tell me. Fucking tell me!”
While I didn’t want her to cry because this was all my fault, her sobs muffled mine in the car. I placed a hand over my mouth, tears stinging my eyes. Why couldn’t I do anything right? Why did I have to hurt everyone?
“What do you want me to say?” Jace shouted. “That I’m sleeping with her? Is that what you want to hear, Allie? Do you want to hear all the fucking things I’m doing with her that I used to do with you? Why are you making such a big deal out of this?”
But Jace was lying.
We hadn’t slept together. Ever.
We had gotten close—so close. Multiple times. But we had both stopped each other.
“Because I love you, Jace!” Allie shouted.
Pain flooded through every inch of me, my body in tingles. I cried out loud, not caring anymore, and shook my head. This was my fault. Allie’s pain. Jace’s pain. My fucking pain. I had caused it all when I was just trying to survive.
Jace’s features softened—in a way that was similar but different from when I used to say I love you to Hannah and she’d stare down at me in awe.
Something about having someone to care and love you, no matter how terrible of a human being you thought you were, no matter how hard life became, it was nice.
And that look … was the most precious thing to me.
Now, I had broken the trust between them.
Imani suddenly enveloped Allie in her arms and pushed her into a car. After slamming the door, Imani twirled around, said something snappy to Jace, then drove off with Allie in tow as Jace stood there, defeated.
I wiped my tears with the back of my hand and wished people at Redwood could mind their business instead of now gossiping about Allie and Jace, but the people surrounding Jace were whispering tensely with each other.
Jace and Allie might’ve been stepsiblings, but before their parents married … they had been together. And I had been the one to rip them apart. All because of Dad. All because I hadn’t been strong enough to stand up to him.
All because I feared that he’d kill me if I didn’t listen.
Aimlessly looking around in the crowd, my gaze locked on to Akio, who stood by himself on the sidewalk on the outskirts of the mob with his hands stuffed into his coat pockets, his body turned toward me and his glasses all foggy from the cold, but somehow, I knew he was looking right at me.
Akio turned on his heel and headed in the opposite direction, shoulders slumped forward.
I had seen him at the game tonight, had forced myself to be extra loud with the cheers, to hit the stunts perfectly so he’d notice me out of the rest of the girls.
And now … I had betrayed his trust too.
I exited the car, slammed my door, and ran across the parking lot to the pack where Akio had disappeared. “Excuse me. Excuse me!” I pushed through the horde, elbowing people so they’d get the hint. “Move!”
After I finally made it through the herd of students, I glanced around in the dark in hopes of finding Akio, to explain myself, to promise that I wasn’t doing this because I wanted to, but because I had to.
But he was already gone.