Chapter 7
Hayleigh
Fuck, fuck and more fucks.
I overshared. Why did I do that? Why did I say what I was thinking at that precise moment in time?
Why? Because Nate Peterson is a magician of some sort.
He must have waved some magic around me to make me spill the beans, because deep down, that’s what I feel.
That somehow everything Pete Winters did was ultimately my fault, and by the look on Nate’s face. I’m right.
He slowly sets his plate of food down, takes the list out of the bag, and takes out a pen. He writes something right at the bottom of the paper, folds it once he’s done and puts it back in the bag. Curious, I ask. “What did you write?”
“That was for me to know and you to find out, but not yet. It’s something I need to do.” He takes a bite of his sandwich, and the silence around us is deafening. “You ask if people hate you because of what he did?”
I nod.
“They don’t. Not one single person that matters to you hates you or thinks you did anything wrong.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to try to stem the flow of tears threatening to spill onto my face.
I want to open up to Nate. I don’t know why, because I haven’t even been able to open up fully to Emmy or Lacey, but Nate, he’s safe.
“You-uh-you never asked, that day, when my mother called. You never asked what was wrong or pushed me to tell you what happened. Why?” It’s as if my brain can’t comprehend someone not wanting something from me. No matter how small.
He shrugs. “It wasn’t my place to push you for an explanation. That’s your business, and if you want to tell me, great, I’ll gladly hear everything there is about you, but you should only be sharing things that you want to share, not because you think you owe that other person anything.”
I take a deep breath and decide that sharing is something I can do with him.
“My mother has always been very good at criticising everything that I do. She had a say in everything I ever did. Dating, jobs, clothes, you name it, and Morgana Wallcroft had the final say.” I wait for him to jump in and say something, like everyone else always does with pearls of wisdom or sympathy, but Nate stays quiet, and so I carry on.
“She was over the moon when I introduced her to Pete. I should have known then that something wasn’t quite right.
” I laugh, but it lacks any humour. “You see, Morgana and Frank Wallcroft are old money. They’re all about image and having powerful friends in the right places; it just so happened that one of her close friends was Pete’s mother.
I didn’t know it at the time, and I assumed his interest in me was because of me, but it wasn’t.
It was all a very well-crafted lie on our parents' behalf.”
Nate’s suddenly sitting beside me, he doesn’t speak, instead he takes hold of my hand and rubs small, slow circles on the back of it.
I give him a grateful smile. “He was nice at first, polite and attentive, but then over time, little things happened that made me doubt what kind of person he was. When I challenged him, he would say things like, ‘Is that what you really think of me?’ and ‘Don’t I love you, aren’t I good to you?
’ One of his favourite things to do was to compare himself to Chad.
He’d point out how much of a horrible person he was and how he wasn’t a gentleman, and because I had fucking blinkers on, I believed every word he said because there was no way Pete was like Chad.
” I roughly swipe at the tears that fall freely.
“And he wasn’t the same, not in the same way.
Chad was outwardly an arsehole to Emmy; he showed his true colours time and time again, but Pete… he was stealthy with it.”
“You weren’t to know Shortcake. Some people are so good at hiding their true selves that they start to believe their own lies. That’s not on you.”
“My mother called that day demanding I come home, because my sister is getting engaged. She told me that maybe she will make it down the aisle. Something I couldn’t do.”
Nate nudges my arm, and when I turn my head, he has the paper again. He unfolds it, keeps the part where he wrote before hidden, and writes.
Piss off, Morgana Wallcroft
I burst out laughing. “Okay, hotshot, how do you plan on doing that?”
He throws me a wink. “I have my ways. For now, though, you need to eat up because a furious lady is standing by the hidden door where we came through.”
Sure enough, when I turn around, a woman is standing by the door, tapping her watch and giving us the evil eye as we hurriedly pack up our things and rush by her, throwing out apologies and giggling like two school kids who’ve been caught up to no good.
When we’re safe enough away, I stop and put a hand on Nate’s arm, he stops with me, and I lean in to kiss his cheek. “Thank you.” It’s all I have for now, it’s all I’m willing to share, but for the first time in a long time, it feels enough.
**********
One week later…
The sun is high overhead. I’m tanning my body while listening to the restless sounds of Archie huffing and puffing every two minutes like the big bad fucking wolf. Right, that’s it.
“Archie, I swear to all that is holy, if you even think about huffing and puffing again, I am going to dunk you under the pool until you can no longer breathe. Do I make myself clear?”
He has the good sense to look, wide-eyed and nod. Ethan mumbles. “Shit, that even scared me.”
Archie shifts on the sun lounger once more. “Well, I am so sorry that my discomfort is annoying all of you.”
Feeling a little bad, I sit up. “What’s wrong?”
His face tinges red, and he looks from side to side before whispering. “I’m itchy. Down there.”
“Oh, fucking hell, Archie. I don’t need to know that!” I stick my fingers in my ears and think happy thoughts, but he swats my arm away.
“Not like that, you pervert! I can’t explain it, I swear, Nate’s pranking me again.” He adjusts himself in his shorts, and I have to look away.
“What’s Nate doing?” Nate saunters over to where we’re sitting, and Archie points a finger at him.
“Please tell me you didn’t?” His poor eyes are pleading, but Nate looks around as confused as the rest of us.
And then we hear it, a quiet snort at first and then a snigger before Ethan and Rafe erupt into guffaws. They can’t hold in their glee as Ethan swipes something from his bag and chucks it to Archie. Turning it over in his hand, he shows us the joke itching powder that they dumped into his shorts.
I give them both a dirty look. “That’s really fucking mean. I’m telling your mum and making sure that you don’t get any trifle the next time there’s a Sunday dinner!”
Ethan stops laughing. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I stand up to my full five feet and put my hands on my hips. “Try me.”
“Who says you’d be invited anyway?” The words hit their mark, as tears sting the back of my eyes, and my throat closed up, because he’s right.
I haven’t been to a Peterson Sunday dinner yet, and why would I?
After everything Pete has done to this family, why would they even want me?
I turn on my heel, snatching my things from the sun lounger and storming off.
It shouldn’t bother me, but it does, and he probably didn’t mean it the way it came out, but the words stung either way because, at the moment, I don’t feel like I belong anywhere.
I make it to the lifts, stabbing the button repeatedly, trying to hurry the fucking thing down.
I jump when a hand grabs hold of my arm, and Nate spins me around, his eyes soft, and I wait for the apology, the explanation that his brother is a good guy and he didn’t mean it, but it doesn’t come, and instead, Nate Peterson knows exactly what I need in that moment.
“He’s a dick, shall we head out for a bit?” He smiles at me, and I melt into a puddle, nodding along.
**********
There’s nothing more that I want to do right now than drink, but that isn’t going to make me feel any better, and since Pete, I’ve found that I haven’t drunk as much alcohol, and I don’t know whether that’s because of him that I cut down or it was being with him that made me drink.
We walk along the Vegas strip, the sun blazing overhead as the sounds fly around us, and I find I’m enjoying getting lost. Out here, I don’t need to worry about what people think of me or whether or not I’m saying or doing the wrong thing.
Nate grabs hold of my hand and interlinks our fingers. “So what else do you want on your list?”
I’m not expecting the question, but for some reason, the answer pops into my head, and I blurt it out. “A cheesy romcom moment.”
Nate laughs. “Cheesy romcom moment, like dancing in the rain?”
I scrunch my nose. “God no, I hate getting wet.”
Nate snorts. “That’s what she didn’t say.”
I slap his ridiculously hard abs. “Pig. You know what I mean. No, I mean something fun and romantic…forget I said anything.”
I try to remove my hand as the feeling of familiar humiliation crashes over me, and I remember the time when I had tried to be spontaneous and romantic with Pete.
We were at his family's estate for a barbecue, where my family had also been invited. He was talking to his friends, and I walked over to him, waited for him to finish talking and asked if I could have a kiss. For some reason, in that moment, watching him was all I wanted. I remember him laughing in my face and rolling his eyes before telling me to move along, and he’d come and see me later on.
I remember turning my back and hearing them all laughing about how clingy I could be.
It isn’t until my arm jerks that I realise Nate has stopped walking and is standing stock still. He tilts his head to one side. “I guess you didn’t hear me just then?”
I shake my head. “Sorry.”