Chapter 15
I pinned my eyes on Andrew Reinhart, watching the smug fucker making his way through the crowds. Whoever the fuck invited him was going to get their ass kicked.
I clenched the bottle in my hand so tight, it cracked, and I felt blood running down my palm. I didn’t feel a damn thing though.
“Hey, shit, Hudson,” War grabbed my arm. “What the fuck?”
“Let go,” I snarled.
War stared at me, shocked at the tone of my voice. He glanced around to see what I was looking at, but to him, nothing was out of place. I tossed the bottle aside but barely glanced at my hand. It didn’t hurt. There wasn’t that much blood. I’d fucking live.
Reinhart wouldn’t. I took a step towards him, but War grabbed me, demanding to know what the fuck was going on.
That was when I saw Waverley. She was hugging herself, her face as white as a sheet. Was she shaking? I started towards her, shaking War off me. In my head, I was raging. I wanted to go up to her and scream that I knew what she’d done.
Something about the way she was holding herself made me hesitate. She wasn’t even looking at me anymore, she wasn’t looking at anything, she’d gone… blank. Then she turned and ran.
What the fuck?
For a second, I wasn’t sure what to do. On the one hand, she’d just been confronted by the asshole she cheated on me with. If I had any sense, I’d say fuck her and go back to the party, but on the other, there was something about the way she ran.
I’d been watching her throughout the night, trying not to let anyone see I was staring at her.
She’d been having fun, laughing with Rosa’s family, being playful with Connor.
It was like old times, and I’d found myself smiling.
She was barefoot again. I’d noticed that when she came out of the clubhouse.
I’d noticed a lot about her, like how her jeans clung to her, showing off her unbelievable ass, making me want to grab on to it.
Her long hair was down, wild the way I’d always loved it.
She’d seemed carefree until that asshole approached her.
Until he’d touched her and whispered something in her ear.
I did something I never expected I would do, given what happened five years ago. I went after her.
Connor was standing by the swimming pool and for a second I faltered, not liking the way he was staring at the water, his face swirling with confusion and anger.
It was the look that Connor got when he was about to break. I was torn again, but War was coming. And not for me.
I lifted my chin to make sure he was okay dealing with Connor, and he nodded, making his way to his man, a determined look on his face as he quickened his pace.
I took off again, heading the way Waverley had run.
I couldn’t see her anymore and felt the sudden urgent need to find her. My heart was beating overtime. There was something wrong. I’d always been able to read her, and something was off. Way off.
I heard a sound to my left and glanced over, seeing a shadow hurrying towards the lake.
I took off after it, hoping to God it wasn’t one of my brothers heading into the trees for a quick fuck.
After a few strides, I could see it was her, but she was moving fast and even though I called her, she didn’t hear.
I picked up the pace, eating up the ground between us with my longer stride. She was at the lake when I caught up to her, grabbing her by the waist.
She went crazy, started kicking out, punching, and screaming.
“Waverley, it’s me, fuck,” I grunted when her foot hit my inner thigh, almost nailing me in the balls. “Hey, stop it, will you? Shit.”
“Hudson?” she shuddered and stopped her flailing about.
“Yeah,” I still held on, keeping her steady. “What the hell?” I asked her.
She shrugged out of my grasp and took a couple of paces backwards, almost losing her balance. I reached for her again, but she straightened herself up without my help.
“What is going on?” I demanded. “Why’d you run?”
“Run? I didn’t. I just…needed some space. It’s a lot,” she looked around us, as if expecting someone else.
“You’re lying.”
“No I’m not, I’m not. Look, it’s just all… I’m not used to this stuff anymore and, I think… I should go back to the house. I’m a little drunk.”
I folded my arms over my chest. Yes, she was erratic, and I could smell the alcohol on her. I’d seen her throwing back shots, but she wasn’t that drunk that she didn’t know what she was doing.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she said, planting her feet and mirroring me with her arms folded.
“Like what?” I arched a brow.
“Like that.” She waved a hand at me. “Like you have any say in what I do. Like you have a right to chase after me and demand to know what is wrong.”
“So, you admit there is something wrong?”
“No,” she threw her hands in the air, casting a quick look back towards the compound.
Then she turned and walked towards the lake. I followed, and she looked over her shoulder at me and scowled. Like she thought I might have decided she wasn’t worth it, and headed back to the party.
But I wasn’t going anywhere until she told me what was wrong. She didn’t know I knew about her and Reinhart. Some small part of me wanted to see if she would tell me. If she would have the balls to give me the truth.
When she reached the water, she stepped into it, where it was still shallow enough that it touched the tops of her ankles. A few more steps and the ground dropped away. For a second, I wondered if she was about to jump into the water.
She didn’t move any further but let out a sigh, and I figured the run through the grass and gravel might have hurt the soles of her feet.
I stood behind her, waiting. I could wait all damn night if I had to. She thought she was stubborn. She had seen nothing yet.
“You don’t need to stay,” she said. “I’m just going to stay here a little while before I go to bed.”
When I didn’t respond, she looked over her shoulder at me. Her nose wrinkled, but she kept her mouth shut and turned away from me.
I stepped up next to her. I hadn’t been in too dissimilar a position with her brother when he told me the truth about the threat against Waverley.
King had men patrolling the grounds. The space we owned was so vast someone could sneak into the compound, but it was fenced in, except around the construction site. Cameras would alert us if anything were out of the ordinary.
Still, I didn’t like the thought of her being out here alone.
“What did Reinhart want?” I asked. We’d been standing in silence for five minutes, wrapped in our own thoughts, but I was done waiting for her.
She flinched, and I turned to look at her. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her I knew.
“He’s an asshole,” she murmured.
“Really?” I scoffed.
“What?” she looked at me, guarded.
I huffed out a laugh and looked beyond her into the woods, towards the willow tree where we used to lie together, holding each other. I would listen while she came up with her crazy plans for the four of us, content to just have her in my arms.
“What?” she asked again with more snap in her tone.
“Are we doing this?” I asked.
“Doing what?” Her brows lowered in confusion.
“Fuck.”
I ran a hand through my hair. I thought about walking away, but then decided I would not do that this time.
“Fuck it,” I turned and took a step toward her, let the anger come out. “I wasn’t totally to blame for that night, Waverley. You need to take some responsibility.”
“I need to take responsibility?” she glared at me, an incredulous look on her face.
“Yes, it was because of what you did that I even came back here and fucked that girl.”
She looked at me, dumbfounded at the abrupt change in topic. My anger spiked even further. How could she be acting like she hadn’t been the one that started this? I was not taking the blame. Not a fucking chance in hell.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about?” she said, but her fists balled at her side, and she looked nervous.
Guilty as hell. I couldn’t understand why she was denying this.
“I saw you!” I yelled at her.
“Saw me?” she asked, one hand going up to the top of her t-shirt, bunching it in her hand.
“You and Reinhart.” Even in the dark, I saw her blanch. “Just admit it, Waverley. You did it first.”
“Oh my God,” she staggered back from me, and grabbed her head.
She looked as if she was going to be sick. I almost took a step toward her, but I couldn’t.
“You were there?” she looked at me, her voice quiet. “You saw?”
“Yes,” I spat. “I saw everything.”
Her legs collapsed underneath her and for a second, I had no idea what was going on. It destroyed me when I saw what she had done all those years ago. It had pierced right through my soul, but this didn’t seem right. She looked on the verge of a breakdown.
“King cancelled the run, so I came to the hotel, and I saw you. I. Saw. You. Getting into the car with him. With that fucking asshole who’d spent four years calling us all trash.”
“Oh God,” she breathed out.
I thought it would shock her to find out I was there, that I had seen what happened. But this was weird. Waverley wasn’t the meek and mild type. I expected her to lose her shit and shout at me now she was putting two and two together. Finally, figuring out this was all her fault. Not mine.
Then she retched hard and vomited on the floor, clutching at her stomach.
“Shit,” I stepped towards her and pulled her hair back away from her face.
The scent of vomit made my stomach turn. She was drunker than I thought.
I wanted to be angry, to hold on to that emotion. She coughed a few times, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and shuffled away from the puddle of vomit. I straightened up, standing over her, watching as her shoulders shuddered. She was crying? She was upset? Okay, the anger was back.
“Why didn’t you come to the car?”
That stopped me. My mouth had been half open, about to rip into her. Her voice was soft, sad.
“Why did you let it happen?”