Chapter 39 Blake
BLAKE
brEAKFAST IS TENSE.
For me anyway.
Everyone else is living their lives in blissful oblivion while I steal glances at Beau, wishing I could see his expression behind those dark glasses. What the hell was he thinking last night? AJ is his best friend.
This is bad. Very, very, very bad.
The parents attribute his sunglasses and surly demeanor to his hangover, which I’m sure is also bad—he looked beyond wasted last night—but I don’t think that’s the only reason he’s shielding his eyes from the table.
Dean is clearly trying not to laugh as he glances at his son. “Doing okay there, kid?”
Beau grunts. He shoves some bacon into his mouth and chews fast. He once told me his go-to cure for hangovers is piles and piles of bacon, and he’s already eaten an entire tray to himself this morning.
Tara and AJ are both conspicuously absent. They haven’t missed a single breakfast since they got here, so this doesn’t bode well.
I feel like that psychic in the thriller I read this summer. The heroine could see all these horrific accidents coming and couldn’t do a damn thing to stop them. Yet the one thing she couldn’t see was her husband’s affair with her mother. The irony.
It doesn’t take long for my premonition to come to fruition. Less than ten minutes later, the french doors fly open. One of them hits the frame with a crash, startling everyone.
“Hey,” Allie chides. “Go easy on the door, AJ.”
He doesn’t pay her any attention. He stomps toward the table.
“You fucking asshole.”
As everyone watches, stunned, AJ hauls Beau out of his chair, gripping him by the collar.
“AJ,” Garrett warns, while Dean’s shoulders square up at seeing his son manhandled.
“You want to tell them?” AJ’s voice thickens with rage. “Or should I?”
Beau doesn’t answer. He just stands there, shame carved into every line of his face. Even hungover, with his eyes bloodshot and features gaunt with pain, he’s still one of the most attractive people at this table.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” my dad mutters. “What’s going on now?”
AJ’s lips curl into a sneer. “He fucked my girlfriend last night. In the goddamn boathouse while I was asleep upstairs. He fucked my girlfriend.” AJ spits out the words like they’re burning his tongue.
“Ah, hell,” I hear Dean murmur.
Beau finally speaks. “AJ—”
AJ’s fist connects with Beau’s jaw, the resulting crack echoing like a gunshot on the deck.
Beau’s head rears back, but he doesn’t defend himself.
He staggers backward, grunting. He doesn’t try to block the second punch or the third.
He locks his stance and takes it, flinching with every hit but making no move to fight back.
“Garrett,” Hannah orders. “Stop this.”
But none of the men at the table move to stop this.
“Let them work it out,” Dean murmurs.
“Fight me, you goddamn prick,” AJ roars, lunging at Beau again.
He slams his fist into Beau’s stomach, and I wince at the solid thud it makes. Then he does it again, sending Beau staggering back against the railing.
Gray rises to his feet as his two best friends go at it, but he doesn’t interfere either. He simply watches with a stoic expression.
“I’m sorry,” Beau says quietly. “I was drunk.”
That gets him another uppercut to the face. Only when blood pours out of his nostrils do the parents get involved.
“All right, enough,” Garrett commands. “You got it out of your system.”
My dad pries AJ off Beau while Allie hurries over to her son with a napkin. She tries to press his nose, but he shrugs her hand off.
“Mom, stop,” he mutters. Blood trickles from his nose and lip, leaving red streaks all over his jaw. “I deserve it.”
Near the railing, AJ is fighting my dad’s hold. His breathing is ragged, dark eyes wild. He’s shaking with rage.
“Calm down, son,” Dad urges.
Finally, AJ pushes out of the hold. “I’m done here.” His hard eyes settle on Beau, his jaw grinding. “We’re fucking done here. Don’t talk to me ever again.”
It’s then that I notice Tara in the doorway, frozen, her eyes red and wet with tears. AJ notices her too and scoffs at her.
“You can find your own way to the airport,” he spits out.
When she reaches for him, he shoves her hand off him and stalks past her without a backward look.
I find Beau on the beach a while later, sitting with his hands on his knees, staring at the lake. At the sound of my footsteps, he glances up, and I almost gasp. He looks wrecked. Lip swollen. Blood caked at his nostrils.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I sigh, sinking down beside him on the sand.
He curls his hands tighter over his knees, his broad shoulders hunched over as if he’s trying to disappear into the sand. “Don’t start, B. Not now.”
“He’s your best friend. Since you were in diapers. You threw a twenty-year friendship away for a girl? What was going through your head?”
Beau barks out a bitter laugh. “Nothing. My head was a blank space because I was drunk off my ass. It was a mistake.”
“A mistake. That’s what you call screwing your best friend’s girlfriend.”
“I was completely hammered. I don’t even remember half of it.”
“That makes it better? You fucked her in the boathouse while he was sleeping upstairs, totally oblivious. You think that’s just a little mistake? That’s goddamn nuclear, Beau.”
He visibly swallows. “I’m not proud of what happened, okay? I feel like shit. Is that what you want to hear?”
I shake my head in disapproval. “Is this about me?” I have to ask.
“Oh, fuck off, Blake. Don’t flatter yourself. I was wasted and stupid and horny, and she came on to me, and I was too drunk to say no. That’s it.”
“Really. It had nothing to do with me turning you down the other night and you finding out about me and Wyatt.”
“It had nothing to do with you,” he replies through clenched teeth. “It was just me being a dumb, drunk asshole who didn’t think beyond the next five seconds.”
“So your brilliant drunk logic was to blow up AJ’s relationship and your lifelong friendship? Because that’s what you’ve done.”
He tries to shift his gaze back to the water, but I grab his sleeve and force eye contact. The shame lining his features softens some of my anger.
“You need to fix this,” I say firmly.
“I know.” His voice cracks with guilt. “Stop looking at me like that. I hate what I did, okay?” Bleakly, he staggers to his feet.
“B—”
“Just leave me alone. I can’t do this right now. I already feel like shit, and I don’t need you making me feel worse.”
“Maybe you should feel worse,” I call after him. “Maybe you deserve to.”
He stops for half a second, shoulders tensing. But he doesn’t turn around. A moment later, he marches off, leaving me alone on the beach.