Chapter 70
CHAPTER 70
ALEC
A fter listening to Mom cry for thirty minutes straight about how Dad didn’t love her anymore and that she would do anything to get her family back, I drove to Blaise and Vera’s apartment.
If she wanted her family back, then she would have to do a lot more than cry. Trust wasn’t earned overnight, and she had shattered mine to pieces after it came to light that she and my idiot best friend—if I even wanted to call him that anymore—had fucked. More than once.
Once I parked my car in the lot, I pushed open the door, and a blast of cold air seared my face. I wrapped my coat tighter around my body and sank into the Redwood Hockey–branded wool scarf around my neck.
Ice cracked underneath my dress shoes that I hadn’t changed out of since the funeral, the salt beginning to stain the edges. After hopping up onto the curb, I yanked open the door and let the heat from inside the building envelop me.
I rubbed my numb fingers together and checked in with the security at the front desk. Once he nodded, I tugged on my scarf and headed toward the elevators for a short ride up to Vera and Blaise’s apartment. The doors began to close.
“Hold the elevator!” a familiar voice called, jogging from the front entrance to the lift.
I slipped my arm between the closing doors to stop them and stared at Oliver entering the elevator with me. Halfway inside, he paused. We stared at each other for a few moments before the doors began closing again, and he finally hopped on.
After gritting my teeth, I moved closer to the metal wall. With ragged breaths from running toward the elevator, he stood on the opposite side in silence. I stared up at the glowing numbers above the door, wishing they’d move faster.
The lift ascended, but not fast enough. I balled my hands into fists by my sides and wondered what the hell he was doing here. As far as I knew, he didn’t know anyone here from school.
Is he following me around? Wondering when I’d talk to him? Forgive him?
When the elevator dinged and the doors opened on the fourth floor, we stepped out at the same time. I clenched my jaw and peered over at him to see him walking the same way down the hall with me.
He stopped at Blaise’s door.
“What’re you doing here?” I asked before knocking.
“I’m here to pick up Maddie.”
“ I’m here to pick up Maddie.”
“Hate to break the bad news to you,” Oliver said, pounding his hand on the door. “But she called me to swing by and get her. Said that you were too busy with your family. Had to call in the big bro to?—”
The door opened, and Blaise stood in front of us.
“Alec,” Maddie called, hopping up from the couch and running toward me. She threw her arms around my shoulders and pulled me into a tight hug, her face buried into the crook of my neck and her vanilla scent drifting into my nose. “What happened?”
“I talked to Poison,” I mumbled. “Then my mom.”
Oliver stiffened to my right.
God, I honestly didn’t have anyone in my life besides Maddie that I could talk to and not completely lose it. Everyone I’d trusted and everyone I’d wanted to trust, besides her, had stomped on me. Repeatedly.
After biting my tongue, I glared at the wall ahead of me. All this time, I had been trying to keep my cool with Oliver and Mom and Dad and everyone else on my list who had betrayed me, but after seeing Piper lying in a casket tonight … I wanted to fight.
I was so sick and tired of everyone pushing me around, of hurting me, of thinking they could make things up to me with a few crocodile tears and a half-assed apology. Maybe Maddie was right. The only people we could trust to get shit done and not fuck it up were Poison.
As sour as their name sounded, they didn’t disappoint.
“Oliver, what are you doing here?” Maddie said, deadpan, finally turning toward him.
I stifled a dead chuckle caught in my throat.
“You called me to pick you up,” Oliver said.
“In an hour,” she said. “Not now. You can go.”
“Maddie, I’m not going all the way back to the house now.”
“Don’t worry. Alec can bring me home.”
Oliver pressed his lips together, jaw twitching. He didn’t like to be told no, but Maddie wasn’t going to take his shit anymore either. I was proud of her for sticking up for herself. Sometimes, I envied the strength she had.
“The fuck happened to you not liking Poison?” Blaise asked me. “You working with them?”
“No, I’m not working with them,” I said. “They jumped me.”
Maddie snorted. “They jumped you?”
My lips curled into a small smile for the first time today. “More like harassed but …”
“What’d they want?” Oliver asked.
“They told me that they strongly believe that Piper didn’t kill herself.”
Maddie and Vera shared a long gaze.
“Where’d they hear that?” Maddie asked.
“I don’t ask questions,” I said. “And if I did … I’m not sure if I would want to know.”
“How much money did you fork over for that information?” she asked.
“Too much,” I murmured.
“They charged you?!” Imani asked, leaping up from her seat and heading toward the door. “Oh, those boys are going to get it real good tonight. Come on, Allie. Let’s go beat them up.”
After grumbling, Jace shuffled behind Imani and Allie out the front door and into the hallway toward the lift.
Nicole stood up, too, and frowned, hands stuffed into her pockets. “I should get going too.”
“Oliver, you’re stinking up the place and making people leave,” Maddie sneered.
“Come on, Maddie. We’re going too,” Oliver said.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Maddie said, crossing her arms and shuffling closer to me. “Alec and I will see you at the house later tonight. Thanks for coming over an hour before I wanted you to and ruining the day.”