Chapter 42
Creed
My tongue is still inside Flora’s mouth when I’m yanked back. My head snaps to the side a second before Noah’s fist slams into my face and pain explodes across my cheekbone.
Blood fills my mouth and I square up, ready to swing. It’s a reflex. No matter who it is, if I get hit, I hit back, but Dash moves faster and shoves himself between us, one hand braced against my chest, the other against Noah’s.
“Alright, that’s enough blood for one evening. Jesus Christ, guys, you need air.”
“I’m fine,” I bite out.
“You’re far from fine,” he shoots back, curling his fingers around my bicep.
Noah doesn’t argue. Breathing hard, he grabs my other arm, and they drag me through the crowd, out of the common room, down the corridor, and through the front doors.
Cold air hits my face, but it doesn’t calm me down. I don’t think anything will until I get to Jed’s bar.
Dash and Noah shove me against the wall, my head hitting the stone, adding insult to the throbbing in my temples. Everything aches, my knuckles are split, and my chest feels like it’s caving in.
“Deal with him,” Noah says to Dash. “I’ll go check on Hyde and Millie.”
“Alright. Let’s see.” Dash moves in front of me as Noah walks away. “What are you doing, Creed?”
“Making room.”
“Yeah... fuck, no.” He jogs after Noah and taps his shoulder on the way past, shouting, “Tag, you’re it!” as he disappears inside the building.
Noah huffs, eyes rolling to the sky before he comes back. He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lights one up and puts it in my mouth. He lights another for himself, his face vanishing behind a smoke curtain for a second.
“Go on,” he prompts. “Explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain. I’m done. It’s you she wants.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Millie wants you.”
“Yeah?” I take a long drag, my pulse calming down slowly. “Is that why she was with you the whole evening? Is that why she ended up in your arms?”
He rears back and pinches the bridge of his nose, letting out a harsh breath. “You’re unbelievable. She was shaken. You beat the shit out of a guy right in front of her, what did you expect?”
I don’t answer. There’s nothing more to say, so I focus on the cigarette burning between my fingers, the cool air swatting my face, the familiarity of bleeding knuckles.
This is my normal.
I know how to exist between my friends, knock out someone who pisses me off, and silence my feelings.
What I don’t know is how to feel them.
“Come on,” I say, flicking my cigarette to the ground and crushing it under my shoe. “I need to clean up.”
“We’re not done talking,” he says. “But maybe we should finish in my room. It’ll be safer when Hyde comes looking for you.”
“You think he knows I’m...” I trail off, unsure how to finish that sentence. Dating is not the right word, and fucking doesn’t fit what I’ve built in my head with Millie.
“I think you made it pretty clear.”
We head inside and ten minutes later, his room smells of antiseptic. The first aid kit is open on the table, gauze and disinfectant spread out for my benefit.
I sit on the edge of his armchair, forearms braced on my thighs, cleaning dried blood from my knuckles. I don’t normally need to focus so intently, but tonight, everything is better than thinking, so I repeat each step inside my head.
Pour, wipe, wrap, pour, wipe, wrap.
Too bad Noah’s not done with the psychoanalysis.
“I kept her close all night because I wanted you to focus on the fight,” he says, opening a beer.
He doesn’t offer me one. Asshole.
“I saw you watching her in that dress,” he continues. “And I knew you’d lose your shit if someone touched her. She and I are friends, Creed, nothing more.”
“She was holding on to you.”
“She was shaken,” he repeats, slower now, pushing the words past clenched teeth like he’s trying not to lose it.
“We are not in competition. I shot my shot, and she didn’t want me.
And it’s for the best. I liked her when she was quiet and shy.
She’s not that anymore, she’s growing, healing, and the girl she’s becoming isn’t my type, Creed. End of fucking story.”
I drag a heavy hand down my face. I’m done with this conversation, but he isn’t. And he’s wrong.
“I’m not jealous, Noah. You backed off and I trust you, but that doesn’t change shit. She wants you.” I drop my gaze back to my split knuckles, unable to look him in the eye when I say, “She moaned your name in her sleep the other night.”
“Wow...” he huffs. “Okay, it’s decided, then.”
My eyes snap to him as he starts ranting.
“She’s been sneaking around with you for weeks, fucked you in every corner of the campus, cried over you twice, but yeah... she moaned my name, so I better go buy a ring. Jesus, do you fucking hear yourself, Creed?”
I gnash my teeth while he takes a long pull from his bottle, draining half before he slams it back on the coffee table.
“It was a dream. It doesn’t mean anything and you’re grasping at straws. What’s this really about?”
I don’t fucking know.
Nothing, something, everything.
“I don’t fit into her world,” I say. “She’s smart, and pretty, and she’s trying to put herself back together, and I...” I gesture at my split lip and bloody knuckles. “I’m this... I’m my fucking father, Noah. How long before I hurt her?”
He huffs out a humorless laugh. “You’re nothing like your father. Stop making excuses and admit you’re falling for her and you’re fucking scared.”
Of course I’m fucking scared.
She’s everything and I’m nothing much at all. What the hell can I give her? No matter what I do, who I become, how much I try, nothing can change the fact I already almost killed that girl.
Why the hell would she choose me?
“You always do this when shit matters,” Noah continues, staring at me for a long second. “You did it with Hyde. You did it with Dash and me. You push and pull, waiting for us to draw a line and leave you behind it. And you’re doing it again, but harder because Millie means more to you.”
He picked the wrong major, I swear. He should be a shrink.
“You kissed Flora because you thought you were losing Millie and wanted to hurt her before she hurt you.”
“That’s not—”
“It is,” he cuts in. “You panicked. You thought she was slipping away, so you burned your own house down.”
The door opens without a knock. Hyde enters and every muscle in my body tightens. I straighten, my shoulders hiking up, body bracing for mayhem.
Dash is right behind him, closing the door with a soft click that feels like a guillotine. Hyde might hide his violent tendencies, but they’re there. Buried under a heap of control that’s about to snap like a dry twig.
His gaze lands on my split lip, moves to my wrapped knuckles, then to the bruise blooming on my cheek. “You good?” he asks, coming closer.
I flinch when he grabs my jaw, turning it left and right.
“Ice it.”
My brows pull together but it’s Dash who asks, “That’s it?”
Hyde turns on him, snatches a beer from the crate beside Noah and plops down onto the couch. He cracks the bottle open, taking a long pull, eyes still on me.
The suspense is killing me.
Confusion threads the adrenaline pumping through my veins. “You’re not going to say anything?”
“I just did,” he replies. “Ice it.”
“That’s not what he means,” Dash mutters.
Hyde’s gaze holds steady on me. “You want me to lose my shit? Beat you up? Yell?”
I don’t answer, because yeah. I expect nothing less. I expect him to swing first then tell me I’ve crossed an uncrossable line. That we’re fucking done. For real this time.
But he says nothing and before I find my tongue, the door bangs open, clapping against the wall hard enough to leave a mark.
Millie walks in, still wearing that denim dress, her eyes red, cheeks wet, fingers closed around a prescription bottle.
My heart kicks back against my ribs, punching the breath out of my lungs, and in my head I see her in that hospital bed. Ashen skin, bruises under her closed eyes, pale lips...
Hyde clocks the pills, too, his face blanching as he straightens, alert and scared. “Millie—”
“I didn’t take them,” she blurts, closing the door with more care than she used to open it.
Noah shifts in his seat, his brow furrowed, body angled toward Millie like he’s ready to jump forward if she tries downing the pills. I’m pretty sure we’re all ready to tackle her.
She comes closer, eyes sweeping over Dash and Noah, avoiding me entirely. Her fingers tremble around the bottle, but her chin lifts once she settles on Hyde.
“You keep blaming me for something I didn’t do,” she says. “You don’t get to act like I stole from you.”
“That’s not what I—”
“No,” she cuts in. “Don’t interrupt me. I listened. Now it’s your turn. I was a kid too, you know? I didn’t understand why I couldn’t stop throwing up, why I wasn’t allowed to go home, or why the nurses kept sticking needles in my arms.”
Hyde’s face loses what little color it had, his shoulders caving in. Even Dash looks like he’s been struck in the face when Millie swats her tears away. I grab the armrests, fingers gouging in because that’s all I can do to stop myself pulling her into my arms.
“I didn’t understand why my hair was falling out,” she continues, her voice unsteady, but face determined. “Why Mom wouldn’t stop crying and Dad couldn’t look at me without his face breaking.”
She swallows hard, inhaling deeply.
“I was scared, Hyde,” she admits quietly. “I was seven and the only thing I knew was that my big brother stopped bringing me sweets and sitting next to my bed.”
“Jesus,” Dash whispers.
Millie either doesn’t hear that or chooses not to react, her attention locked on Hyde the whole time. He drags a hand through his hair, eyes glassy now, jaw trembling.
“When I got better,” she continues, “I thought I’d get my brother back. I tried to make you come back. I followed you everywhere, talked to you through your bedroom door, baked you cookies.”
She sniffles, glancing down at the pills. “You’re the one who chose literally anyone else over me. And when last year I needed you most,” she whispers. “You didn’t answer.”
My stomach twists at the memory of that night and the words rip out of me before I can stop them.
“Don’t blame him for my mistake.”
She flinches at my voice, her breath catching.
Hyde sits up, pointing a finger at me. “It wasn’t your mistake. You didn’t do shit, Elias. You didn’t even know she existed—”
“That doesn’t change what happened,” I insist, my attention not veering from Millie, my hands still grasping the armrests. “He didn’t answer because of me. You almost fucking died because of me.”
Her eyes finally meet mine, but she doesn’t look dumbstruck. Not disappointed. Not even sad. She looks furious.
“Did you take his phone away?” she demands. “Did you threaten him? Hold him down so he couldn’t answer?”
She catches me so off guard that I falter. We’ve had this conversation inside my head a million times and it never ended this way. She was always crying, shoving me away, slapping my face, telling me not to ever come near her again.
“I didn’t answer because I didn’t want to,” Hyde says, exhaling a shaky breath.
Millie doesn’t flinch or recoil. It’s like she knew all along, and now he’s admitted it, she’s got closure. Her chin stops trembling, tears stop falling, and her shoulders relax as she exhales a steady breath.
“Okay,” she says. “Next time you don’t want me intruding on your life maybe don’t drag me into it.”
“Millie—”
“Just...” She pauses, pinching her lips, that gorgeous face so resigned it makes me feel sick. “Just stay away from me.”
She turns, and three seconds later, it’s just the four of us. Noah staring after her, Dash running a hand down his face, and me... watching my best friend’s eyes locked on the door.
It takes ten seconds before he leaves.
“Fuck...” Dash huffs, cracking open a bottle of beer. “And I thought I had issues.”