Chapter 8 #3
I ignore the jab and try to reason with the pouting rockstar beside me.
“What else are we going to do in here, Sloan? We both know Nina’s not coming back.
We didn’t get phone calls so no one else is coming either.
” My anger is rushing back to the surface and I need to calm down or risk pushing him further away. “Help me understand.”
I’m begging at this point. Help me understand how I lost my best friend to a man seventeen years older than us and his wife.
Help me understand how you even started down that road.
Help me understand how you could so easily give up our friendship when there were days that felt like you were all I had.
Sloan eyes me warily, assessing me like I’m going to somehow use the information against him.
I see the moment he starts thinking about how it all began because his eyes turn soft, losing that hard edge that causes them to crinkle in the corners.
The look is immediately followed by pain and without him saying a single word, I feel him shut down.
Finally, he shakes his head. “I’ll never open myself up like that to you again. You were too narrow minded to see it when it was right in front of your goddamned face. Now that it’s over, I can’t reduce what we had to words.”
Not knowing what else to do, I let my back hit the cinderblock wall behind the bench and blow out a loud sigh. The silence is deafening and only worsens when the lights dim. It’s only eight-thirty and I suspect we’ll be drenched in darkness in another thirty minutes.
Sloan’s sitting on the floor, his suit jacket across his lap. His muscle mass makes the buttons over his chest strain to keep the fabric closed and with every inhale, he risks losing one.
Eventually, his voice rings out in the silence. “Why were you at our concert?”
“Does it matter?” I ask, stalling because I don’t want to give him the answer.
“Not really. Doesn’t mean I’m not curious though.”
I start looking for the right words, knowing I’m going to answer him.
“I knew I had to deliver the news about Hailey. I guess I… uh…” I falter, that familiar feeling of guilt creeping up my spine.
“I felt I should be the one to tell you face-to-face. It just so happened you guys were playing right after she passed and I figured I needed to prepare myself before having to see you. Hiding in the crowd seemed safe enough.”
Sloan thinks about my answer for a second. “So, you got a chance to prepare at the expense of me getting caught totally off guard at work…on stage…in front of thousands of our fans? Who film everything, by the way.” He snorts. “Thanks for that.”
I hadn’t thought about it like that.
“I didn’t expect to be seen, Sloan. There were forty thousand fans in that arena.
” God, he makes me want to punch something.
I work in a hospital full of patients who come home missing limbs and suffering from severe mental trauma.
Being level-headed and following the rules are how I got where I am.
One conversation with Sloan Alexander and I’m ready to start throwing shit and punching walls.
“There could have been a hundred and forty thousand people in that arena and I still would’ve known you were there, Luke.”
It’s far from a compliment — or feelings at all — but it makes my heart do a flip in my chest all the same at hearing my former best friend acknowledge what we once had. Trying to capitalize on the moment, I force myself to make an admission.
“I saw you on that stage and I…I missed you.” It feels really weird to admit this so I try to clarify.
“I missed the friendship we had. I wouldn’t have made it through those first two years without you.
I mean, we watched people die together, Sloan.
Mostly bad men that needed to go, but fuck, man, there were innocent men in there too, plus women and kids in that mix. Hell, even our own men.”
He finally raises his gaze to meet my eyes and my heart stops. The hatred now swirling in them would be visible to a blind man. “Yeah, and one of those men belonged to me and Hailey. And it’s because of you that he’s dead.”
I knew we’d get here eventually. Perhaps it’s why I keep showing up and haven’t tried all that hard to stay away.
Sloan and I will never be okay until we hash this out and I’m tired of constantly being reminded of that every time I hear Beautiful Deceit’s songs on the radio or get blindsided when they’re the music for a popular reel on my fucking social media.
“Grant’s death was ruled an accident!” My yell echoes through the empty hallway as I jolt to my feet.
“Why have you never once blamed the parachute rigger? Why do you blame me? I wasn’t even with him!
It might’ve been my fault that you got transferred and I’m sorry!
It was probably my fault that you and he both lost your promotions and I’m sorry for that too, but I didn’t kill him! ”
Sloan jumps up, ready to meet me head on. “It wasn’t a training accident, Luke! Grant was an expert jumper! If something was wrong, he would have known!”
“He wasn’t omniscient, Sloan!”
Sloan grabs me by the throat and slams me into the unforgiving wall forcing the breath from my lungs with the space between his thumb and index finger cutting off my air supply.
“He never pulled the fucking cord!” he yells in my face.
“That’s how I know you killed him!” Sloan releases my throat and falls to the floor on his knees, his head in his hands as he doesn’t even try to hide his sobs.
“Because he never even pulled the fucking cord,” he repeats, gutting me in the process.
Grant committed suicide? That doesn’t make any sense.
“What?” I drop down next to him, my feet planted and my elbows draped over my bent knees. “How do you know that?”
It takes him a full minute to pull himself together as he clears his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“I asked Nina to pull the report. Grant committed suicide because after you blabbed your fucking mouth, he knew he’d never go any higher. All his years of service, meaningless because he fell in love with me. Those were serious allegations and you knew he’d be ruined.”
“They weren’t allegations,” I remind him slowly. “It was all true, Sloan. Grant was thirty-eight. You were twenty-one. And he was your C.O. He should’ve known better.”
“Is that supposed to make it okay? I was in love with him. Him and Hailey both. Their age didn’t matter.
His rank didn’t matter. When it was just the three of us, all we knew was love, passion, respect, pleasure.
We’d found light and goodness amidst the darkness of loss and war.
We were fortunate enough to find two true loves.
And you took them both from me.” He pushes off his knees, leaving me alone on the floor, and moves to stand by the holding cell door.
“I thought I was helping, Sloan. You have to believe me. I never wanted you to hurt like that. What was I supposed to think? He took my best friend from me. Once he had his claws in you, he starting putting us on separate details, opposite shifts. Then I find out he’s fucking you.
Do you have any idea how hard that was for me? ”
“Hard for you? Why did you even care? Why couldn’t you just let it go? We weren’t hurting anyone!”
“You were hurting me!” I fire back.
The look on his face tells me Sloan is starting to connect the dots and I break out in a cold sweat.
Suddenly, he’s stalking toward me and I scramble to my feet unsure if I need to be prepared to block a punch or brace myself for when he throws me into the wall like a rag-doll.
The size difference seems much more intimidating with his anger on full display.
Gone is his pain. This is pure rage. I try to stop my eyes from tracing his muscles through his shirt, but they won’t stop.
I take in his broad shoulders, his thick neck, the color in his cheeks.
His long, dark eyelashes demand my attention forcefully.
Fuck, he’s beautiful.
He stops half an inch from my face, breathing hard. “Not nearly as much as you hurt me.”
I would’ve preferred that he punch me again. His physical blows are much easier to withstand than his emotional ones.
He’ll never know how disgusted I am with myself and as I lay down on the opposite side of the small room, I shed a silent tear for Grant Tomlin. I just wanted my best friend back. I never meant to ruin a man’s life. Or be the driving force behind his death.