51. Chapter 51 #4
Boston’s eyes drag from mine to Jake, then back again. His expression shifts—confusion, to awareness, to something sharper.
“Not dead,” he rasps. His brow furrows slightly as his gaze locks on mine again.
“Your fiancé isn’t going to like this.”
My stomach squeezes.
I blink, swallow, then shake my head.
“Not my fiancé,” I croak. “I… broke it off. Archer and I are done,” I say, like I’ve already said a hundred times today.
Something flickers behind his eyes. Hope, maybe?
“What?”
I force a smile. “Archer and I are… no more.” The smile falters instantly.
“Why?” he asks, gray eyes searching.
I feel my insides go soft. “I saw what he did,” I say with a tiny shrug. “To you. And after that…” Another shrug. “I just can’t pretend anymore, Boss. He said it was self-defense, but I know better.”
“No,” Boston says, the word rough, immediate. “It was. It was self-defense. Jake and Archer—they… I—”
He cuts himself off, eyes flicking to Jake. “I’m so sorry, Jake,” he says, face contorting with despair.
Jake scoots his chair closer, holding eye contact with Boston. “I know that, Boss. And I’m telling you we’re good. Okay?”
Boston hesitates, like he’s not sure he believes him.
“You should tell her,” Jake says, giving a small jerk of his head in my direction. “She deserves to hear it. From you.”
Boston doesn’t speak. Even just lying in that hospital bed, he looks tense.
“Dude,” Jake urges. “You’re seriously not going to tell her? You took a damn bullet last night—”
Boston’s eyes flit to mine. “Some things are worse.”
The silence stretches, heavy and thick, until Jake exhales sharply and turns to me.
“The pictures my mom sent me last night were—”
“No, stop.” Boston’s voice is tight. “I’ll tell her.”
I’m holding my breath, waiting for him to finally just… explain.
Boston swallows hard, then lifts his eyes to mine. “You and I… we’re already upside down, so…” He breaks off, takes a breath. “The pictures… they were… of her and me.”
My face must give my confusion away because he adds, quieter—
“Together. Having… having sex.”
Half a second—just long enough for my brain to stop comprehending and my heart to forget how to beat. “What?” I whisper, unblinking.
“I’ve been sleeping with Jake’s mom. Since last summer.”
The room is too small. The air too hot, too thick to breathe. I’m sweating, my hands tingling as heat licks up my legs.
I’m out of my chair before I realize it, gasping, breaths too shallow, too fast.
All I can think about is getting out.
I whirl around, barely aware of Boston’s pained expression or Jake’s hand on my wrist.
“So much worse,” I hear Boston say as I reach the door and yank it open.
A second later, I’m out in the hallway, moving with no real destination. My head is spinning, assaulted with flashes of Boston and Mrs. Davis.
It doesn’t feel real.
It can’t be real.
His words.
The implications.
My feelings.
“Skye! Hey, hey, slow down.” Jake catches up, grabbing my arm and pulling me to an abrupt stop. “Breathe. Just… breathe.”
“Don’t—” I jerk away from him. “Don’t tell me to breathe.”
“You promised me,” he says, voice tight and low, aware of the nurses watching us. “You said you’d keep an open mind. You said you’d listen.”
I let out a shaky, disbelieving laugh. “You’re telling me he loves me, Jake, but he’s been sleeping with your mom? Your mom, Jake! How are you so calm?”
“Because I know the full story,” he shoots back. “Trust me, there was a reason I beat his ass last night, but—” He drags a hand through his hair. “There’s a lot more to it than him just… banging my mom.”
“But he… he cheated on me.”
The words feel wrong the second they leave my mouth.
We were never together. Not really.
And I—
God. It’s all so messed up.
Still, the thought of him with her is unbearable.
Jake shakes his head. “You’re telling me you weren’t still with Archer while you were already falling for Boss?”
I don’t respond. We both know he’s right.
I have zero right to feel this way.
And yet, I do.
“Look,” Jake says, softer now. “I’m not telling you what to do about you and Boss. But I am telling you—begging you—to hear him out.”
He rests a hand on my shoulder. “All you have to do is listen, okay? Please. We owe him that.”
I don’t know how long I stand there, but it’s long enough for my breathing to slow.
Jake’s eyebrows rise. “Let’s head back in?” His hand drops from my shoulder.
I nod, then turn back toward the room.
My chest still feels tight. My head still spinning.
None of this makes sense. None of it feels fair. But I guess Jake’s right. I owe it to Boston to at least listen.
I push the door open, my heart thumping so hard it drowns out the beeping of the machines.
Boston hasn’t moved. He’s still lying against the stiff hospital pillow, pale and bruised.
The second I enter the room, his eyes find me. Judging by the look on his face, I think it’s safe to say that our feelings match. We’re both terrified of what comes next.
I hesitate in the doorway, but step in when Jake squeezes past me.
He pulls his chair back this time. Away from Boston’s bed and to the wall. Giving us space.
I walk back to the chair beside Boston’s bed and sit, stiff and uncomfortable. I don’t reach for him this time. Just rest my hands in my lap.
“I’m listening,” I say, eyes locked on him, trying not to let my emotions—my nerves—give away how much of a mess I am. Probably too late, but I’m desperate to hold on to a shred of dignity.
Boston’s gaze drops to his blanket, then to the IV, then to Jake. Anywhere but me.
His jaw ticks once. Then again.
“I didn’t—” he starts, then stops.
Swallows.
Tries again.
“I wasn’t planning—”
Another cut-off followed by a quiet, frustrated breath.
“The night of your birthday…” he finally says, resigned, “Jake’s mom propositioned me.”
My jaw clenches, fingers back to fisting the hem of his hoodie, but I don’t move otherwise.
“I was in the kitchen, getting a glass of water when she made a move. She told me she knew about my situation, that she could help me. She offered me five hundred bucks to sleep with her that night.”
He risks a glance at me, but I remain stoic. At least externally.
“There was no way I was going to sleep with my best friend’s mom. There was no way I was going to sleep with anyone. I was already…” He breaks off. Takes another breath.
“Then Cassie called.”
Oh god.
Of course that was the trigger.
Boston’s siblings.
Not money.
Not sex.
Cassie and Bronx.
The breath leaves me all at once.
How did I not see it?
“They were being moved again. Another foster home, more strangers, more change. All that instability.” He swallows what must be a lump the size of a car. “She was sobbing, begging me to come get them.”
“But you couldn’t.” The words escape my mouth in a rush of air.
He dares another look at me. This time, it holds.
“Suddenly, saying no to one night, one hour with Jake’s mom in exchange for five hundred dollars didn’t feel like an option anymore,” he says with the tiniest shrug of his good shoulder. He shakes his head, his eyes moving to Jake. “I felt horrible. Wrong. But… I needed that money. So desperately.”
I allow my face to soften, my eyes widening as I fight the anger, the feeling of betrayal still digging its spiky claws into my heart.
“It was supposed to be a one-time thing,” he continues, voice flat. “One night. Five hundred dollars.”
“Then why didn’t it end?” I ask, half accusatory, half afraid.
“Because I’m an idiot,” he says with a humorless laugh.
“I was going to leave Jake’s the next morning.
Go back to sleeping in my car. Anything felt better than…
than sleeping in the same house as the woman who bought my body.
” His voice cracks. “But the next morning, she offered me a thousand dollars a week to be available to her whenever she wanted.”
“A thousand dollars, Skye! A week,” Jake repeats quietly, like he wants me to understand how much money that is, especially for Boston.
“And you agreed?” I ask, still hoping he’ll deny, even though my head and heart already know the answer.
His nod comes too quickly. “I didn’t think about it hard enough.
I just thought I’d have to do this for a few weeks—until I had enough saved for an apartment, the legal retainer.
I thought maybe I’d have to… service her”—he glances at me to gauge my reaction—“a couple times a week. Maybe until the end of summer but—” His voice breaks.
“She fucking blackmailed him,” Jake says, his voice sharp.
I gasp, balling the fabric of Boston’s hoodie in my fists like it’s the only thing anchoring me to my chair.
“He tried to end it,” Jake says while Boston tries to find his voice.
“After you helped him get the apartment. I think my mom anticipated Boss eventually trying to get out of her little fun arrangement. But my mom wasn’t just going to give up her shiny toy.
She was prepared. Took pictures and then started blackmailing him.
She told him no judge would let him have his siblings if they found out Boss was exchanging sex for money. ”
I don’t blink. Just stare at Boston, gutted. “You were trapped,” I whimper.
He looks younger than twenty lying in that hospital bed. Until I notice the exhaustion carved into the lines around his eyes and remember that Boston has never really been allowed to be a kid.
“Yeah,” he breathes.
Heavy silence engulfs us, my mind whirring. I have so many questions. Too many. How often were you forced to sleep with her? Have you slept with her since… since you and I became intimate? When was the last time? But maybe I don’t want to know.
I shake my head, clearing it. “So how does Archer play into this?”
Jake moves up to Boston’s bed. “That text my mom accidentally sent last night—those pictures—was fucking pissed,” Jake says, gaze directed at Boston. He doesn’t look angry. Just… sorry. “I told Archer I was going to fuck you up.”
“Guess I can’t blame you,” I admit.
Boston sighs. “I don’t either.”