Chapter 26
Alec
My leg bounces a mile a minute as we ride to the small town a little ways from Lakewood’s nice payouts. Tegan drops her hand to my knee, slowing the movement to a mere vibration. I still bounce on my toes as I try to figure out how to tell Tye and Tegan. Or if I should tell them at all.
Maybe it would all be for nothing. Delia is a bitch, but would she really try to destroy me? After everything? She seemed fine when I told her we had to stop things. Besides, she was interested in Rolo. Now that I’m taken—and fucking happily, I might add—she seems to want me more than ever.
I won’t let her ruin it.
Delia turns around and throws me a smirk from the middle seat. With a flip of her red hair, she glares at me. Guess she doesn’t like that I didn’t respond to her cryptic threat. She’ll get a response soon enough, though. I just won’t be stupid enough to put it in a fucking text.
Tye leans closer, his worried eyes flashing. Clearly, I’m not holding this in very well.
You okay? he mouths.
I toss him a nod that is entirely unbelievable, and he knows it. He’s known me for too long. Fuck, he’s basically my brother.
We arrive in Slade just as the sun begins to set.
The fast food we stopped for earlier sits like rocks in my gut now.
We climb out of the van in the parking lot of a rustic motel.
Grime frosts the windows, but the outside looks pretty clean otherwise.
A sign hangs on a low chain-link fence surrounding a crystal blue pool, though it barely clings to the links by its single remaining fastener.
It’s a stark contrast to the mansions of Lakewood.
Stacks hands out keys, and we head to our rooms. My mind is on everything else, unfortunately. Tye forks to the right, and Tegan and I go left.
Our room is pretty spacious, featuring framed pictures of the Daniel Boone National Forest. Tegan zooms over to the one with a waterfall cascading into a gorge. She loses herself in the fall foliage surrounding the slate. I walk over and put my arm around her.
“I love waterfalls,” she says, never looking away from the picture in front of us. The caption beneath the frame says this picture was taken forty-five miles from here.
“You don’t like water, but you like waterfalls?” I ask, raising my eyebrow. “Aren’t you a walking contradiction.”
She smacks my hand away. “There was an old drainage pipe that released all the storm water behind our trailer park. I used to call it a waterfall before I knew that it was just runoff. I used to go there after . . .”
“I’ve been there.” I lean forward and kiss the top of her head. “Mine used to be a playground near our trailer park.”
“Will you ever tell me about what happened to you?”
I shake my head. “That’s something I keep deep inside, pup. Somewhere no light ever shines.”
“If you never shine a light on those things, they just stay dark.”
I put her ear to my chest. “Does this sound like something that doesn’t have any light in it?”
She sighs and shakes her head.
“I gotta go take care of something real quick. Please stay here and only open the door for Tye, okay?”
“Is this about what you were anxious about in the van?”
“Maybe. Just stay here, okay?”
She nods, and I leave, locking the door behind me.
I pick up my phone to text Tye about what’s going on.
My fingers rush over the keys, but my thumb hovers over the send button.
I don’t want him to freak out, and if he’s keeping an eye on Tegan, she might freak out by association.
Maybe it’s best I tell them after I fix things.
I just need to talk to Delia.
My hand trembles as I knock on her door. She opens it seconds later and takes a step aside, as if she expected me.
Who am I kidding? She probably did.
“Fancy seeing you here,” she says, her full lips accentuating every word.
“Don’t, Delia.”
“Don’t what?”
“Do whatever you’re thinking about doing. We’re done. We’ve been done.”
She pouts. “You’re the one who said you didn’t want to hook up anymore because you feared what would happen if Stacks found out. Well . . . you know what would happen. You remember what happened to Ricky and Shannon, right?”
“Yeah. He dumped them in the middle of fucking nowhere. Is that what you want for me? After I helped you get in this crew in the first place?”
She makes a fist and plants it beneath her chin. “Do you just like to pick up strays and seduce them, or is it all just coincidence?”
My lips thin to a straight line. There’s a bit of familiarity in Delia’s and Tegan’s stories, but what happened between me and Delia wasn’t what’s happening between me and Tegan.
My heart beats for Tegan, and I never felt this way with Delia.
She was something new and shiny to play with when I was in the mindset to play.
It was never meant to be anything serious.
But I never meant to hurt her.
“Delia, I shouldn’t have muddled things for us by sleeping with you, and for that, I’m sorry.”
Mischief glints in her eyes as she looks at me. “Fuck me again, Ace, and I won’t tell Stacks about that picture.”
She removes her shirt and presses her tits together with her hands as she steps toward me.
I reach down and grab the discarded fabric, then thrust it against her chest to cover her bare breasts.
Her eyes darken as she walks me back against a dresser.
Old me would be very interested in seeing where this could go, but current me couldn’t be less turned on.
Goosebumps rise and coat my skin. I’ve never been blackmailed before, let alone for my fucking dick. It’s not that spectacular. Half the time, it doesn’t even work. And it’s very much not working as her hand drops to my jeans.
“I can get Bobby in here, if you need something to . . . encourage you. You’d like to watch him rail me, wouldn’t you?” She drops the shirt again and presses herself against me.
“No, Delia,” I say, putting my hands between us. I’m trying to create a barrier, but it just seems to get her going more. This girl cannot take a hint, so I scream out my no with my hands and push her away.
She stumbles back and falls on her ass with an ear-splitting squeal. “You hit me!”
“I didn’t hit you, Delia, my god. You fucking touching me when I’m telling you no isn’t any better.
Like, what the fuck?” My voice rises, and I feel the familiar burn of anger coursing through my veins.
It feels way too reminiscent of memories that continue to haunt me to this day.
I never said no loud enough for him to listen.
But I have a voice now.
I walk to the door and look back as I open it. “Don’t speak to me again, Delia. I’m not kidding. Pretend I’m fucking dead, because you are to me.”
“A bit too late for that!” she shouts as the door slams behind me.
Instead of heading back to my room, I go to Tye’s. He answers at my second frantic knock.
“What’s the matter?” he asks as soon as I storm inside.
“Fucking Delia.”
“What about her?”
“Remember when I broke things off with her? Well, I guess she’s not over me.”
Tye cocks his head. “What makes you think that?”
I lift my phone and show him the picture of us in a very compromising situation.
“Fuck,” Tye mumbles under his breath. “You know what Stacks—”
“Oh, I know.”
Tye sits down and puts his head in his hands. “Did you talk to her?”
“Yeah, and she tried to fuck me.”
Tye’s eyes narrow. “You didn’t, did you?”
I get the urge to throat punch him for the first time in our friendship. “You really want to lose your balls for asking that?”
He shrugs. “I’m just saying . . . old Ace wasn’t the man in front of me today.”
He’s not wrong. But I became a different person the moment I met Tegan. I think Tye did too.
“I’ll figure it out,” I tell him. “I promise.”
And somehow, I have to make good on that promise.