Chapter 22
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
CORI
Lainey’s words play on repeat in my mind.
Go find him.
It makes my stomach swirl with emotion. He isn’t going to want me to help him, and he doesn’t want me, not really. Not anymore.
I call the only person I can trust to help me figure out what to do and wait until I see his truck pull up outside Lainey’s house.
When Carson jumps out, an almost eerie sense of relief washes over me.
“Cori, hey. Is ever—” his words stop midsentence, and his eyes wander down my body. “I uh… just wow.”
He stumbles over his words and his feet as he scrambles to get close to me, and the second he does, I feel safe. I feel okay.
Confusion and guilt constrict me. I shouldn’t feel this way about two boys. One that I want to hold me forever, and the other I want to push me to the end of the earth and make me wild.
“Something is wrong,” I rush. “Have you seen Nash?”
“No,” he assures, unable to rip his eyes away from my outfit.
“Help me find him,” I breathe, my entire body igniting when his hand lands on the small of my back, and I try to cram down the feeling. Help Nash, Cori. This is about Nash.
“What happened?” He asks, opening the car door for me.
“His dad is moving back in,” I rush. “And so is Drayton.”
Carson’s eyes go wide, “Oh my God.”
“Yeah, he was supposed to pick me up, and he never came. But Drayton showed up here with a busted lip.”
“Jesus,” he huffs. “I know of a few places to look, but if he doesn’t want to be found, chances are he won’t.”
“I don’t even know where to begin.”
He offers me a small smile, and I can tell he’s done this a thousand times. He gives ‘my brother’s keeper’ a whole new meaning.
We drive by his house but no one is there, and after a few completely random stops around town and several hours, we spot Nash’s Jeep.
“Stop!” I nearly yell. “There he is.”
Carson zooms through the empty lot, right next to Nash’s Jeep, which is still running.
I jump from the truck, running over to the Jeep, banging my fists against the window that’s barely cracked. Carson begins yelling Nash’s name, trying to get a response from him.
“He’s drunk,” Carson sighs. I look around the Jeep, checking all the doors for one that’s unlocked when I notice the sunroof is open.
“Help me up,” I demand. “I’ll climb through.”
I slip myself through the roof, knocking a bag of weed and a lighter off the center console. “Jesus,” I mutter.
I unlock the doors for Carson, holding up an entire bottle of whiskey that’s drained, “Yeah, I think he’s a little drunk.”
Carson yanks the keys out of the ignition, killing the Jeep’s engine.
Nash’s eye is bruised, his hair a little messed up, but he’s dressed to the nines.
Not his usual IDGAF outfit from his bedroom floor.
He’s actually tried to look nice, and a simple rose is crumpled on the floorboard—that isn’t filled with trash.
He cleaned his Jeep out, and he dressed up.
“Looks like he was coming to get you, well before everything happened.”
I look at Carson as worry floods his eyes. “He’s breathing, but he’s messed up, Cori. We need to get him home and in the shower or something.”
I nod, understanding. I lift my hand to his cheek, hoping that my touch will stir something up, but I decide to use my voice instead, leaning into Nash’s ear. “Hey, hey. It’s me. I’m here, and we’re going to take you somewhere safe.”
I feel him move beneath me, his eyes barely opening. “It’s okay,” I remind him, “You’re going to be okay.”
Carson helps move him into his truck, and I lock the Jeep, joining him. Nash doesn’t move in the back, and honestly, he doesn’t even look alive.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t drive his Jeep back. I just… I can’t do it.”
Carson’s beautiful dark brown eyes turn to me, “It’s alright. Whatever it is, one day it’s gonna be alright.”
I suck in a ragged breath, trusting him more than I trust anyone else, “My best friend died. One minute we were walking down the halls at school together, and the next, she was bleeding to death in my car.”
He’s silent, and I don’t know whether to keep talking or sink into the floorboard and hide. So I determine that I’ve said enough until he reaches across the center console, his huge hand falling over mine. “What happened?”
“I wish I knew exactly,” I whisper. “We fought the night before. We never did that. I came to find her after she sent me a couple cryptic text messages and found her lying at her parents’ house alone,” I sniff, not even realizing that reliving it for the first time in months was causing me to get emotional.
“I tried to get her to my car. I thought it would be faster, but I wasn’t fast enough. I couldn’t save her.”
“You drove her to the hospital?” he croaks.
“I panicked. I don’t even remember getting her there.”
“That’s why you left Chicago?”
I exhale, “I left because it was my fault.”
Carson squeezes my hand, “You didn’t kill her, Cori.”
“I did, Carson. I betrayed our friendship, I lied to her, and she killed herself because of it.”
He doesn’t push after that, and I’m thankful for it because the less he knows, the better. I don’t want him to hate me for what I did. We pull into Nash’s house, and his dad must still be finalizing the move because it’s empty.
I help Carson get him up the stairs to his room and into the shower, fully dressed. Nash finally opens his eyes, muttering a few curse words under his breath at Carson. We leave him under the stream of water, and I rummage through his drawers, searching for something to change him into.
Carson looks around, fascinated.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“It’s never this clean,” he walks around the room, opening the sliding glass doors to the balcony. A perfectly set bistro table and lights strung along the railing. Carson’s stare drops to me, something behind his eyes that I know all too well. Guilt.
Nash was going to bring me back here?
Carson lifts him from the shower, pushing the door closed as he tries to strip the wet clothes from his body.
I leave them be and take in my surroundings.
The impersonal room doesn’t give me anything, no inside view into what he might be like.
It’s nothing at all like Carson’s room that I’ve spent almost every night this week in.
I know it’s wrong, but I sleep better next to him.
Nash is almost totally unresponsive as Carson deposits him on his bed. Taking a seat next to me at the foot of Nash’s bed, his hand slides up my arm, the back of his knuckles rubbing where my stitches lie beneath my shirt sleeve.
“Is he going to be okay?”
Carson moves his hand up to my chin, holding it steady, “He’ll be okay. Will you?”
I sigh, leaning my forehead into his, “Yeah.”
His dark eyes burn into mine, both of our breathing slowing, our lips almost touching. The pull between us is stronger than a magnet.
The feeling hits me again like a Mack truck.
Guilt.
I shouldn’t feel guilty because, chances are, this date night was a setup.
A way for Nash to get into my head, to make me fall for him.
Only to destroy me later, of course. Still, this small minuscule part of me knows deep down that the boy who claimed me, did it because he knows there is something there.
Something that the kiss we shared a few years ago sealed in fate.
Us.
Him and I.
“Carson, I…” He puts his finger to my lips, blocking my words.
“No,” he begs. “Please don’t say it, Cori. Don’t say that you want him. Don’t say that you don’t feel something between us, too. I know that you feel it when you melt into me in my bed every night.”
“He’s your best friend,” I whisper.
“No, he’s my brother, but I won’t let him hurt you.”
Before I can stop him, his lips fall so delicately against mine. Where Nash’s kiss is possessive, Carson’s is intimate. Where Nash takes, Carson gives, and it’s equally torturing.
I place my palm against his chest, separating us a little, his heart beating wildly against it. “I won’t come between you guys. We can’t do this, Carson.”
His phone rings loudly between us, Avery’s flawless face and Carson’s lips against her cheek filling his screen.
“Go,” I whisper. “I’ve got him.”
He hesitates a second, looking between Nash and myself. “Carson, go. I’m fine.”
He shakes his head, “I’m not fine, though. None of this”—He swirls his finger between the three of us—“is fine.”
Nash moves a little on the bed, his eyes opening to scan the room before turning extremely pale. I grab the trashcan from the bathroom and quickly guide him over it. Carson’s phone continues to ring as he stands in the doorway.
I sigh, “We’re fine, and she probably needs you too. Just go.”
He pulls the door closed, and Nash continues to throw up right next to me. I search the bathroom for a washcloth and get it wet, placing it on the back of his neck. I’ve been drunk enough times to know that getting it out like this will make him feel better.
When his retching seems to slow down, I lay him back onto his pillows. His eyes are open and alert now.
“You stood me up,” I tease.
He laughs, his words barely understandable, “I got beat up.”
He points to his black eye, the bruise begging my hand to touch it gently.
“Yeah, well, I saw the other guy. He looked worse than you.”
Nash almost instantly sobers up, “Did he touch you? He didn’t hurt you, did he? I’ll kill him, Corinne. I swear to God.”
“No. He didn’t touch me, and he was just as upset as you are.”
He slurs something I can’t really understand and is passed back out in five seconds. I clean up and leave the washcloth against his neck. I make my way to the kitchen, search the freezer for something to put on his eye, and rummage through the cabinets for ibuprofen.
When I make it back up to Nash’s room a few minutes later, he’s sitting on the edge of his bed with his head hung between his knees.
When I step through the doorway, his head jerks in my direction, and he’s taken aback by my presence.
His face is wet with tears, and he’s literally sobbing.
The badass Shark is crying right here in front of me, and it does something to me.
It nearly breaks my heart.
I hand him the ice pack and pass him the ibuprofen.
“What are you doing here?” he slurs, his voice breaking between his tears.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
He sneers, jerking the water bottle forcefully from my hand, “Do I look okay?”
I take a chance and sit down next to him, trying not to stare at his boxers, even though every single bulge is very clearly defined. I wrap my hand around his wrist, breaking its connection from holding his head up, causing him to turn into me. “It’s going to be alright.”
He just stares at me, more tears pooling behind his blue eyes. “Why doesn’t she love me?” He sobs, “Why can’t she just put me first, for once!”
I pull him into me as he buries his face into my shoulder. “She needs help. She’s gonna get it,” I pull him away, making him look at me. “And you? You are going to be fine, Nash. I promise.”
“I can’t live here with them.”
“You can, and you will. You have Carson, and you have me.”
“Do you like him? Do you want him?” he asks.
“Of course I like him. We’re friends, Nash.”
“Friends?”
“Yeah. Just friends.”
“I don’t typically sleep with my friends,” he accuses.
I snap, “That’s because you sleep with everyone.”
He grits his teeth, and I continue, “Look, I don’t want to fight with you, but I don’t owe you an explanation either. Carson and I are just friends. Believe it or not. It doesn’t change the truth.”
“What is the truth, Corinne?”
“That for some stupid reason, the more you push me around, the more I crave it. I can’t stay away from you. Even though I should. I’m just a game to you, and ruining my life is your revenge.”
He surprises me, pushing my hair gently behind my ear, causing most—if not all— of the air to escape my lungs. His bloodshot, stoner eyes find mine, “Seems like Karma has already won. You’re here, aren’t you?”
I pull back quickly. His voice was seeping with hatred, for me, for his mother? I’m not entirely sure.
“I’m here because I want to be,” I snap. “If you want me to leave, just say it.”
His hand flirts with the edge of my skirt, his fingertips grazing my skin. The air shifts between us as I watch the hunger in his eyes turn from hatred to something else entirely.
“You don’t want to be here,” he whispers. “Not really. You want someone safe. I’ll never be that, Princess.”
I sigh, “You mean Carson? Someone like Carson?”
His hand remains gentle on my thigh, the connection heating me up. “That’s exactly what I mean, and in the end, I’ll never compare. I never have.”
I jump from his bed, positioning his cheeks between my palms, “You have never been my second choice. I didn’t know what that kiss meant for you back then, and I’m sorry that it has caused you so much pain, but I’d never call it a mistake.
No matter what the outcome. Everything happens for a reason. ”
He pulls me onto his lap, my legs wrapping around his solid waist. Two thin pieces of fabric are the only things separating us. He buries his head into my neck and hair, inhaling me. Consuming me.
“I have done horrible things. Unforgivable things, and I can’t ever take them back.” he warns.
His grip on my thigh tightens, constricting my words, but I manage to get them out, “It’s the past. I promise mine isn’t perfect.”
He connects his lips with my collarbone, “You have no idea what you’re getting. You’d hate me if you knew.”
“I want you, anyway.”