"Sometimes, you just gotta let them get it out of their systems. He still thinks your brother has been raping as well as beating you, so right now he's dealing with some serious anger issues." She gave me a lopsided smile. "You'll get used to it, the alpha male bullshit. Dylan is almost as bad as Beck in that department."
The boys grinned, and Riley rolled her eyes before they could make any smart remarks.
"Dickheads, can you fuck off back to the waiting room? Brooklyn is meant to be resting and shit. You're suffocating us with all this testosterone. Shoo."
Still smirking, they gave sarcastic salutes, filed back out of my hospital room, and closed the door behind themselves, leaving me alone with the girl who—until recently—I’d fully believed Dylan to be in love with.
Maybe that was a conversation we needed to have.
23
As it turned out, Riley Duboise wasn't quite the big, bad bitch I'd made her out to be in my brain. I mean, we were a long way from being friends, but after spending the better part of a day with her hanging out in my hospital room... yeah, she wasn't so bad.
The most important takeaway from my bonding time with Riley? The absolute, unquestionable certainty that her and Dylan werenevergoing to be a thing. She admitted he'd had a crush on her back when her and Beck first got together but that was a thing that’d long since passed.
"Dylan faux-dates," she'd told me when I’d questioned her about all the models and actresses he was constantly photographed with. "He makes public appearances with women he barely knows, girls that the Delta-Huntley PR manager sets him up with. But it's just for show. I don't even think he fucks them at the end of the night."
I'd cringed at that, but deep down it made me weirdly pleased. Did that mean hehadn'tbeen whoring that monster cock out all over town while we were hooking up?
Our conversation shifted onto more neutral topics after that, but an hour or so later it drifted back to Dylan.
Or, more accurately, Dylan and me and how the fuck I'd ended up a homeless, pregnant eighteen-year-old.
"So, a seventeen-year-old virgin when you guys hooked up, huh?" Riley asked with all the tact of a freight train. "How'd that conversation go down? I'm guessing there was alcohol involved."
My cheeks flamed crimson, and I groaned. "There was definitely alcohol involved, and... it just didn't."
She frowned in confusion, sipping a coffee that Jasper had fetched not long ago. "I'm not following."
I drew a deep breath and puffed out my cheeks as I exhaled. "The conversation... it just didn't happen. I was out with my cousin that night, using her ID to buy a drink, and when Dylan assumed I was her, I just went with it. We look pretty similar, so..." I shrugged, embarrassed as hell to finally confess this lie.
Riley looked stunned. "Wait. Wait. You had sex that night, and you nevertold him you were a virgin before?"
I shook my head, my face aflame.
"Well, shit. What did he say when he found out?" She looked like she was on the verge of laughter.
I groaned again, covering my face with my hands. Luckily, Riley was a smart girl and caught on without me needing to say it. She sucked in a shocked gasp and started chuckling.
"Oh my god. He doesn't know?How? How the fuck was that even possible? I mean this in the most platonic way possible, but I've seen his dick and you're a tiny girl. There would have been evidence..."
I mentally kicked myself for deciding to be so painfully honest. But I was down the rabbit hole now. "We were in the shower and it was dark. Just candlelight. So... you know... no evidence to be seen."
Riley gaped at me with a mixture of shock, amusement, and admiration. "Wow. Just... wow. I feel like I underestimated you, Brooklyn."
I snorted a bitter laugh. "I wish that were true, but I doubt it. I'm pretty fucking unremarkable on the best of days. A broken bird, Dylan called me, and he was totally right."
"I didnot." The familiar rumble of that voice shocked right through me like an electric bolt. "You calledyourselfa broken bird, Brooke. I've never thought of you that way."
My mouth opened, but no words came out as I stared wide-eyed at the gorgeous man in the doorway of my room. I hadn't even heard the door open, too caught up in my conversation with Riley. Fuck, how long had he been standing there? Had he heard my confession?
Screw it. I was going to need to tell him sooner or later; otherwise, he was likely to ask for a paternity test or something.
"I'm... going to leave you two to talk," Riley said in an exaggerated whisper. She gave my wrist a reassuring squeeze, then grabbed her jacket from the chair and headed for the door. She paused in front of Dylan, tilting her neck back to look up at him. Whatever she said was too quiet for me to hear, but based on the way his eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched, he didn't like it.
She turned briefly to shoot me a smile, then left the room. Part of me wanted so badly to call her back, but that would give away just how freaking nervous I was about Dylan and I being alone.
"Did you find Blake?"
