“Not yet,” Willard says smoothly. “But with the company he keeps? Just a matter of time.”
“You can always tell by the tattoos,” Mrs. Stone sniffs.
I make a silent vow to tattoo every inch of my skin. Then I remember I’m terrified of needles. I could maybe draw something.
“I heard he and his gang planned to steal one of Earl’s pies,” she continues, looking scandalized as if she didn’t know it was silly gossip. “Poor Earl was beside himself.”
I’m getting beside myself with anger.
Mr. Stone smirks at me. “Weren’t you friends with him?”
Mrs. Stone cuts in, delighted. “Oh yes. What was that dreadful drama after his father’s accident? Poor boy unraveled faster than a ball of yarn.”
“Enough,” Mom says suddenly, voice quiet and deadly.
The table goes silent.
For once, I don’t feel like arguing.
But I don’t miss my father’s furtive glance at Willard. Something unspoken passes between them, sharp and ugly.
For the first time all night, I forget to be angry. Because whatever that glance was, it felt dangerous.
XADEN
It’s almost midnight when I hit send on my report to Keller. I shut the laptop, too restless for sleep.
“You still got those weights out back?” I ask Frankie, who’s glued to some grainy baseball documentary on the matchbox-sized TV he refuses to upgrade.
“Haven’t touched ’em in years.”
“Really? Could hardly tell,” I deadpan. He grunts. I head to the back, load the bar, and start lifting.Repetition. Breath. Burn. Again.
But the noise in my head doesn’t quiet.
All I see is Cole in that parking lot, hands shaking, eyes brimming with tears. Looking at me like I was something rotten. Behind him? JJ and Ronnie laughing, like humiliating him was some damn joke.
And I was part of it.
I push through the last rep, arms trembling.
Cole thinks I’m a sleazebag who’s spent four years fucking and forgetting. Truth is, I haven’t done either.
Will he ever believe that? Would he even want to?
Then jealousy slams into me like a sucker punch: does he look at Caspian the same way — from under his lashes, cheeks flushed, like a goddamn dream?
I imagine Caspian’s hands on him. Steady, confident. The kind of hands Cole would trust. I see Cole tilting his head back, green eyes soft, mouth parting — only this time for someone else. Has Caspian kissed him deeper, touched him longer?
God, the thought burns, way worse than the workout.
Now I’m picturing them in Cole’s bed. Caspian brushing his curls back. Cole saying yes without hesitation. Giving Caspian the part I was never allowed to have. The part I spent years dreaming of but never pressed him for, because I loved him too much to push.Now someone else has heard the sound of his breath when he’s close.Someone else gets to know how he moves when he finally lets go.
The thought rips me apart. I want to claw these images out of my brain.
But I can’t.
And under all of it, the truth I’m desperately clinging into: he hasn’t moved on. Not completely. Even when his eyes burned with fury, the connection was there. I saw it.
