“She acted as horrified as me. Cried and said she was sorry she suggested we do vodka shots. Made out like we’d gotten drunk and fallen into bed together. Except I knew I wouldn’t have gotten drunk with her the night before a match. I suspected she’d done something to me, but I couldn’t fucking remember, and I had to get to the stadium because I was already late and the manager was doing his nut, blowing up my phone. By the time I got to the hospital that night to get a drug test, it was too late. Whatever she’d done to me was no longer in my system, and I had no proof.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I should have. That was my first mistake.” He knocks back more of his drink. “But I was really fucking confused. She was making out like it was consensual, and I didn’t know that it wasn’t. I’ve never taken drugs. I didn’t know what she’d given me, but my guess is it was GHB or something similar. I remembered thinking she was you and I… Fuck.” He puts his drink down and briefly cradles his face in his hands. “I didn’t know if I’d been into it.” Tears shine in his eyes. “I thought I had cheated, and I was terrified I was going to lose you. I didn’t know how I’d explain it to you when I couldn’t explain it to myself, because I hated her. I really fucking hated her, Astrid.” He rubs at his eyes. “I didn’t know what to do. She was saying we couldn’t tell you, that it was a mistake, and you didn’t need toknow because you were her best friend, and this would devastate you, and there was no need to ruin our relationship over a stupid drunken mistake. Then she dropped the bomb that we didn’t use condoms, and she was ovulating, and she was scared she was pregnant.”
“She planned it all to trap you.” Just like we thought initially, but Callan denied it.
“Yes. It was all part of her strategy, and she played on my emotions and my confusion perfectly. I fucking hate myself for how easily I let her play me.”
“That makes two of us. Go on.” I take another sip of whisky, welcoming the burn as it glides down my throat.
“She was supposed to move out, but that apartment fell through as well. It was all lies, of course. She wasn’t looking for a place. She had no intention of moving out.”
“You should’ve told me she was still there, but you both lied to me.”
“I couldn’t tell you. You’d have wanted to know why, and I was a wreck. I was so scared she might be pregnant and terrified of losing you. I was a total fucking mess. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. I was running around the pitch like a strung-out junkie. My heart was breaking, and I was trying to come up with ways to fix everything. She was behaving herself, playing the game, and that just fucked with my head more because I knew she was up to something. I just knew it. I had decided I was going to tell you when you arrived and beg for your forgiveness, hoping you’d believe me. Then she told me she was pregnant and played her full deck of cards.”
70
CALLAN
“What was she holding over you?” Astrid asks. She’s still hugging herself and as white as a sheet.
“She had hacked into your phone and your laptop, and she had intimate videos of you as well as recordings of all our phone sex. She’d hidden a camera in my bedroom, and she had recordings of us having sex.”
“Of course, she did.” Astrid shakes her head before her eyes widen. “You trampled my cell on purpose.”
I nod. “I needed you to be rid of it, and I stole your laptop, gave it to my PI to remove all the tracking software. They added protections to ensure she couldn’t hack into it again.” I trace my fingers back and forth across the snake on my arm, and I hate having to tell her this. “She also had naked pictures of you that Joe took that night in Thor’s bedroom.”
“What?” Her hand covers her mouth.
“He stripped you and posed you on her instructions.”
“Oh my god.” She looks like she’s going to cry until her face transforms into naked rage. “That fucking bastard lied! He looked me right in the eye and lied!”
“I’m aware.” I crack my knuckles. “After Gwen was gone, I paid that prick a visit. We got into it. I threw a few punches and got arrested. Of course, his daddy made the charge go away because he knew I had the pictures and proof they’d come from Joe’s phone.” Not that I would’ve done anything with them without Astrid’s permission. It was always her call to make.
She pulls off her sandals and tucks her knees into her chest. “I knew he’d done something. I should’ve trusted my gut. I feel sick.” She shivers all over.
“I can relate. It’s not nice finding out after the fact that someone violated you.” A shudder works its way through me, and I squeeze my eyes shut to blank out the image that swims before my eyes. Dorian—my therapist— believes the resurgence of nightmares is because Astrid is back, and I’ve been building up to this moment for years.
I walk to the sideboard and pull out two stress balls, handing one to Astrid. “I find squeezing that helps. Imagining creative ways to torture and murder that bitch works wonders for me too.”
I settle on the other end of the sofa, stretching my legs out in front of me. My hand wraps around the ball, and I clench and unclench, inhaling and exhaling slowly like my therapist taught me until I feel calm enough to continue.
“I’m sorry he did that to you, and I’m glad he’s dead. Don’t care if that sounds callous. He assaulted you while you were passed out and contributed to her scheming, and I personally believe he got what was coming to him.”
“I wonder if she drugged my drinks that night too.”
“Anything is possible.”
I pour more whisky into my glass and lift the bottle in her direction. Astrid holds out her glass, and I top her up.
“We can come back to that, but I’d like to get the rest out before I lose my nerve.”
“It gets worse, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
