AJ’s fist connects with Beau’s jaw, the resulting crack echoing like a gunshot on the deck. Beau’s head rears back, but he doesn’t defend himself. He staggers backward, grunting. He doesn’t try to block the second punch or the third. He locks his stance and takes it, flinchingwith every hit but making no move to fight back.
“Garrett,” Hannah orders. “Stop this.”
But none of the men at the table move to stop this.
“Let them work it out,” Dean murmurs.
“Fight me, you goddamn prick,” AJ roars, lunging at Beau again.
He slams his fist into Beau’s stomach, and I wince at the solidthudit makes. Then he does it again, sending Beau staggering back against the railing.
Gray rises to his feet as his two best friends go at it, but he doesn’t interfere either. He simply watches with a stoic expression.
“I’m sorry,” Beau says quietly. “I was drunk.”
That gets him another uppercut to the face. Only when blood pours out of his nostrils do the parents get involved.
“All right, enough,” Garrett commands. “You got it out of your system.”
My dad pries AJ off Beau while Allie hurries over to her son with a napkin. She tries to press his nose, but he shrugs her hand off.
“Mom, stop,” he mutters. Blood trickles from his nose and lip, leaving red streaks all over his jaw. “I deserve it.”
Near the railing, AJ is fighting my dad’s hold. His breathing is ragged, dark eyes wild. He’s shaking with rage.
“Calm down, son,” Dad urges.
Finally, AJ pushes out of the hold. “I’m done here.” His hard eyes settle on Beau, his jaw grinding. “We’re fucking done here. Don’t talk to me ever again.”
It’s then that I notice Tara in the doorway, frozen, her eyes red and wet with tears. AJ notices her too and scoffs at her.
“You can find your own way to the airport,” he spits out.
When she reaches for him, he shoves her hand off him and stalks past her without a backward look.
I find Beau on the beach a while later, sitting with his hands on his knees, staring at the lake. At the sound of my footsteps, he glances up, and I almost gasp. He looks wrecked. Lip swollen. Blood caked at his nostrils.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I sigh, sinking down beside him on the sand.
He curls his hands tighter over his knees, his broad shoulders hunched over as if he’s trying to disappear into the sand. “Don’t start, B. Not now.”
“He’s your best friend. Since you were in diapers. You threw a twenty-year friendship away for a girl? What was going through your head?”
Beau barks out a bitter laugh. “Nothing. My head was a blank space because I was drunk off my ass. It was a mistake.”
“A mistake. That’s what you call screwing your best friend’s girlfriend.”
“I was completely hammered. I don’t even remember half of it.”
“That makes it better? You fucked her in the boathouse while he was sleeping upstairs, totally oblivious. You think that’s just a little mistake? That’s goddamn nuclear, Beau.”
He visibly swallows. “I’m not proud of what happened, okay? I feel like shit. Is that what you want to hear?”
I shake my head in disapproval. “Is this about me?” I have to ask.
“Oh, fuck off, Blake. Don’t flatter yourself. I was wasted and stupid and horny, and she came on to me, and I was too drunk to say no. That’s it.”
“Really. It hadnothingto do with me turning you down the othernight and you finding out about me and Wyatt.”
