“Maybe your family name, but you’re used to being in the news by now, aren’t you, Miller? I mean, after your dad made such a mess of things. And now to hear that your brother is following in his footsteps? What a fucking shame.” He scoffs, and I hate that it reminds me of the sound Beck makes when he’s sick of my bullshit or trying to pretend he is and can’t come up with anything to say. Unfortunately, Pierce still has plenty more to say. “It’s honestly not even surprising. Davis was a joke in highschool, always embarrassing himself. How many times was he arrested? Anyway,” Pierce looks smugly at the people listening to him, “everyone knows the whole Miller family is a disaster. Dad drank himself to death and nearly killed people by running his car into a tree in someone’s front yard. Mom can’t keep a job to save her life. Big brother overdosed and got sent to mandatory rehab and is now living with mommy in a falling-down hovel. And little brother walks around pretending he’s above it all while he sticks his dick in trashy redneck twinks and drools over the captain of the wrestling team.” Pierce laughs. “You’re fucking pathetic, Miller. Why don’t you go home and stop pretending you’re better than the trash you’ve always been. Maybe spend some time getting arrested with your brother before it’s too late, ya know?”
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it a hundred times more—I could not give a shit less what Pierce Jamison and his evil, money-grubbing family think of me. I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks of me.
But hearing my brother’s name in his mouth. Hearing the details of my personal family troubles spewed for everyone to hear.
It fucking guts me.
How does he know about Davis? He shouldn’t know any of it. No one should know.
And before last night, no one did know.
I spin around, heart jackhammering, and find Beck in the showers. He’s just stepping out of the spray, wrapping a towel around his waist. His wet hair drips down his neck and shoulders and chest. The same neck and shoulders and chest that I kissed last night. After I told him the most painful truthI’ve ever uttered out loud. Something I didn’t even tell a close friend that I’ve known for years.
Beck looks up and notices me standing, still in my uniform, sweater, and shoes, in the middle of the showers. He has the fucking audacity to look angry. At me.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I say, my voice choked.
He stalks toward me, looking around us before muttering angrily under his breath. “What do you mean what’s wrong withme? What’s wrong withyou? Why the hell would you do something like that? You were so fucking obvious, Pierce started asking questions.”
I’m seeing red right now. I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. And I can’t be bothered to care. He betrayed me, to my worst fucking enemy.
“So you were jealous, is that it? Or was it that you were afraid of being outed by association?” My voice is so low I’m not even sure that he hears me until I see his visceral reaction to any mention of his sexuality in public. Not that I’d out him like that. Even now, even after this, I would never.
“Do you have any idea how awkward of a position you put me in with Pierce?”
Something inside me snaps, and the furious rage inside me seeps out of my eyes because it can’t be held in anymore. Is that why he told him? To cover his own secrets?
“How could you do that, Beck? I kept your fucking secrets. How could you?”
Through the blurry haze of my tears, I see Beck freeze.
“What?” The anger bleeds out of his voice and is replaced with something that sounds like concern, or pity. Maybe my words finally hit him where it hurts. It makes me feel nauseous to admit it, but I hope he feels a fraction of the pain I feel right now.
“Him?” I gesture sharply towards Pierce. “You toldhim? Out of everyone, you picked the one person who would do the most damage? The person whose family ruined everything in my life. Because of what, Beckett? Jealousy?”
His face twists in confusion. “What are you talking ab?—"
My voice cracks in a way that humiliates me, but I can’t stop now. “I knew you were a pretentious asshole. God knows you work hard to keep that image, but I didn’t think you’d stoop this low. You are your father’s son after all.”
His mouth falls open, hurt and confusion warring on his face, but I can't hear anything he says after that. I’m gasping, dizzy, drowning in the sudden humiliation of it all.
I grab my bag and back toward the exit. Pierce, the fucking idiot, steps into my path. Without thinking, I deck him with a right hook that reverberates up my arm. He goes down hard, and I push through the door.
CHAPTER 27
BECK
No one stops or follows Brody as he steps around Pierce’s crumpled body and storms out of the locker room. For a long moment, no one moves or says anything.
The sound of Brody’s fist connecting with Pierce’s face seems to echo off the red metal of the lockers. A sickening crack, followed by a heavy thud of his body hitting the tile floor.
A pained groan breaks the silence, and I look down at Pierce for the first time. He’s holding his face, rolling to the side with blood gushing from his nose, making what I’m pretty sure is an over-exaggerated gurgling sound, gagging and cursing.
“What are you staring at?!” Pierce screams at us in a nasally tone, his voice muffled by blood and his hands cupping his face. “That bastard broke my fucking nose.”
Realizing I’m just standing here, staring at Pierce bleeding on the floor in his underwear, I jolt into action. Roman and Cade move in first, trying to help haul Pierce upright, but he fights them off and remains sprawled out on the floor. Grabbing a folded towel from the rack near the showers, I run over and guide his hands away from his face to hold the towel instead,trying to see how bad it is. Pierce bats me away, cursing and moaning.
“Shut up and hold the towel,” I tell him. The bastard had it coming, and I don’t hate seeing him bleed a little after all he and his family have put Brody through.
