Page 63 of The Right Kind of Wrong

Monroe stopped walking, and Blake slowed, too. “The stadium definitely looks different.”

Right. That stupid stadium. She shifted her focus up the hill, where the stadium loomed over the school. Blake pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to find her center. “You can thank the Duvalls for the, you guessed it, Duvall Stadium.”

“A payoff so that Noah could graduate?” Monroe said flatly. She checked that Maisie ahead of them before turning back toward Blake.

God, she’d kept so many of the Duvalls’ secrets. They were open secrets, really, but that didn’t change how each one had been like a rock that weighed her down until moving—leaving—had felt impossible. For the first time, she found herself wondering if Noah hadn’t done her a favor by cutting her loose.

At any rate, there was no point in being their secret keeper any longer. “To keep him out of jail, at least.”

“You’re kidding me.” Clearly, Monroe had been taking a shot in the dark. Making a joke at Noah’s expense, probably.

And Blake had appreciated it immensely.

Still, the buzzing in her ears intensified. “God, the stories I could tell about that family,” she said, aggrieved.

Why, oh, why had she stayed with Noah for so long?

Her stomach churned whenever she thought about it, which was why she tried not to do it very often.

“So, what happened?” Monroe pressed, her voice low and soothing as she leaned closer.

Blake bit her lip, embarrassed.

She couldn’t even enjoy the soft press of Monroe’s shoulder against her own or the way Monroe’s blue eyes were solely focused on her.

It was another open secret in this town that no one dared talk about, but Monroe probably wouldn’t know that.

So she’d get to be the bearer of news that Monroe, whose brother was in prison, probably already knew anyway: that awful people, especially if they were wealthy and connected, usually came out on top.

She averted her gaze. It was the only way she’d found to tamp down the flutter that started in her stomach whenever she looked at Monroe’s lips, regardless of the topic at hand.

She needed to keep moving. She started walking again slowly, Monroe keeping pace.

“After Noah’s freshman year of college, he was home for the summer. He and some of his friends got drunk and took their trucks out on the football field. They ripped it up like no one’s business. Destroyed it completely. I think it was because Noah was always angry that he was never a great athlete. His daddy’s money could buy most things, but it couldn’t buy talent. And, let’s be real, Noah didn’t exactly have the drive to see anything through.”

“I’m not surprised,” Monroe agreed, tracking Blake’s eyes with her own. “So, what happened? Afterward, I mean. Sounds like there were no consequences.”

Blake thought back, staring off at the stadium again. She remembered Noah telling her the story after it had happened, like it was no big deal. If anything, he’d been angry that he’d spent even a single second in handcuffs. “They rounded up all the boys before they realized who they were dealing with. A new deputy, or something, was the first one on the scene.” Blake gave her a knowing look. “He didn’t quite understand how things worked around here yet.”

“I’m sure he didn’t. But isn’t that how life works? Different treatment for different people?” She was surprised when Monroe added, with quiet anger in her voice, “My mom was put in jail for six months instead of being given help when she was struggling. As a result, my brother and I had to go into foster care for almost two years. The good graces of this town are absolutely not doled out indiscriminately.”

Blake’s heart hammered in her chest. There was something about Monroe being so open with her. So vulnerable.

It pinged somewhere deep inside of her, in a place that craved the kind of connection that, she was finally starting to accept with frustrating clarity, had been sorely missing in her life.

Now, she was the moth, drawn to the flame.

She didn’t realize that she was moving closer until she and Monroe were almost pressed together, off to the side of the main thoroughfare, near a copse of trees at the edge of one of the fields. At the same time that she started rubbing her hand soothingly up Monroe’s arm, she made sure that Maisie was still within eyesight.

Her fingertips sparked with the contact, but she didn’t focus on that. Couldn’t, in fact. It just felt too wrong, in the face of what Monroe was sharing with her, to be getting any amount of pleasure or excitement from the touch.

“I’m sorry that happened, Monroe.” The guilt pushed itself to the front of her awareness, washing through her in solid waves. At how long she’d helped to prop up someone like Noah, a man who’d knowingly gotten drunk and ripped up public property, just to be given a free pass to keep moving through the world as a privileged man without consequences.

When someone like Monroe’s mom wasn’t given the same grace.

It made Blake want to scream.

She instead continued to rub Monroe’s arm, and Monroe seemed surprisingly happy to let her.