“Shit,” is all I can say, because what else is there?
Trent Easton, the billionaire golden boy that every guy wants to be and every woman wants to be with, found out that his best friend would rather blow off a month-long stay in Italy than have to spend time with him. And a spoiled princess got passed over for a random bookworm she couldn’t identify in a lineup.
“Pissing off two of the biggest narcissistic assholes on the continent isn’t very smart, yet I managed to do so in an hour,” Jase says with false cheer. “Sienna left my place soon after with steam practically pouring from her ears, and by the time Trent exited, he looked like he wanted to snap my neck, but I didn’t give a shit. I just wanted to make things right with you. But then Sienna showed up at the falls, and I realized she and Trent had been following me.”
“You kissed her.” I loathe how my voice catches, but that image has lived rent-free in my head these past four years, no matter how hard I’ve tried to exorcize it.
The muscles in his jaw flex as he grinds his teeth, honestly looking like he may vomit. “Shekissed me, and I sure as hell didn’t reciprocate.”
“You didn’t pull away—”
“Because Sienna Hawthorne doesn’t make empty threats. You, of all people, know that.”
I do, but—
“She didn’t know if you were there, so she asked if you could see us, and when I didn’t answer, Sienna told me to ‘play nice’ if I didn’t want anything to happen to you.”
Now,thathas me drawing up short.
All Jase can do is stare down into his bottle. “Looking at Sienna at that moment, I knew she wasn’t fucking around. You burn that bitch’s ego, and she’ll set the whole town on fire in retaliation. I’ve seen what she’s capable of. The idea of what she might do to you—” He shakes his head.
The soft patter of rain that had played as a secondary soundtrack this past hour is all but gone, replaced by increasingly high winds and a torrential downpour that hammers against the roof and side of the building. Neither fazes Jase. He takes a sip of his beer, but the act is almost mechanical, his eyes unfocused and attention drifting elsewhere, lost in a memory he can’t shake. It’s likely the same expression I’ve been sporting since coming here.
“I thought that Sienna would move on, but she and Trent kept hinting at it, day after day, month after month. And I was too much of a chicken shit to do anything—”
“You were a kid.”
“I was a coward.” His eyes finally meet mine, and the rawness in them drags the air from my lungs. “All I wanted was you. I wanted to be your friend again, and I wanted to apologize, and I wanted to rewind to the last night we had, and I wanted Trent and Sienna to forget all about you, but I couldn’t bring myselfto do anything to fix what I could. And it was all because I was driven by the fear of what might happen. And then when she brought my dad into this…”
“Your dad?” What would Michael Rivers have to do with this?
“The Eastons have dirt on virtually everybody in town, and every politician has at least one skeleton in their closet. I had no idea what my dad could have been involved in, but Sienna insinuated she and Trent knew something.”
When news broke about Mr. Rivers’s arrest three and a half years ago, Jase never returned to school. I didn’t even see him around town before he and his mom abandoned the east coast for surfboards and suntans.
Jase lets out a nearly inaudible laugh, not looking particularly amused. “Do you remember the Friday before everything happened with my dad?”
How could I forget? That day is cemented in my head, though probably for different reasons than his.
It was when Sienna had given me a concussion during gym class. I say as much as he takes another long pull from the beer in his hand, expecting him to fill me in on whatever explosive high school drama took place after I was taken away in the ambulance.
But he doesn’t.
Because, as it turns out,Iwas the drama.
After Jase takes back his phone to pull up something, he hands it back to me, and I’m met with a video I’ve never seen before. Sienna, Trent, and Patrick come on screen, all holding bottles of what I can assume are liquor, given their demeanors as everyone laughs and hollers. The sun is close to setting over the lakefront, and though I don’t recognize the property, it’s a safe bet they’re in someone’s backyard. Trent and Patrick take turns tossing lumps of charcoal in the air, trying to hit them witha baseball bat. Both are athletically inclined, so they must be hammered if neither manages to hit anything after six attempts. The group only laughs harder when Trent manages to clip one piece, sending it flying a whole ten feet. Flames already rage from the fire pit as the person recording the video reaches into the bag of charcoal beside it and lobs another piece at the guys. As the camera zooms back out, I can see everyone’s inside a stone gazebo as snow drifts in the background.
I don’t need to ask who’s filming. I had to listen to Olivia’s constant giggling all throughout Biology class, and it’s apparently even worse when she’s drunk. The sound nearly drowns out the song playing through the portable speaker on the other side of the fire pit. Only, this time, her giggling is a welcomed reprieve since it also drowns out Trent’s voice as he laughs about having taken the V-card of a certain pastor’s daughter.
In said pastor’s office.
At the church.
Not only is he a sleazeball, but he’s also terribly unoriginal.
The laughing turns to cheerful greetings as Trent announces, “There he is! Finally, the party can begin.”
He puts a cigarette between his lips as he extends the baseball bat to the new arrival.
