Page 88 of Revel
I push out a heavy breath, feeling like I need to clear up the interaction between me and Breckin. “I didn’t want him to kiss me.”
Revel draws in a breath, remorsefully shaking his head like he wants to forget. “I didn’t mean to hurt you by what I did earlier today, but then again, I did.” His eyes find mine again. “It’s what I do. I hurt everything and everyone around me to keep from hurting myself.”
Surprised at his admission, I push off the side of the bus and step toward him. “I know that.” I stare at him to make sure he can see the truth in my intentional words.
“Don’t ever let anyone take anything from you. Especiallyme.”
The best things in life are never planned. It’s the unpredictable that makes it worth it. There’s no explaining or rationalizing emotion when you’re in love. It’s believing, remembering, and making moments that last a lifetime. My life has always been planned out for me since I was three, and those plans were all I ever knew, all I relied on to get by. It’s the only way I survived eighteen years in the spotlight. But this entire relationship with Revel had been unexpected and brutally unpredictable. And maybe that’s what made this a messed-up version of perfection. Falling for him had been easy without outside influence or expectations. Our connection, unfortunately, is unstable. A dangerous obsession that’s destroying him. It’s the only way Revel Slade knows how to love someone, something Hensley had warned me about in the beginning. He is a crazy, willful, incorrigibly passionate person who can’t draw a line and say don’t cross it, because he will every time.
But it’s right before the fall, emotionally, that he takes all I have left to give him. Here’s where things change. Again. And the truth I thought I knew becomes blurred.
Having missed the fight inside, my dad comes storming outside the venue with two security guards trailing close behind. He jabs his finger in the air at Revel. “You stay away from her!”
“Why?” Revel chuckles. “Ya gonna offer me two mill this time?”
Two mill? What’s that have to do with anything?And then it hits me. He offered him money. He had to have. Why would he have said that if he didn’t?
I turn to my dad, my arms crossed over my chest as I shake from the chill in the air. “What’s he talking about?”
Dad scoffs, his eyes narrowing at Revel. “Nothing.”
I get right in my dad’s face as Bella and Liz come running out of the building with Cruz. “Bullshit. What is he talking about?”
Still no answer.
“Go ahead, Jory,” Revel snorts, leaning causally into the side of the patrol car. “Tell her what she’s worth to you.”
You know that saying, I saw red? I’ve never truly understood it until now. Until my anger became so blinding the rush of blood to my head is all I see.
In an instant, my vision blurs with the pounding in my temples.
Dad’s posture stiffens, his breathing harsh, words pushed through his clenched jaw. “I’m not having this conversation with you out here.” He has the nerve to grab me by the elbow and yank me away from Revel. “Let’s talk in private.”
Revel steps forward, his body tense and rigid. “Take your hand off her,” he warns, only to have the officer standing next to him pull him back.
“It’s time to go,” the officer tells him, opening the door to the patrol car.
Revel nods, breathing in heavily. He knows he’s in enough trouble, but he doesn’t break his eyes from my dad. “You tell her the goddamn truth right now, or I will.”
Dad swallows, his breathing and every muscle in his body rigid. He leans into me, whispering, “I offered him money not to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“About Hensley.”
I knew. Tears sting my eyes. I can’t even look at my father. It’s one of those moments when voices actually fade and I think I might pass out from anger. It’sthatoverwhelming. I breathe in deeply, my entire body shaking. “Leave.”
“Tay,” Dad warns, “you need to stay away from him. Please get in the car with me and I’ll explain everything to you.”
“You should have explained it to me in the beginning, before you felt the need to offer him money not to tell me.” I turn to Revel. “Did you take it? Is that what this is about between us? You used me to get back at him for fucking your girlfriend?”
Revel snorts, disgust in his eyes. “What the fuck do you think?”
The cop pulls at him, refusing to let go of him when Revel attempts to step toward me. I don’t go to him. I don’t even think I’m breathing at this point. Am I? “I don’t know, Revel. I don’t know anything at this point.”
Revel doesn’t look at me as he lowers himself inside the cop car. “It wasn’t because of him,” he mumbles. I’m given the gratification of having him tell me the truth, but his expression is anything but loving. He’s shut down, to me, to the world, and I’m not entirely sure where this leaves us now.
I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN
