“Neither were the Cali guys,” I deadpanned.
Even Gray almost cracked a smile at that.
But the mood didn’t last. Because the more we tried to act normal, the more obvious it became that we weren’t. Not even close. The energy around us was a ticking time bomb.
Damon leaned in, close enough that I could see the tiny scar above his left eyebrow—the one I’d given him, years ago, with the edge of a snow shovel during an ill-conceived igloo building incident. “Bullshit,” he said. “You come waltzing in here, all high and mighty, and you think everyone’s just gonna forget what you did?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said, jaw tight. “You should know that. You were my best friend once.”
Damon growled. “The hell you didn’t! You were the last one to see Ty alive. You started that fight. And then you vanished, left everyone else to clean up the mess.”
There it was. The accusation that had haunted every day of my life since that night.
I opened my mouth to answer, but all that came out was a shudder of breath.
For a second, I wasn’t in the Dusty Barrel. I was nineteen again, standing in the dark with the smell of gasoline and burnt rubber burning my lungs. Ty Higgins, slumped over the wheel of his pickup, head bleeding into the vinyl. My father, screaming at me—loud enough to drown out the sirens.
The red-and-blue strobe of police lights slicing through the trees. I heard the fire crackling, felt the bite of cold creek water around my ankles, tasted the copper in my mouth where I’d bitten my own tongue.
I came back to the present with a start, sweat slick on my forehead.
Gray was watching me with that same, predatory stare. But behind it, I saw something else: the tiniest flicker of confusion. Maybe even doubt.
Walker and Mason appeared at the end of the bar. They were watching us, not making a move to join, but clearly ready to step in if it got out of hand.
I tried to steady my breathing. “I didn’t kill Ty,” I said, voice shaking. “We fought that night, sure. Was no secret. But he was my friend.”
Damon’s eyes narrowed. “Then why did you run?”
My throat closed up. I couldn’t answer. Not then, not ever.
Gray turned to Damon. “That’s enough.”
But Damon wouldn’t let it go. “No, I want to hear him say it. I want to know why he left. Why he left us.”
I felt something break loose in my chest—guilt, anger, fear, all knotted together. “I left because I had to,” I managed, each word a struggle. “Because I couldn’t stay.”
Damon sneered. “Coward.”
My hands balled into fists. “You have no idea what it was like. What I hid all my life.”
They stared at me, blank.
I forced myself to look at Gray, to make him see me, really see me. “If I stayed, it would’ve been worse. For all of us.”
Gray was silent for a long time. Then he said, very softly, “I never believed you did it.”
That surprised me more than anything Damon could have said.
Damon pushed up from his stool. “Whatever. You’re not the victim here, Ford. Ty’s the one who ended up dead. You just get to run around and pretend like nothing happened.”
Gray didn’t move. He just sat there, staring at me as if he was figuring out a puzzle.
Damon slammed a palm onto the bar, rattling the empties. “Look at me, Ford. You left us—left all of us—to deal with your shit while you ran off and got rich. You abandoned us all and pretended like this whole town was dead to you. And now you’re back, and you can’t even admit what you did?”
I stared at the ring of condensation on the wood. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to fucking say it,” Damon growled. “Say you did it. Say you left because you’re a coward.”
