“I fuckingloveit. You brought me to the beach!” She squeals, undoing us as she kicks off her heels running towards the shoreline.
As the waves come barreling back in, Cleo runs back up toward where I’ve wandered with the camera, smiling like a little kid in a candy store. My heart clogs in my throat,Idid that for her.
She loosens her hair from its ponytail, ruffling it as she runs, and fuck… She looks like something out of a movie as she approaches. Her smooth brown skin glows under the natural light of the golden hour sun and is absolutely captivating.
“Well, what did you have planned? I know the cogs are spinning in that pretty little head of yours,” She teases, placing her hands on her hips as she looks up at me like the little princess she is. Instead of responding to her, I held out a hand to signal for her to wait and trudge back to the Jeep, opening up the trunk where I kept a spare blanket, a cooler filled with water and Gatorade, and a small speaker.
“Welcome to our date, Princess. Follow me.” I prompt her, stalking further into the beach to find a spot to set up.
She runs back to the car, grabbing our food before following me to where I set up camp. I give myself a mental pat on the back for coming up with this idea on such short notice as she plops down onto the Spiderman blanket next to me.
We sit in a comfortable silence, listening to the crashing of the ocean waves and seagulls chirping away as we eat our dinner of cheese pizza and donuts. Cleo’s an iPad kid, believe it or not, so she turns onLove in Cancunabout five minutes into our peaceful silence and insists on watching the finale with me and I’m not complaining one bit. I’ve grown to love the cheesy reality show since becoming friends with her and I'mdyingto find out what happens next with America’s sweetheart.
We’re in the middle of a heated friendly discussion on whether or not Rosetta would pick Cooper or Judd when Cleo’s phone buzzes rapidly and just as I’m about to turn away from her screen to give her privacy, I catch sight of the messages.
Unknown
don’t get too comfortable little Cleo.
you know what they say about snitches, bitch.
I reel back at the last one, eyeing the woman beside me, her skin blanched of all color as she gulps.
“Who is that? Why the fuck are they talking to you like that?” I ask, blood boiling as her bottom lip wobbles slightly. If I hadn’t been watching her so intently, I don’t think I would have noticed it. But I am, and I did.
“It’s nothing.” She sighs, her voice watery as she deletes the messages from her lock screen.
“C’mon, Cleo, don’t lie to me.” I sigh, running a hand down my face before casting my vision back to her. “I know we’re just casually dating but I want us to be friends before anything. Friends help each other and Iwantto help you. You don’t deserve to be spoken to like that, regardless of whether you’re in the wrong or not,” I say, and mean every single word as her lower lip trembles. If I could only take it between my own and transfer all of her pain to myself, I would in a heartbeat.
Cleo seems to fight with herself for a moment, weighing the pros and cons of talking about her past life before letting out a deep and exhausted breath. And I think that’s all she’ll do until her porcelain mask cracks and the floodgates burst open. Cleo lets out the most heart-wrenching sob that I’ve ever heard and it startles me, but I instantly snap out of it when she tries and fails to calm herself.
She needs me and I want to be the one that she needs, so I reach for her, pulling her small body into my lap and hug her tight against my chest. She trembles under my touch, body heaving as she continues to cry. I massage circles into her arm with one hand and her scalp with the other, the same way I used to calm Jules down whenever she would have a panic attack.
“It’s okay, baby. I got you.” I soothe, rubbing small circles over her forearms as she begins to calm down.
“I… I need to… To tell you about why I left Brighton.” She hiccups, snuggling deeper into my chest.
My hacklesrise at the mention of her old school in New York. Is she going to tell me about Marcelo? Did hehurther?Whoare those texts from?
“I used to date this guy, Marcelo Rivers.” She sniffles.
I tense at the mention of the dickhead forward for the Brighton Eagles but I have to push aside my hatred,onlyfor the woman wrapped in my arms. I nod softly instead of responding. Lord knows if I use my voice, my anger will come out uncontainable.
“He and I were each other’s everything, Blake, or at least I thought so then. I want to point out that I’d only ever been in one other relationship before that, so I had a really shitty idea of what love was…” She chuckles but I can tell that it takes a lot for her to say something like that about herself. “He didn’t do anything to hurt me, no… He never cheated—not that I know of—and he never put his hands on me or anything like that, but he did become distant.”
She chewed on her bottom lip, wiping a single tear from her cheek.
“I don’t even know why I’m crying right now, it’s not like I miss the asshole butfuckI hate that they won’t leave me alone,” She says with a long-frustrated sigh. “It was after a match with you guys last year, Brighton won against SFU for the first time in alongtime, so the guys threw a major party… And I caught him doing steroids that night.” Like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders, Cleo relaxes just a bit under my touch.
But my shoulders? They bunch up so hard I think that all her tension trulydidshift to me.
Steroids?I knew Marcelo was an asshole but not a fucking idiot. I’m not too mad about the fact that he cheated in the game, I couldn’t care less—we’ve been winning against Brighton since I started at SFU, and we’ll keep winning once I retire from the NHL—but to put Cleo in the predicament of finding out like that, is what has me shaking with anger.
“He got so mad at me for barging in on him and saying that if I go to the Dean… Anyway, it wasbad, Blake. I’d never been scared of Marcelo, he’s a 6’0 hockey player, sure, but he’s nothing in comparison to Ry and Jace.”
She toys with the hem of my shirt before abruptly sitting up straight, looking me dead in the eyes.
“He said that if I ever toldanyoneabout what I’d seen, he’d post our sex tape. I’d completely forgotten the tape existed and then he blackmailed me with it.” Her face darkened as if reliving the moment he'd threatened her.
