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I ground my jaw with each memory he ticked off. Like he’d been saving them for something just like this.
“You’re going to yell at me?” I seethed. “You’re going to hate me? You wanted her to follow Mickey. Mickey. What if he caught her?”
Beck drove his hands through his hair. “I never wanted her to follow Mickey. Jesus fuck. I . . . fuck,” he yelled. “You were standing there holding the only girl I’ve ever loved. You had her in your room, and she was in your clothes. After everything that happened to Lily, I never thought you’d be with someone again. And then you chose Jess? Of all people, you chose Jess?”
I blew out a ragged breath and dragged my hands over my face. “Beck.”
“I was hoping. God, I was hoping it was a mistake. Or maybe you’d”—his face twisted in agony—“bought her for an hour or a day,” he whispered, sounding sick. When a growl sounded in my chest, he huffed sadly. “Yeah, I already know that wasn’t it.”
“I don’t see her that way.”
“I don’t want you to see her at all,” he yelled. “I was hoping if I suggested she do what you haven’t been, you’d let her go, and I’d be able to pull the knife out of my back so I could finally take a goddamn breath.”
I looked at him helplessly as his shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry, Beck. I’m fucking sorry. I don’t know what more I can say.”
“You can start by not stealing the last girl who means something to me on this earth. Lily was my best friend, and I lost her because you weren’t around to fix your relationship. I know what we were doing was important, but she should’ve been more important to you. She was more important to me,” he said, beating his hand on his chest. “And Jess?” A harsh laugh burst from him, and he turned, taking a few steps away.
“You told me you wanted nothing to do with her,” I said. “You told me she wanted nothing to do with you.”
He rounded on me, quickly eating the distance between us. “I want nothing to do with her because I’m so in love with her I can’t see straight when she’s there. And it kills me that she chose that goddamn life instead of what I want to give her.” He threw his hand out to the side, as if Jessica and her clients were all standing there. “I’ve watched her ruin herself because of what I am. Every day I have to see what I’ve done to her. I have to see how much she hates me. And the reminder that it’s my fault is thrown in my face. But given a chance, I would do it all again because it has kept her safe. She’s everything to me.”
My head shook slowly as guilt and pain tore me apart. “Beck. I don’t . . . I don’t know—”
“Save it. I think you’ve done enough.”
I wanted to tell him I needed her.
I wanted to tell him she fit me in a way nothing ever had or should.
I wanted to tell him I’d tried to keep Lily . . . and why I hadn’t been able to.
But anything I said then would have only made it worse.
I nodded and rocked back. “I’m sorry, man.”
I’d started to turn when he asked, “Is this how it felt?”
I tilted my head slowly. Silently telling him to continue. Silently warning him not to.
“When Dare stabbed you in the back. When he stole Lily from you. When you lost everything you’d lived and killed yourself for?” He rubbed at his chest and stumbled back a few steps until he was pressed against the wall of the building he dealt next to. “Is this how it felt?”
Dare had been a business partner and friend.
/> I’d spent my life loving a girl who I was never supposed to belong to before she’d fallen for him.
Beck and I had been best friends most of our lives.
He’d been in love with a girl who’d never belonged to him. Who’d rejected him. And then I met her.
We’d both ruined our souls for those girls by trying to survive in this life.
It all looked the same, and yet, nothing felt like it.
Didn’t change the fact that I’d ruined something between Beck and me.
“I’m sorry,” was all I said.
“Lily’s pregnant.”
