I looked away.
Cade didn’t soften it for me. That was why Cade and I worked. He would stand beside me in a fight without pretending I hadn’t thrown the first punch.
“For the record, Rider and I were on Aura’s side too.”
My head turned. “You were?”
“We weren’t against you.” His voice stayed calm, which almost made it worse. “Those aren’t the same thing.”
I laughed once, hard and humorless. “That supposed to help?”
“No. It’s supposed to be true.” Cade kept his eyes on mine. “You were hurt. She was hurt. Both of you said things meant to leave marks. But she was standing in a room full of your people, East. Your house. Your team. Your friends. Even the guys who thought she was wrong were looking at you first, waiting to see how badly you were bleeding.”
My throat tightened.
“Bliss saw that,” he said. “Then she went home, and Aura let her and Charm have it before leaving the apartment without saying when she’d be back.”
I stared through the rain-streaked window again. Bliss had one sleeve pulled over her hand, dabbing beneath her eye while pretending she was fixing her mascara. Briggs was speaking to her from across the table, his expression careful. He looked like he wanted to make things better and knew enough, for once, not to try.
“What did you tell her?” I asked.
“I told her what I just told you. That you were hurt and Aura was hurt, and the room leaned toward you because you were ours first. I told her that didn’t make Aura the villain.” Cade’s mouth tightened. “She didn’t want to hear it from me.”
“Because you’re my best friend.”
He nodded. “I’m Bliss’s too. That’s the problem.”
The words sat between us, heavy as hell.
“She thinks she failed Aura,” Cade said.
I dragged a hand over the back of my neck, then stopped because the movement reminded me of Aura’s eyes catching on me every time I did it. “I didn’t ask anyone to pick me.”
“No, but you knew they would.”
I looked at him.
Cade didn’t blink. “Come on, Wade.”
The worst part was that I didn’t have an answer. Not a good one. Not one that didn’t make me feel like shit.
“I wanted her to feel it,” I admitted, keeping my voice low enough that Mom and the girls wouldn’t hear from the sidewalk. “For once, I wanted her to feel what she did to me.”
Cade nodded once. “Did it help?”
I looked back at Bliss, then down at the wet pavement. “No.”
“Yeah.” He exhaled and glanced toward the parking lot, where Mom was helping Vivi out of the truck while Skylar argued with her own reflection in the window. “Breakfast needsto be clean. Your mom is sharp as hell, and Bliss doesn’t have the face to fake fine this morning.”
“I won’t say anything.”
“I’m not worried about you saying anything. I’m worried about you noticing too much and doing that thing where your face turns into a locked door.”
“That’s just my face.”
“No, that’s your avoidant face. I’ve seen both.”
I gave him a flat look. “You have been unbearable since falling in love.”
