Page 93 of Out of Control

“You got something to say, Navarro? Then say it. Let everyone here know what you really think of me.” I open the door for him to see if he’ll walk through it.

What’s more important, huh? Your sister and respecting her or unleashing your privileged shit on me?

Cruz bites his tongue. The garage is full of people, and I dare him to let the world know I’m sleeping with his little sister. Me, the guy no one thinks is good enough. Me, the one who knows he fucking is.

He just glares at me in the eerie silence of our garage. Sound is everywhere around us—the emcee, the crowd, other garages—but in ours all you can hear is our labored breaths and unspoken anger.

“That’s what I thought.” I say the words and then turn on my heels and waltz out of there.

I glance quickly at Sofia. She’s torn as I expect her to be.

And I wish she wouldn’t be because the answer should be so much easier than what she thinks it is.

I love her.

I fucking love her, but I can’t tell her because she just showed it. She just fucking hesitated. And that’s enough to tell me where I stand.

Acid creeps up my throat. I should be washing it down with champagne, but I don’t want a single fucking drop.

I want to own this fury. I want to unleash it. And when I step into the hospitality suite through the private back door and there’s a slam behind me, I know he’s fucking there.

And I turn on him in an instant with my fist cocked and my hurt overflowing.

“Back the fuck off,” I say.

Cruz’s chuckle is everything I need to ignite the fuse but for some reason it doesn’t click. It doesn’t light.

This time the damage would be irreparable.

This time? I’d lose more than just a scholarship to a fancy school and my love of art.

This time, I’d lose Sofia, and I know it.

“Why? You going to punch me, Rossi? You going to ride that fuck you bullshit you’re known for when you’re just a worthless piece of shit trying to be everything you’re not? The media may print stories about you, but I know the real you. The real truths.”

“Don’t throw stones in glass houses, Cruz-y boy. You’re far from fucking perfect. That pristine image you shine with a rag in the mirror used to be just as tarnished as mine and yet you seem to be acceptable for that family of yours.”

“You’re pathetic,” he says. “And at first, I felt sorry for you. For Stavros picking me when you won time and again. But then—then you proved why he did. Over and over. Your MO is what it is. What it’s always been, isn’t it? Can you blame me for wanting to steer clear of you?”

“And what’s that?”

His laugh grates on every nerve I have. “A piece of shit who doesn’t give a fuck about anyone other than using them for your own needs. Instead of using them to get back at me.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck me?” He steps into me, finger in my chest and ire in his voice. “You slept with my girlfriend after I got the ride. You reeled her in, you made her think she was important, that you cared, and then you took her fucking virginity before dumping her as a total fuck you to me. Because I won a ride I had no more control over than you. That type of shit? That type of man? He’s un-fucking-forgivable.”

His words assault me. One after another. Jesus. I did that?

But the minute I think the thought, the memory comes back in a torrent of snapshots.

There are so many excuses I can give, ones that are dead truths—she wanted to, she asked me to be her first, she was the one who came on to me—but anything I say, regardless of it being the truth, does nothing to make me look better. In fact, it makes me look even worse.

I’m in a no-win situation here as I should be without a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.

The things you do at that age are so very different than what you do as an adult.

“Would you want that guy with your sister? Would you want him anywhere fucking near her? And would you wonder every second of every minute since you found out about them, if he’s fucking her just to spite you? To get back at you? Would you?” He shoves against me and the fight is fucking gone. “You would. You know it. And the sad fact is you don’t even fucking blame me for thinking it.”