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I frowned, my stomach rumbling, and I felt a little light-headed. Maybe something in my stomach would be okay? “Could you make me a coffee-flavored smoothie?”
“You serious?”
I shrugged. “You can put healthy stuff in there, but if it tastes like coffee, I’m more likely to drink it.”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s what’s wrong with women these days. They’ll eat or drink anything as long as it tastes like coffee. No respect for proper nutrition.”
“Uh. Okay, Dad.”
He made an exasperated sound before going back downstairs.
I shut the door, eyeing the shower because that had some appeal. Not because I needed one—I’d showered this morning.
I finished brushing my teeth, and when that was done, I didn’t move.
Scout woke me up. I was back to feeling. I was back to remembering.
I didn’t go downstairs. I didn’t leave the bathroom.
I stared at myself in the mirror, my visions tunneling in and out.
I was back in Cedra Valley.
There was a layer of dirt and revulsion and gross. It settled over my body like another layer of skin. I felt it again. It seeped into my body, and I felt it taking my skin’s place as if it were pushing out all the new freedom and good things I’d started to feel being here.
Cedra Valley and Max Prestige were back inside me, and I couldn’t get them out.
That article. I had to fight back. I had to, and I hated that he was making me do that. If he’d just stopped . . .
If he’d just go away . . .
I felt the tears coming, but no. I would not cry over that piece of shit. Would not and could not.
The door swung open. Scout stood there, his phone in hand. “Is this why you threw up today?”
I could see the headline for the article that Max wrote.
“If I asked you to, would you go over there and beat the shit out of him?”
I was joking, wasn’t I? I tore my gaze away and turned for the shower because I really, really needed to clean myself off for some reason.
“Yes.”
I swung back to him. He was serious. His eyes were darkening. Anger.
He was angry for me. My mouth opened. My throat was dry. “Are you serious?”
“What he did to you, to any girl? Fuck yes, but now that he did this? He’s legit asking for a beating. I will be shocked if I’m the first one to get to him.”
I stared at him. Just stared and breathed, and that bathroom suddenly felt so small and sweltering. I wanted him to do it.
I wanted Max to hurt, just an iota of what he’d done to me. He took my father away from me.
He deserved to hurt.
I couldn’t respond to Scout. If I did, I’d say something I couldn’t take back, even though everything in me wanted one person to take up for me against him, to make Max hurt for me, one person to stand up because it was so hard, so tiring, to always be the only one.
But I had my mom, my cousins. They were all behind me.
That was right. I wasn’t alone. I had family. I had new friends.
I was here. Max couldn’t get to me here.
“Do my cousins know about that?” I nodded at his phone as I reached to turn on the shower.
His eyes darkened all over again, and he put his phone on the counter. “Kira sent it to me, so I’m guessing yes. She asked if you’re missing some Homecoming thing because of this. She would’ve sent it to your cousins.”
As if on cue, my phone lit up.
Scout was closest to it, and he looked down. “Clint calling.”
“Turn it off.”
He frowned at me, but he reached down and powered off my phone. “You didn’t answer me. You want me to beat the shit out of your ex?”
My heart beat so hard in my chest, trying to tunnel its way out of me. “Of course I want you to do that.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Yeah?”
“But that’s what he wants. He wants me to send a guy after him. He wants a reaction from me. He wants anything to do with me.”
“I could do it and not get in trouble.”
I reached back, testing the water. It was almost scalding hot.
Perfect.
I reached for my shirt, taking that off first. I did the rest, not looking at Scout as I stripped naked. It wasn’t until I’d backed into the shower that I looked at him again.
He’d moved farther into the bathroom and was leaned against the counter, his arms folded over his chest. He watched me.
I tipped my head back, feeling the burn soak me from head to toe. “Can’t do anything to him, and we both know it.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“You go after him, I guarantee he’ll somehow use it to further ruin my life and yours. I can’t have you as collateral damage.”
