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"Nothing much." He shrugged.
"Maddox," I warned. "We agreed to be honest with each other. No more secrets or lies. That's the only way this works."
Sucking in a deep breath, he nodded with a sigh. "I told him that if he ever so much as looked in your direction again, this video would be the one going viral," he said. "And if he ever threatened you again, after I killed him, the mugshot of me smiling would go viral."
"What video?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.
"The video of him hurting you."
"You got that on video?" I snapped.
"No." He shook his head. "I didn't have time. When I came out, he already had his hands wrapped around your throat. But he didn't know I didn't get a video of it, and that was all that mattered. Plus, he knew I found out about him threatening you."
"He'll probably tell Asher," I said.
"Good, I hope he's terrified, wondering what I'll do."
"Coach resigned this morning," I said, a slow smile spreading across my face. "But you already knew that, didn't you."
He nodded. "Look, since we are talking about all this right now, I should probably tell you," he paused, clearing his throat. "I threatened Coach after I found out about the two of you. He was mad, and he took it out on you." He pressed his lips into a thin line, waiting for me to yell at him, but I wasn't going to.
"You knew he was married?"
"I did," he said.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you wouldn't have believed me." He shrugged. "You would have thought I was lying to ruin the perfect relationship you thought you had." Sucking in a deep breath and slowly exhaling, I knew he was right. At that point, I wouldn't have believed Maddox over Chance. I nodded. "There's more..."
"More," I repeated, my eyebrows raising. He nodded. "Okay?"
"When we were at Karly's, it dawned on me that Asher had every one of the videos and pictures I'd taken," he said, and I nodded, not exactly following where he was going with this. "Only one video was sent out in high school. Asher had all of them."
"Okay." I scowled, drawing out the word, still not following him.
"I asked Maddy how Asher got all of them," he said. "And she said that was a question I should ask Asher."
"Maddox, I'm not understanding."
"Maddy knew how he got them," he snapped. "I don't know if she was part of it or she found out after, but she knew. Guilt was written all over her face."
"Maddox, we already determined that Maddy was on the other end of the campus," I reminded him. "There's no way she could have sent them from your phone."
"Yeah, we did, but that's where this gets interesting," he said. "After we left Karly's, I texted Karly and told her I thought Maddy was involved somehow back then, and since Maddy was staying with her, she was able to dig through Maddy's devices while she slept to see if Maddy had any of the pictures or videos that Asher had."
My chest tightened painfully. Maddy and I were friends. I trusted her. "And?"
"There weren't any pictures," he said, and I blew out a breath. "But after having a conversation with Karly, I realized that it had to have been Maddy who sent that video out. Asher was involved too, but the person who hit send that day was Maddy."
"Okay," I said. "Again, I don't know how it could have been her."
"Karly broke it down for me," he said. "See, after I explained to her that I made it into the locker room mere seconds after Asher, we realized it couldn't have been Asher. I was at my locker when the video was sent out, and what I didn't think was weird then that I do now is that I got a message alert at the exact same time as everyone else from my number."
"Wait," I scowled. "Are you saying that your phone was texted the video from your phone?"
"It wasn't from my phone, but it was from my number," he explained. "Karly explained that whoever it was used a texting app. They sent the video from my number using an app to make it look like I sent it."
"Maddy," I muttered. He nodded.
