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“In his backseat,” he said, disgusted. “Wow.”
Kevin pushed off the van, and she wasn’t sure who she was afraid for. Judging by the look on Nick’s face, if Kevin decided to hit back, he wouldn’t be making it out of the parking lot alive. Kevin settled for spitting at Nick’s feet and walking away.
Hayley stepped into the lot. “What did you do?” she asked, dazed.
“I couldn’t take it anymore.” Nick’s eyes were dull. “I couldn’t.”
“Youhithim,” she said absently. “You hit him, and then you told him I’d been cheating on him.”
“I never said that.”
She watched Kevin’s car peel out of the parking lot. “What the fuck did you do?”
“He called you a bitch.”
“Well, sure,” she said. “I’d think I was one too.”
“He wouldn’t believe we were together.”
“And you wanted credit,” Hayley said. “Six years. Six years, andnot oncedid I eventhinkof cheating on him.”
“I didn’t—”
“What do you think he thinks now?” she demanded. “Ibarely believe we didn’t fuck the night he left.”
“He laughed!” Nick was shouting. “He only wanted me near you because he thought I was the one man you’d never want!”
“What difference does it make?” she said. “You and I weren’t together! I wasn’t supposed to want you.”
Nick stared at her, stunned. “Hayley, he used me to keep you in line.”
“And you were never going to be happy,” she said, “until Ibelongedto you.”
“Yes!” he exploded. “Better me than him!”
Hayley threw up her hands. “Well that’s just great, Nick. Doesn’t matter what happens to me or my reputation, as long as you screw him over.”
“That son of a bitch has never doneanythingfor you!”
“This from the son of a bitch who tried so hard towinme,” she shot back. “You were terrified our breakup wouldn’t stick, weren’t you? You had to make absolutely goddamn sure.”
Nick laughed. “I could have broken you up months ago,” he said. “I’m the only reason you’re still together.”
“Don’t.” Her voice got dangerously low. “You don’t know anything about us.”
“The hell I don’t,” he said. “You’re barely a couple. You live in the same house and you sleep in the same bed, and you’re both thrilled I’m here because I keep you from noticing you barely like each other. He doesn’t have to spend time with you or listen to you or tell you everything’s going to be okay. I do that. And you’re working so hard to believe you’re still in love with him that you’re the only one of the three of us who hasn’t noticed you’re getting your love and your sex from two different guys. But that’s fine. It’ll all be okay, because good old Nick will settle for whatever he can get, right?”
Hayley’s entire body hurt, as if the pain were trapped and boiling inside her. Nick didn’t care about her. He just wanted her body. Worse than that, he wanted to be able to claim her. Hayley was still reeling from her failures, but she had tried. She had fought. And she would not be reduced to someone else’s accomplishment.
“No expectations, right?” Her voice was guttural, her hands clenched. “I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to you, because Nicky Freeman’s prom queen ran away, and now he’ll say whatever he needs to if it means he can fuck me. You have no idea what it means to love somebody. No idea what it means to build a life with someone instead of whining about what you think you deserve.”
Nick’s eyes were ice-cold, his body rigid. The wall was up between them again.
He said, “Using a cripple was never going to fix you.”
Hayley slapped him in the face, hard.
She said, “Fucking me was never going to make you less of a cripple.”
