Page 139 of Break Away
I hated that I felt it.
I hated that, after all this time spent watching him look through me like I was nothing but a bad decision he had outgrown, one look from him could still hit the center of my chest and make everything inside me shake.
Bliss was there before I could make sense of it.
She came through the front with Cade behind her, Charm beside her, and Ryan right on their heels, all of them damp fromthe rain and wide-eyed from whatever nightmare version of the story I had managed to give Bliss over the phone.
Bliss’s face went white the second she saw the state of the bar, then whiter when she saw Easton.
“Oh my gosh,” she whispered.
Cade’s arm came around her without hesitation, anchoring her against his side, but his eyes were already moving. Easton. Briggs. Rider. Me. The blood near the entrance. The basketball players clustered outside with Maddox half-sitting against the wall between two of them while another pressed a wad of napkins against his face.
Charm looked at me first, then Bliss, then Maddox in the parking lot, and I watched the pieces click into place for them both. “Was that Maddox Vincent?”
I nodded, still frozen from the shock.
Her eyes filled so quickly that something in my throat closed. She didn’t run to me, and I was grateful because I didn’t know what I would do if anyone touched me right then. She stood there, beautiful and horrified, one hand pressed against her mouth like she was physically holding herself together.
Ryan’s face went deadly quiet.
He looked at Easton, then past him toward the door, then back again, and whatever he saw made his jaw harden. “What the fuck happened?”
Hannah came around the bar with a towel in one hand and murder across her face. “What happened is Maddox opened his mouth in my bar and proved the world would be better if some men had theirs permanently wired shut.” Her gaze cut toward the basketball players near the entrance. “You can let him know he’s eighty-sixed for life. I don’t want him in my bar, near my bar, looking through the windows of my bar, or sending some pathetic friend in here to pick up food from my bar. He’s done.”
One of the basketball players nodded once, his face tight. “Understood.”
“No,” Hannah said, her voice sharp enough to make half the room flinch. “I don’t think you do, so let me make it cleaner. If Maddox walks through that door again, I call campus security, Kimball Falls PD, his coach, and his mother if I can find her number. If any of you decide his version of tonight is worth spreading, I hope you have very comfortable shoes because you’ll be walking your asses to another bar for the rest of your lives.”
Nobody argued.
Good.
For once, men had found survival in silence.
Bliss moved toward me then, slow and careful. “Aura.”
I stepped back before I could stop myself, and her face crumpled.
That hurt. It hurt in a place I didn’t have room for.
“Don’t,” I said, and my voice sounded wrong. Too thin. Too raw. “Please don’t.”
Charm’s hand lowered from her mouth. “Ay.”
I shook my head, sharp and immediate. “No. I can’t. I called because Easton was going to fight him, and I knew if I didn’t get someone here, he was going to do something he couldn’t walk back from. That’s why I called. That’s all I can do right now.”
Bliss’s eyes shone. “We’re not trying to—”
“I know.” My laugh came out ugly and empty. “That’s the problem. I know you’re not trying to hurt me. I know both of you love me. I know you’re scared, and I know you want to help, but I cannot stand here and be held together by committee tonight. I can’t have everyone looking at me like I’m made of glass because Maddox finally said my truth out loud.”
Charm flinched like the words had landed inside her own chest.
Bliss pressed her lips together and nodded even as tears spilled over.
I looked away because if I watched her cry for me, I was going to break again, and I had already done enough breaking for one night.
Across the room, Ryan stepped into Easton’s space with no patience left in him. “Let me see.”
