Page 28 of Break Away
“It tastes haunted.”
Cade ignored them, his attention still on me. “I don’t know, Easton. And if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you.”
The words hit worse than I expected. “You wouldn’t tell me?”
“No.”
“You’re my friend.”
“And she’s Bliss’s best friend.” Cade’s voice didn’t rise, but it landed heavy. “She’s Charm’s best friend. She’s family to the people who became my family. If something happened to her and she wanted me to know, she would tell me. If Bliss knew and wanted me to know, she’d tell me. I don’t get to take somethingprivate from Aura and hand it to you just because you feel bad that you stepped on it.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know either.”
“I believe you.”
The quiet in that almost made it worse.
I dragged a hand over my mouth and looked away from him. “Then why does it feel like everyone thinks I did it on purpose?”
Ryan finally leaned forward, forearms resting on the bar. “Because you were trying to hurt her. You just didn’t know which scab you were picking. You knew something haunted her, and you swung blindly at it.”
Briggs pointed at him with a fry. “That is where I’m at too. You didn’t know what it was, but you were swinging.”
“She was flirting with Gage right in front of me.”
Rider’s brows lifted. “After you spent seven months making sure she saw you with every puck bunny imaginable while ignoring her physical presence.”
I looked at him. “You taking her side now?”
“I’m taking the side where nobody gets to act shocked when the person they shoved away stands somewhere else.”
Briggs winced. “That was less supportive of Easton than I was hoping.”
“It was fair,” Cade said.
Ryan shrugged. “It was fair, but it doesn’t erase what she did either.”
I looked at Ryan because he was the only one in the room who sounded like he was standing in the middle instead of planting a flag. “Thank you.”
“I’m not giving you a cookie.” Ryan’s mouth flattened. “She hurt you. Bad. I watched it happen after, and you were walking around like somebody ripped something out of you andleft the wires showing. I’m not going to pretend she didn’t do damage because she looked sad tonight.”
Briggs nodded hard. “Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. She made you feel like some midnight hobby with abs and a parking pass.”
Rider looked over at him. “You were doing so well.”
“I’m serious.” Briggs turned fully toward me, and for once, the joke slipped out of his face. “You loved her. You tried to make it real, and she made you feel like shit for wanting that. I don’t blame you for being angry.”
The words sat in my chest, heavy and ugly.
Cade didn’t argue. That was the thing. He didn’t jump in with some easy defense or tell Briggs he had it wrong. He just looked at me, and that was somehow worse because it meant both things could be true. Aura could have hurt me badly enough that the guys saw it, and I could still have gone too far tonight.
“It’s about her ex Darian, isn’t it?” I asked.
Bliss went utterly still behind the bar, and it told me enough that my stomach dropped.
Cade looked over his shoulder at her, and whatever passed between them was fast and quiet, the kind of thing people in love could do in a crowded room without anyone else being invited in.
I straightened slowly. “It was him.”
