Page 58 of Beg for You

I needed to leave, but a canvas leaning against the wall beside the easel caught my eye. The back of it was facing out. I turned it around and stepped back.

My gaze moved over it, not sure what I was seeing at first. A woman shrouded in darkness, flames, smoke…blue eyes, bright and haunting, glowing out of the shadows, blond hair flying all around her.

It was me.

I knew it was. But I didn’t understand it.

This was nothing like the one on the easel. This one had been done with the same anger—no, rage, as the others I’d seen the night Cal lost his temper and told me not to touch his things.

This was not a painting of a lover.

No, Cal saw me as something else.

What was this? What the hell was going on?

My mind was spinning as I moved across his apartment. Something wasn’t right. He’d tried to tell me something several times but had either stopped himself or been interrupted. I’d assumed it was about our different backgrounds, but now I wasn’t so sure.

I opened a drawer, and then another, and before long I was searching his apartment. For what, I had no idea.

On the far side of the room was a small wooden chest and I was crouched down in front of it a few seconds later. I opened it and looked inside. There wasn’t much: some sketches, along with some old newspaper clippings by the looks. I was about to shut it when something caught my eye. A name.

My brother’s name.

I picked up the article on top with a trembling hand and read it.

I’d never seen any of the coverage of the accident or what happened afterward because my father had forbidden it, had done everything he could to keep it from me. And frankly, I hadn’t wanted to know. I certainly didn’t want to relive any of it or hear what people were saying about my brother.

Christopher Deighton, son of prominent businessman Lyall Deighton: dead after fatal car accident. His passenger, Joel Calero, is in critical condition. Mr. Deighton’s daughter was the first on the scene and suffered severe burns attempting to pull her brother from the wreckage…

I stared down in shock and confusion. Why did Cal have this? I read the next few articles. They were all about the accident, my father, Christopher, me, what happened afterward. A couple even had pictures of me leaving the hospital with my father after my treatment.

What the hell was going on?

I went back to the first article, my eyes skipping over the words, trying to piece whatever this was together. My gaze landed and locked on a name.

Joel Calero.

No.

I quickly sifted through the rest of the newspaper clippings until I found what I was looking for. A picture of Chris’s friend Joel. I vaguely remembered him. I’d only met him a couple of times in passing.

I hadn’t paid him much attention back then. Chris had a lot of friends and not all were people I wanted to get to know. As I stared down at the picture in my hands, there was no mistaking who I was looking at. He’d changed a lot, of course. He was much bigger now, scarred, tattooed, but those eyes, those dark eyes that could look deep inside you, they hadn’t changed. No, there was no mistaking who he was.

Cal.

Joel “Cal” Calero.

My hand flew to my mouth.

Cal was Chris’s friend. His scars were from the same accident that killed my brother.

He’d known who I was all this time, and he’d said nothing. I went to throw the newspaper clippings back in the trunk, ready to run from the room, when I spotted some letters in the bottom of the chest, all of them unsent by the looks. I opened one. It was from Cal to Dane. I read it quickly, my heart pounding in my chest, my head swimming with so many questions.

Cal asking how Dane was, telling him that he missed him, that he would see him soon. They’d been apart for some reason.

I got to the end.

I promise you, Dane. I’ll make that bastard Lyall pay for tearing us apart. Whatever it takes, I’ll make him pay.