I was who I was, and so was my father. Griffin Ashby wouldn’t take it that far.
And nothing would keep me from her. I’d love to see him try. I almost looked forward to it.
Fuck it. We were going.
I snatched up her bottom lip between my teeth, a smile in my voice. “My kind of fun has a price.”
She laughed, looking excited, and nothing mattered more than where we’d be in a few hours. Alone, quiet, just us.
I didn’t even want to stop at my house for clothes.
My phone started ringing, hers beeped, as well, and she reached for it, but I pulled her hand back, starting to get hard again.
Shit. We didn’t have time for this. We had to leave.
My phone dinged again.
And again and again, one right after the other.
What the fuck? If Michael needed his car back that badly, track it and come get it, for Christ’s sake. It was fucking early.
I pulled away from her mouth and growled as I reached over the side of the bed and felt for my phone. Finding it, I picked it up and turned it on, looking at the screen as she kissed my neck.
Instagram notifications, tags, tweets, PMs with article links…
What the fuck was this?
It all hit me at once, my nerves firing as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. And then I clicked on a tag, a dark video popping up with the sound off, but it didn’t matter. My heart stopped, instantly recognizing what I was seeing.
Winter and me in the bathroom night before last night.
The video on the group phone. It did take.
After it fell to the bathroom floor, it only recorded the ceiling, but it was still going. All the sounds we made would be on there and…
My eyes raced, scanning for who posted it, the comments, and then seeing my other notification and that it had been posted on multiple social media sites by several people, shared and retweeted like crazy.
Dread rolled through my stomach, and I caught another video I recorded of Kai and Will beating the shit out of a man who had been beating the crap out of his little sister.
Unfortunately, the man was also a cop, and Kai and Will’s faces are also visible.
And mine, along with Winter’s on our video, wasn’t hidden at all.
The comments raged, throwing shit at all of us, and I couldn’t look anymore. I closed my eyes. “Oh, my God,” I muttered.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, still kissing me.
Notifications were piling up, my phone still beeping, and I silenced it.
How did this happen? Where was the phone?
Jesus, my hands were shaking.
Will always handled the phone on Devil’s Night. If we were all in on a prank, he filmed it. I gave it back to him after we got into the village last night to go to Sticks.
But it wasn’t in his pockets last night when I searched for the keys. Where was his sweatshirt?
And then everything fucking hit me like a truck.
Rika.
The tear in the sleeve I saw when I held her wrists last night. That wasn’t her shirt. She’d grabbed the wrong one when she left the warehouse. She’d been wearing Will’s hoodie.
I shot up, forcing Winter off me as I sat up.
“Fucking Rika.” I rubbed my eyes, wrapping my head around the shitstorm about to ensue. “Motherfucker.”
“Rika Fane?” Winter questioned. “What’s wrong?”
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t think.
Looks like she’d responded to what happened last night. To what she thought Will and I were in on and Kai was a part of, not knowing it was Trevor Crist instead.
God, I was so stupid. I was afraid she’d hate me and never forgive me, but she found the fucking phone in the pocket and dealt with us for good by uploading those goddamn videos. I’d underestimated her.
It was one thing to get caught with Winter by her father. But no one survived the jury of public opinion. Our mistakes—reprehensible to those on the outside who didn’t understand—were laid bare to everyone who had an opinion, and there would be no choice. We’d have to be held accountable.
I quickly texted the guys.
We’re so fucked!
And then I added, letting them know:
Rika has the phone! She had Will’s sweatshirt last night!
As far as I saw, Michael wasn’t in any of the videos. Of course. She wouldn’t do anything to hurt her little crush.
I stood up, pulling on my jeans.
“Get dressed,” I told Winter. “We gotta get out of here.”
But she just knelt on the bed, facing me. “What’s wrong?”
“Now,” I ordered, sticking my phone in my back pocket and looking for my shirt.
But she didn’t move. “You’re scaring me,” she said.
“So what else is new?”
I gathered up my shit, making sure I had Michael’s keys, but when I looked at her again, she still wasn’t budging.
“I said get dressed. Let’s go.”
Her head turned toward her phone, hearing notifications go off for her, as well. One after the other.
She dropped her voice, demanding, “What’s happening?”
I stood there, not knowing what the hell I could do to salvage this. How did I get her out of here and gone and make this all go away so she never found out the nightmare that was happening out there right now?
But behind me, I heard an engine racing at full speed down the driveway.
She knew something was wrong. She wouldn’t run with me like this.
And they were already here.
Dropping my shit, I dug out a cigarette and lit it, staring at her with the sheet wrapped around her body and just wanting to dive into her hair and lips and the warmth of her bed just minutes ago.
How did so much change in such a short time?
She heard the lighter, smelled the smoke, a troubled look crossing her beautiful face. “You smoke?” she asked so quietly.
I could hear the tires screech to a halt outside and the doors slam.
I darted my eyes to hers. “Don’t let me go,” I told her, breathing hard. “No matter what you hear or what they say, don’t let me go.”
She shook her head. “What do you mean?” And then she turned to where her phone sat again, flustered. “My phone’s going berserk. What’s happening? Please?”
“Winter!” her father shouted from downstairs, suddenly in the house.
And I dove in, brushing her lips with mine as he charged up the stairs.
“Don’t let me go,” I whispered.
But then her door was thrown open, her father entered with another man in tow, and he charged me.
“Oh, you son of a bitch! Get away from her!”
He threw a punch, and it was the first time in years I hadn’t been ready to fight back. I didn’t even want to. If I lost her, I didn’t even care.
His fist landed across my jaw, and I fell into her nightstand, the lamp on it crashing to the floor with me.
Winter started gasping. “What’s going on?”
A kick shot into my stomach, and I grunted, wincing as he did it again.
“Dad, stop!” she cried, climbing off the bed. “Leave him alone!”
The other guy pulled her back, and I recognized him as Mr. Kincaid, my old dean. He gripped Winter by the arms as she struggled to free herself.
“You sick little shit!” Ashby growled at me. “I threatened a restraining order and you do this? You’re going to fucking jail for this. How dare you!”
He came down, landing another punch, and I clenched my teeth, holding my stomach.
Winter.
“Restraining order?” she repeated. “What?”
Please no. Please don’t find out like this. Fuck.
“How could you have sex with him, Winter?” her father shouted. “What were you thinking?”
She held the sheet around her body, shaking her head. “How do you know that? What’s happening?”
She doesn’t know anything. She doesn’t know about the video being leaked, me…
“Call Doug Coulson,” Ashby told Mr. Kincaid. “Tell him we have Torrance here and to get his ass over here on his rounds picking up all the rest of the little shits.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, barely feeling him grip my hair as I waited for Winter to understand.
It was over. She’d hate me.
“Torrance,” she breathed out, hearing what her father had said. “Damon Torrance?”
I looked at her as he pulled my hair, making my scalp burn. “Winter,” I begged.