“If you ever manhandle me like that again, my palm is going to manhandle your pretty little face,” I warned him.
His expression didn’t change. He kept his dark gaze, flickering with anger, focused wholly on me, and his jaw ticked. “In case you don’t remember, Xavier Ryan is an asshole.”
Without hesitation, I replied, “So are you.”
“He looks at you like he just wants to fuck you.”
“So do you.”
“He’ll fuck you and not care about you the next day.”
“I’m sorry, are we still talking about Xavier?”
“Damn it, Lani!” He ran his hand through his hair. “The guy is a prick. Don’t go there.”
Wow.
Was he seriously going there?
He was.
I swallowed hard and folded my arms across my chest. “It’s none of your business where I do or don’t go. In case it’s escaped your notice, I happen to be an adult these days. Not to mention that you lost the right to have any fucking say in my life eight years ago.”
Brett stilled. “What does that mean?”
Shit.
“Nothing.” I dropped my arms and stepped away from him. “Don’t you have a race to run?”
His gray-blue eyes stayed intent on me for the longest minute. I forced down the lump in my throat and slowly took in a deep breath as if it would stop him looking at me the way he was.
Like he knew I was avoiding something.
Like he knew there was a reason.
“Where were you this morning?” The question blurted out of me before I could stop it.
Brett closed the distance before us and pried the recorder out of my hands. He looked at it for a moment and then hit the button before he lifted it to his mouth. Then, with his eyes on me, said, “Brett Walker is doing the color run for Whiskey Key Elementary. New equipment will be delivered to the school for the gym hall in time for the new school year, and part of their fall term will be dedicated to setting up the new vegetable garden with the help of a local gardener. He’ll also go in weekly, for as long as he’s needed, to keep their vegetables growing correctly and teach them the importance of what they’re doing.”
My lips parted as he turned the recorder off and put it back in the palm of my hand.
“There,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t ask me how much it costs. I’m not gonna tell you. I don’t talk money like these cheap fools.”
Oh my god. He actually did it.
“Where were you this morning?” I asked quietly, clutching the recorder to my chest.
A sly smile crept onto his lips. “Are you going to go out with Xavier when he asks you?”
I stared at him. Was he...blackmailing me?
He grabbed a bottle of water from a guy with a case full of them and let that smile move into a smirk. “Don’t go out with him and I’ll tell you,” was all he said, right before he turned and walked in the direction of the start line.
Ass. Hole.
“Don’t go out with him and I’ll tell you.”
I didn’t have words for how annoyed that made me. He had no right to hold my personal life over my head. My personal life, no matter how much he tried to insert himself—or his cock—into it, was nothing to do with him.
How dare he use such a thing against me?
It was manipulation of the most asshole level possible.
If only I wasn’t so goddamn curious. I wanted to know—bad. I wanted to know where in the hell he disappeared to. What was so important that nobody could contact him? Why wouldn’t he tell anyone?
Was he really doing something good, or was it all a ruse?
I didn’t know what to believe where he was concerned. After all, he’d done one of his annoying personality flips again. Told me everything he was doing for the school and then let his inner fuckboy out to play.
The worst thing? I was seriously considering—if he ever asked—not going out with Xavier if it meant finding out where Brett kept disappearing to.
God, I wanted...No. I needed to know. It was bugging me to the point that I didn’t know what was annoying me more—Brett’s dick move or the thing he was keeping secret. The good thing, not the big thing.
I was starting to wish I’d never left town.
I tapped my fingers against my chin and snapped a picture as a group of young women crossed the finish line. I had no idea how many of these shots would be good, and I had more than enough candids to go ahead and put the article together, but there was something oddly relaxing about sitting just away from the hubbub of noise and watching multi-colored people emerge victorious.
I’d never done a color run. It looked like fun.
When my sister was no longer pregnant, I was going to kill her for getting pregnant and making me want to stay here. I could at least plan that far ahead.
Well, maybe not kill her. But I was going to make her life hell.
Where the hell was Brett disappearing to?
I swear I’d never wanted to know something so badly in my life. Where was he and why couldn’t he tell me? I didn’t care how good his supposed good deeds were. I wanted to know what they were. That was it. He could keep the goodness. Just tell me what he was doing.
Was I asking for a lot?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BRETT
I was dead.
That was the only explanation for this fucking awful burning in my side. I was either dead or I was dying. Nothing else made sense.
At least I’d finished the goddamn race.
And I’d finished it before Xavier fucking Ryan.
I grabbed a bottle of water from the girl at the finish line, undid the cap, and drank. The cold water was soothing, but my adrenaline was still running on high. I was covered in damn paint and all because of Lani’s stupid little hints.
What the hell was wrong with me? I was doing all that for the school and using my mom’s gardener to go in once a week and make sure the kids didn’t kill the veggies. And I was paying him for it—not my parents. They didn’t even know, for god’s sake. It was all me.
I didn’t need to run this stupid, paint-obsessed race. I could have made the donation and done the organizing and moved on with my life. I would have preferred that. The only reason I was making it public knowledge was because of Lani.
It was Lani.
All for Lani.
I could feel the way she was twisting me around her little finger. Worse? I didn’t care.
What I did care about was having to listen on a friend hit on her. Xavier was worse than I was. His reputation typically whispered of two girls in one night, and not necessarily separately. There were more than enough stories about his threesomes, but no—she wouldn’t have heard any of that shit about the golden Ryan boy, would she?
The town was far too busy chatting shit about me to worry about him. God forbid they attack the perfect guy with quiet screw ups rather than the real guy with public ones.