“And if I win, you have to watch Operation Vengeance.”
Ten minutes later…
“Nice, Carter. You beat me for once.”
“Sure did.”
“Fine. Operation Vengeance it is.”
“Nah, we can watch your movie.”
“Really? We don’t have to.”
“I know.”
OceanofPDF.com
CHASE
I stared at my Sports Economics textbook blankly. Our exam was this week, but every time I opened the book to review the material, the words blurred.
All I could think about was Bailey. Missing her, wondering if she was okay, hoping she didn’t hate me…even though she should.
I wanted to call her. No, I wanted to go over there and tell her everything. But I couldn’t risk her getting caught in the crossfire.
If I could get through the next week or two without ruining her life, maybe I could find a way out of this chasm I’d dug myself into.
A sharp knock at the door jolted me back to reality. Dallas didn’t wait for me to respond before strolling in like a man on a mission. He sat on the edge of my bed across from my desk, facing me. I shut my textbook before thinking better of it, then immediately flipped it back open to a random section. I needed to focus on something other than what I could only assume was an imminent interrogation.
“What’s up, man?” His icy-blue eyes bored into me.
I dropped my gaze, avoiding eye contact by pretending to be fascinated with a random graph on page 256.
I turned the page. “Nothing. Just studying.”
“Sure you are.” His tone turned gruff. “Now that we’ve gotten the bullshit out of the way, what’s really going on?”
Without looking up, I shrugged. It was difficult to lie to Dallas, because he knew me so well. But I didn’t want to tell him the truth, either. The fewer people who knew, the better.
He snatched the textbook out of my hands and slammed it shut. I lifted my chin reluctantly, and when I finally made eye contact, he leveled me with a reproachful glare.
“You haven’t left the house in three days,” he pointed out. “If you don’t resurface soon, Miller is going to come over here and drag your ass to practice himself. And at this point, I’ll help him.”
“I’ll go tomorrow,” I lied.
“We have a game in two days.”
“I know.” I didn’t, actually. Our schedule had been the last thing on my mind. “I’ll be ready.” Another lie, but I was doing a lot of that lately. After barely eating or sleeping, I’d be useless on the ice. A liability, in fact.
Dallas rested his elbows on his knees, giving me a stern look that was all too reminiscent of his father. “You know, Shiv has been texting to check up on you every few hours.”
“She has? Why?”
“Gee, I don’t know, Carter.” He threw his arms out. “Maybe because we’re concerned about the status of your mental health since you dumped Bailey for no apparent reason.”
An invisible hand wrapped around my throat. “Is she okay?”
“What do you think?” He gave me a hard look.
Guilt came crashing down on me like a ton of bricks. I was buried so deep I might never get out. And I’d never forgive myself for how this went down.
Dallas’s voice took on a gentler tone. “Does this have to do with why you went to see my dad?”
I let out a long breath. He wasn’t going to let this go. “Yeah.”
“Why won’t you talk to me?” he asked. “You know you can. I won’t tell anyone. Not even Shiv.”
“Because I fucked up, Ward.”
“You know I’m going to ask you to marry me one day, right?”
“You are?”
“Count on it. Are you going to say yes?”
“Of course.”
OceanofPDF.com
CHAPTER 56
OceanofPDF.com
THE BLAST ZONE
Chase
The more I told Dallas, the more tense his posture grew.
Halfway through the recap of my conversation with Luke, he leapt off my bed. “Holy shit,” he said, interrupting me. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
Good question.
“Uh, kind of been in shock over here. My life went from normal to a living nightmare in the span of twenty-four hours. Still not thinking clearly, in case it wasn’t obvious.”
I circled back to detailing the sordid chain of events. By the end of my story, Dallas was pacing the floor of my room, nearly as distressed as I was.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” He turned on his heel and made another lap. “I remember how upset you were the next day when you told me Kristen pulled that stunt.”
He was right. But I was still pissed at myself for trusting her in the first place.
“That doesn’t change the situation I’m in now.”
Dallas shook his head, raking a hand through his dark hair. “You have to tell Bailey.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said? Morrison is going to blow up her entire world.”
He meant well, but I’d been second-guessing and agonizing over that very decision for the better part of the last three days. If it was as simple as telling her, I would have already done it.
“How would he know if you told her the truth?”
That was the million-dollar question. But the price if he did was far too high—Bailey losing everything she’d worked three years for. Her future. Her shot at a career she deserved. Being financially independent, which mattered to her more than she’d ever admit.
Not to mention the blowback in her personal life. I had skin thicker than an alligator hide, but Bailey didn’t.
“I don’t know,” I said, prickly unease washing over me. “Morrison knows all kinds of shit he shouldn’t. How does he even know about her internship? It’s creepy as hell.”
When I met Stewart’s PI, Vincent, yesterday, the first thing I asked him to do was make sure Luke didn’t have a tail on Bailey. Vincent told me to sit tight, so I’d been obsessively watching my phone and waiting for an update since. Waiting to hear whether he’d gotten a hold of the full tape, knew who else might have it, anything.
So far, no word. I couldn’t even contact Stewart again until Vincent gave me the all-clear.
Sitting, waiting, losing my goddamn mind.
“Maybe you should let Bailey decide what she wants to do,” Dallas said.
“You don’t think I want to? Giving her the choice might be the same thing as making it for her. If I tell her, and Morrison finds out, he’ll go nuclear. Game over.”
The fallout played in my head like a horror movie on repeat: that fucking email going to her friends, her family, everyone affiliated with her scholarship and internship. Bailey’s life falling apart like a house of cards, all because of me.
Morrison could pull the trigger at some point anyway, with or without dragging Bailey into it. God willing, it would be without. At the end of the day, I could own up to the things I’d done, even if I hadn’t intended them to be public knowledge.
Whether Bailey would want to be with me once she knew about the tape, though? The answer to that question scared me.
“If you don’t tell her,” Dallas said, his voice quiet, “you could lose her.”
It winded me like a hockey stick to the stomach. Again, he was right, but I couldn’t accept that as a possibility. I couldn’t be the reason her dreams went up in smoke, either. Hence the hellish purgatory I was trapped in.
I itched to pick up the phone. Better yet, to go over there and see her. I missed her more than anything in the world. The distance I’d put between us was literal torture. Like I was missing a limb, and it had only been days. How much more of this could I take?
“I’m trying to keep her out of the blast zone. I don’t care what happens to me, but I can’t let her get dragged into this shit. What would you do if it was Shiv?”
“I’d protect her,” Dallas admitted. “At all costs.”
“Exactly. Priority number one was pushing her out of the path of an oncoming freight train. If you have any ideas beyond that, I’m all ears.”