His sighs, and I question how many times he’s felt the same fear I’m feeling, how many times he’s watched the clock, waiting for the moment the door opens and his demons haunt him. How many times he’s locked himself in that closet, alone and afraid, and so I wrap my arms around him, refusing to leave his side.

“I need to stay, Lo. There are consequences to my actions, and I need to face them like a man.” How old he was when his father first gave him that speech? He sees the concern in my eyes, forces a smile to comfort me. “It’s okay, baby. You don’t need to save me.”

“But I do,” I rush out, wiping at my tears. “Because that’s what true love is, right? To want to save the person you’re with?”

We get in my car and drive to an ATM where he takes out some cash, and then we drive some more until we find a hotel two hours away. He pays with the cash he took out, mumbling something about his dad not being able to find him that way. And just like with what happened to his mother, we don’t speak about what could’ve happened to him. Because with me, his secret is safe, and with me, so is he.

We spend two nights at the hotel, and when Monday morning comes, I leave for school, and he leaves with the promise of seeing me later in the afternoon. He does see me… but with only one eye, the other forced shut, puffy, black and bruised. He tells everyone he took a basketball to the face during a pick-up game on campus. But I know the truth. We both do. Because he didn’t go back to campus. He went home to face his demons… like a man.

Chapter Nineteen

LUCAS

I choke on whatever the cafeteria lady passes as food and look up at Laney, my eyes wide. “Say that again?”

“Have you ever had a threesome?” Her tone is nonchalant, but the red in her cheeks gives her away. Laney’s a blusher, always has been.

Leaning forward, I glance around us, make sure I’m not dreaming because of all the things that I’ve imagined coming out of Lois Sanders’ mouth (and trust me, I’ve imagined a lot of things), the word “threesome” is not one of them. “Is Cooper, like, pressuring you to—”

“No!” She throws a plastic fork at my head, hitting me square on the cheek and thankfully distracting me from my images of her and that asshole. “It’s just…” She leans closer, lowers her voice. “The other day we were in my room and—”

“Stop!”

“—and this girl sent him a picture of her making out with another girl.”

I put on my best friend persona and act like I’m okay with the conversation. “And what did he say about it?”

She shrugs. “Not a lot. Just that it was a girl he’d hooked up with once and she wanted to know if he was interested in doing it again with another girl added to the mix. He wrote back right away, in front of me so I could see.”

“What did he write back?”

“That he wasn’t interested and he was with someone so to stop messaging him.”

“And you believe him?”

“I mean…” She leans closer again. “If he wanted to lie, he could’ve told me something else, right? Like the person must’ve sent it to the wrong number. But his story seems legit so…”

“Did you argue about it?”

“No. He said it so, like, matter-of-fact, that I couldn’t even come up with an argument.”

“Do you trust him?”

“I don’t know.” I can see by the way she lowers her gaze, bites down on her bottom lip that she’s lying. She doesn’t trust him but she wants to and that’s eating at her, clawing away at her thoughts, and I get it. Picturing the one you love with someone else can twist your insides to shreds.

And she thinks she loves him, and I know I love her, and so I tell her what she wants to hear: “He’s with you all the time, Lane.”

“Yeah, on weekends. But what happens during the week when I’m not around?”

I shrug. “It’s college.”

“That’s what he said!” Great, the last thing I want is for me and Cooper to think alike. She adds, “But what does that mean?”

I’m already sick of the conversation, sick of talking about him. “Can we talk about something else?”

She rolls her eyes. “Like what?”

“What are you doing for winter break?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “My dad’s going to Savannah to meet Misty’s family and Coop’s home so he’ll probably just hang at my house.”

“New Year’s?”

“No idea. Why?”

“Dad’s taking the twins and Lachlan on some fishing slash bonding trip and Logan’s been banished to my aunt Leslee’s, so Leo and I are going to have a few people over to the apartment. It’ll be low key. We’re not really down for anything big this year. But you’re welcome to come.”

She scrunches her nose. “Remember the first time we did New Year’s together?”

“You mean that time we hid out and spied on Luce and Cam and their friends? And Dumb Name thought it was a great idea to steal a bottle of vodka from them?”

She holds her stomach and groans. “Don’t remind me.”

“You puked so much that night.”

“In my defense, it was my first time drinking and we were thirteen!”

“You kept asking for God to take you away for all your sins.”

“Shut up!” Then her eyes widen and her face pales, and I follow her gaze across the room to Cooper walking toward us. He smiles at her, glares at me. As soon as he gets to us, he leans down, and before she has time to decline, he practically sucks her entire face into his sloppy, gaping mouth, putting on a show for the entire cafeteria.

I look away, bile high in my throat, an indent of his foot now in my gut. He sits next to her, his arm around her shoulder while she wipes his drool from her mouth. “What are you doing here?” she asks.

It’s Friday, which means he’s here for practice, but he’s not normally this early. At least not that I know of. Or does she mean here in the cafeteria where the high schoolers hang out and not in the teachers’ lounge or wherever the fuck it is coaches go on their lunch breaks. It doesn’t seem to matter what she means because he faces her, eyes narrowed, “Why? Did I interrupt your little rendezvous?” He raises an eyebrow, his attempt at intimidation. “Are you not happy to see me?”

Laney glances at me, then at Cooper, and I don’t think she’s taken a breath since she saw him. “I am, it’s just—”

“What did I interrupt?” He cuts in, points to me. “Were you guys planning on what time Dawson here was going to climb through your window tonight?”

I lean back, unfazed at his attempt to intimidate me, and if he cared enough about his girlfriend, he’d realize I’m not the one affected by his bullshit. She is. I smirk, right in his face, and fuck I wish I could punch him. “I use her door and I don’t need to be invited.”

“Luke!” Laney gasps, covers her entire face.