With Every Heartbeat

I frowned. I hated being around the both of them together. I had to behave myself when Gamble was present, overseeing every move I made near his sister.

“And Asher,” she added after a moment, making me frown even harder.

“Hart? Why the fuck are you calling Hart?” Just how close had those two gotten? If he hadn’t respected my request to stay away from her, I was breaking his face. That’s all there was to it.

“You’re going to need more than two people to contain Quinn when he finds out what really happened. He’ll want to kill Belcher.”

I laughed, when inside I really flinched with jealousy. “Oh, and you think Hart has the kind of muscle to help hold him down? He’s a fucking singer.”

“He’s a good talker. Maybe he can talk sense into Quinn before Quinn does too much damage.”

In my opinion, Quinn needed to do some serious damage. I was going to be haunted for a good long while by the image of a crying Blondie trying to fight Belcher off her. I hoped Ham pounded his fucking face in.

But what I said to Caroline was, “Hey, I’m a good talker. I’ve talked your brother off the ledge more times than I can count.”

She rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to respond, but Zoey lifted her face. “Can I stay at your place tonight?” she asked Caroline.

Caroline’s shock over the request was pretty evident.

“I can’t go back to Cora’s. Not after what she did.”

Caroline glanced at me. “Wait. What did Cora do?”

I frowned and shook my head, clueless. Stepping in a little closer and curious about that answer myself, I had a bad feeling there was more to Cora’s involvement than just jacking with a couple phones.

“She…” Another tear trickled down Blondie’s cheek. She wiped it away and sniffed. “She asked him to…she told him I wanted to be with him. That’s why he was in that room, that’s why he…he…”

“Wait a fucking second,” I said a little more harshly than I intended to because my voice made Blondie flinch. “Are you saying that fucking bitch told Belcher to rape you?”

She nodded, making me fume. “Yeah, or at least…something like that. She called him there, and she…she knew what he’d try to do to me.”

I curled my hands into fists. “I’m going to kill her. I’m going to fucking—”

“You can’t. She—”

“I don’t care how fucking sick she is. No human being that cruel deserves to live. And you are not giving her your kidney. I absolutely refuse to allow it. Not after this.”

“Wait, what?” Caroline broke in.

“Just…” I sighed and took her arm, urging her toward the door. “Take Blondie to your place, okay. We’ll take care of Belcher and the fucking whore.”

“But—”

After I nudged the two girls into the hall, I waved them good-bye. I had a roommate to find and worthless people to destroy.

But Blondie paused and glanced back at me with her huge, green, frightened eyes. “You’re going to tell him, aren’t you? You’re going to tell him everything.”

“He needs to know.” But I shrugged apologetically after I said it.

She nodded, and I kind of felt like shit for making her look so sad. “Just…” She looked up at me again, killing me with her sad eyes. “Please let him know I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for not telling him sooner.”

Noel, Asher and Ten were waiting for me when I unlocked my door and stepped inside my apartment.

Ten started in immediately. “Man, you seriously don’t think I fucked her, do you?”

My shoulders slumped, and I collapsed my back against the door as soon as I shut it. Closing my eyes, I fisted my hands down at my sides. So that’s what this was all about. A stupid intervention for our friends to make me forgive Ten...again.

“I told Zoey I believed her,” I said, though seriously I didn’t know what to believe anymore. I just knew I couldn’t trust my own instincts.

I had thought Cora would be faithful, that she’d loved me and wanted me to ask her to marry me. But look how wrong that had been. Then I had thought Zoey had been innocent and incapable of such betrayal, except everything I’d seen tonight pointed in the opposite direction. I still didn’t want to think anything bad of her, but...God. I honestly didn’t know what to think.

“I know you two didn’t do anything.” I said, anyway.

Mostly, I said it because I wanted him to leave me alone. I already felt bad enough. I already missed Zoey. I’d already debated with myself a million times over whether putting space between us had been the right move or not. Maybe if I’d just forced her to tell me why she’d been alone in that room with a shirtless Ten, and why she’d come out looking like someone had kissed her, we could’ve hashed it out and been over it by now. Together and over it. But I’d let Cora condition me into not asking questions, into respecting privacy.