Breaking the Rules
Page 65

“Then what is it?” I yell. He made love to me. Noah made love to me, and now he’s chasing after some other girl.
Isaiah pops his neck to the side. “Promise me you’ll stay right here. Keep an eye on Beth, I’ll get him, and we’ll go.”
I cross my arms over my chest, but my nonverbal obviously isn’t enough for him.
“Promise, Echo.”
Fine... “I promise.”
“Here. Wait right here.” He points to the ground at my feet. “Don’t make my life complicated.”
When I say nothing else, Isaiah stalks off to search for Noah. The fine hair on my arms rises as if I’m on the verge of something horrible. Please let Noah be the man I believe him to be, because I love him, and it would crush me if I’m wrong.
Beth wanders over to me, and the last thing I need is the Jiminy Cricket from hell yapping on my shoulder. “Not now.”
“He loves you,” she says.
My head whips to her. “What?”
“Noah. He loves you.” In the firelight, I do my best to gauge her eyes, and they aren’t bloodshot. She’s not wavering and to be honest, I only saw her drink one and a half beers. She may be buzzing, but she’s not drunk.
“I know,” I say.
She shrugs. “Yeah, that was my best at acting girly.”
I crouch to the ground and lower my face to my hands. If Beth’s being nice to me, everything must be on the brink of explosion.
Noah
I cross over the hill after Mia and pause when I notice a bunch of cars parked off to the side. A dirt road leads off into the distance. For the amount of people here, it makes sense there was a back way.
Mia holds out keys and lights flash on a Mercedes. A Mercedes. What the hell is Mia doing driving a Mercedes? She staggers to the right and rams her thigh into the hood of the car. She’s blitzed, and the last thing she needs is to be behind the wheel.
“I thought you came here with other people.” I clutch her door to prevent her from shutting it.
“Noah!” In the driver’s seat, she glides her hand along the material of her chair. “Leather interior. For us, it’ll be a brand-new experience.”
“Not happening.”
She shields her eyes as cars pull up from the back road and park. “When are you going to get it through your thick skull that you and that girl aren’t going to work? And to answer your earlier question, I drove here myself then left with people to buuuuy—”
Mia pops open her glove compartment and produces a bag of pills “—this!”
“What’s the last sign?” I demand.
Mia slides out of the car and closes the door with her hip. Other car doors also shut, and an itch in my neck whispers at me to investigate my surroundings, to search for a threat, but I can’t. Not when she knows something about me and Echo that can prevent this downward spiral.
She leans against the car, and she blatantly ogles my chest then lowers her eyes to my crotch. “Crawl with me into the backseat and I’ll tell you.”
“The sign. What was the last sign before it ended between you and your guy?”
She steps into me, and her clothes brush mine. The sweet scent of pot and the bitterness of alcohol waft off her. “Get high with me.”
I snatch the bag from her hand. “Echo is my life. My life. I love her. If there’s a chance I can make her happy...if I can save what’s between us...I’ll do it, so fucking tell me!”
A blaring light hits both me and Mia, and I throw up my arm as I try to spot who the hell is shining a flashlight in our eyes. “What do you got in your hands there, son?”
My stomach drops to my feet, and I swear under my breath. “It’s not mine.”
“Then whose is it?” With the light still on us, a guy walks toward us. His damn deputy badge glows against his dark uniform. Fuck me. Just fuck me. The plastic bag blazes hot in my hand, and there’s not a damn thing I can say to make this situation disappear.
I stare at Mia, and she locks her gaze to the ground. Doesn’t matter if I tell the truth. I’m the one caught holding. A pissed-off panic begins to pulse in my bloodstream. Echo can’t see this. She can’t know.
“Both of you, hands on your head,” a bodiless voice says.
The world possesses a dreamlike quality as I move my hands. I’ve been clean of drugs for months, and I’m getting arrested for possession.
With his eyes scorching a hole into my brain, the cop snatches the bag from me. He tosses it to the guy holding the flashlight. “Don’t guess you have a prescription.”
He’s an inch smaller than me, and he’s not built. My right foot angles for the tree line and damn if his eagle eyes don’t catch it. His hand bolts for the gun strapped at his hip. “Don’t do it.”
This is a mistake. A goddamned mistake and I don’t know how to rewind and redo.
Sweat breaks out along my forehead. I should have stayed with Echo. I should never have left her side. In fact, we should never have been at this party. Mia played me, and I fell for it. I’d give my left ball to be in that hotel room with Echo watching whatever boring movie for the rest of my life.
I’ve fucked it up. A burn roars in my throat. I’ve fucked it all up.
The cop assesses Mia. “You here to buy?”
My mind whirls like a tornado. With the amount of pills she had, I’m bordering on a felony, but add that up with an intent-to-sell charge, and I’m facing prison. “No.”
Mia’s frame trembles as her wide eyes take me in. “I’ll take care of this, Noah. Stay silent, and I’ll take care of this.”
“Move to the hood.” The cop jerks his chin for Mia to go. “Both of you, hands on the car.”
“Fuck!” I say and slam both hands on the cold metal of the Mercedes. My heart pounds, and bile reaches up my throat. The cop pats me down, legs first, searching for weapons and whatever else he can find to put me in jail.
Echo. My brothers. The entire damned life I’ve attempted to create—all of it gone with one bad choice. By chasing the wrong person. I dip my head when the cop yanks out the lighter I carry to build the bonfires for Echo, and a strange ache in my eyes forces me to close them.
I’m losing her. I’m going to fucking lose her for good.
“What the hell is going on?” Isaiah’s pissed-off voice causes the cop beside me to swing the spotlight into the darkness.
“Stop right there!” The other cop, a big son of a bitch, pops into view when another cruiser races up with headlights beaming.