Breaking the Rules
Page 68

There’s a handful of people in the waiting room, including the receptionist behind the bulletproof window, and each one of them watches, awaiting my explanation.
“It’s what I told them,” Mia answers for me, and my stomach bottoms out. “And my father when I asked him to intervene with the charges.”
Echo’s eyes flicker between me and Mia.
“It’s not like that,” I explain.
“Then why would she say that? Why would she help you?” Echo’s hand trembles as she wraps her fingers around a strand of hair. “You just met.”
Mia switches her footing, and I can’t meet Echo’s eyes. Damn me for this.
Echo recoils. “Tell me you just met. Tonight. Or at the Malt and Burger this week.”
“Let’s leave.” With each step I take toward Echo, she mirrors a retreating step back. Her head shakes back and forth as if she already knows the truth. “I’ll explain it to you in private.”
Echo throws out both of her hands in a stop. “Explain it now!”
I’ve never felt more like dirt than in this moment. Moisture pools near the rims of her eyes, and this pulsating ache in my chest screams to comfort her. What’s killing my soul is that I’m the one that’s slashing her open. I’m the one causing the pain.
“Is she the reason you wanted to go to that party so badly?” Echo asks.
I nod, because I won’t lie.
“Did you sleep with her?” Echo shouts.
I blink rapidly, hating myself. “A year ago. She worked in Louisville for two weeks a year ago.”
Echo covers her face with her hands. “You slept with her?”
Jesus, she’s gutting me. “A year ago.”
Her shoulders shake, and the soft sounds of her devastation cause me to wipe at my own eyes. A sickness rolls in my stomach. The need is to touch her, to gather her into my arms, to make her better, to make us better, but I’ve hurt us. I’ve hurt her, and I can’t push Rewind.
“I’m sorry.” I don’t recognize my voice as it cracks. “Nothing’s happened since. I know I should have told you...I know I should have done a million things differently...” It’s pathetic, but it’s the damned truth. “Believe me, Echo.”
Her head drops forward as her shoulders curl. A tear escapes from the crevices between her fingers. “I loved you.” The pure agony in her muffled voice burns through me. “I loved you.”
Loved. I run my hands over my head. She doesn’t believe me. “I didn’t sleep with her. Not this summer. I love you. You’re my life.”
Echo’s hand darts out, and my head slams to the right. Pain across my cheek, and the waiting room vibrates with the smack.
Her chest moves too fast as silence fills the room. We stare at each other, and a glass wall builds between us—separating us.
Echo’s foot angles for the door, and I jump toward her. “Don’t go.”
“Don’t go? Don’t go! So I can stay and watch you with your girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend!” I roar. “She means nothing!”
“You expect me to buy that? She bailed you out of jail!”
“Got the charges dropped,” Mia butts in.
Echo whips her head to her. “Shut it.”
“Go, Echo,” mumbles Beth, and Isaiah slices a hand across his neck, motioning for Beth to also shut it.
Echo leans into me like she’s willing to swing at me again. “I called my father and asked for bail money. I begged.”
I wince as the knife she just rammed into me twists. “Echo...”
She flinches like I’m radioactive with the sound of her name on my lips. “Go to hell.”
Echo turns for the exit. I’m on the move, and Isaiah blocks my path. My hand is out to shove past him, and he locks down on my arm. “Let her go.”
His gray eyes morph into steel, and the guy staring me down isn’t my best friend. Naw, he’s peering at me like I’m the enemy.
“She’s got this wrong,” I say.
“You fucked up, and she needs time.”
A shadow from the corner of my eye and Beth’s small hand extends out, palm up. Isaiah surveys me. “Move and your ass is mine.”
With a tic of my jaw, I cram my hands into my jean pockets, and Isaiah releases me. He never disengages his glare as he digs the keys out of his pocket and hands them to Beth.
Beth’s fingers curl around Echo’s keys. “I never thought you were an asshole, Noah. Damaged. But not an asshole.”
“I didn’t sleep with Mia.” I overpronounce the words.
I’d welcome a million of Beth’s death stares over the disappointment in her eyes. “No, but you slept with Echo.”
My eyes briefly slam shut. I never told them. I never told anyone. But what I said to Echo was true. Isaiah and Beth noticed the difference. I promised Echo we wouldn’t change after we made love, but we did.
Everything changed.
“When you did what you did with Echo...” Beth hesitates because speaking emotions is unfamiliar for her. “You don’t get to play by the same rules as before. She deserves more than that. She deserves better.”
I nod, telling her I get it. “I fucked up.”
“You did.” Beth won’t look at me. “I’ll take care of her.”
With that, the last person I would have thought would be in Echo’s corner walks out into the dark night.
Echo
I lie on top of the covers of the made bed and watch as the room falls into darkness then illuminates with light every other second. How long I’ve been lying like this or how long Beth’s been messing with the light next to the bed, I don’t know, but I’m just now finding it annoying.
“Can you stop that?” I snap.
Beth clicks the light off then back on. I glance over at her, and she tosses the electrical wire that contains the switch onto the bedside table. “So my plan worked.”
I’m too miserable to have to deal with Beth. “What plan?”
“Are you mad at me?”
“I’m not happy,” I mutter.
Beth slides her legs off the other bed and dangles them off the side. “See, that’s part of your problem. You don’t get pissed nearly enough. You’re always trying to be proper.”
I’m about to shove her proper into very unproper places. “I change my mind. Play with the light and be silent.”
“Now, slapping Noah—classic move. I rate it a seven. But you should have kicked him in the nuts. That was a nut-cracking moment.”