for leaving Mia alone when she needed him most and for not caring that his daughter is nowhere to be found.
Mia was right for ignoring him, pretending like he doesn’t exist. I thought Nathan didn’t deserve her, but now I know, she was better off without him and if he so much as breathes in her direction again, I swear to God, I’m going for his head and I don’t give a damn what dad says.
Who hurts a four-year-old girl like that? What kind of sick fuck do you have to be?
I didn’t bother asking him where his daughter might be. Partly because he seemed out of it, drinking all day, sitting on his couch like he was contemplating his own suicide or my murder and partly because dad’s warning about him kept ringing in my head, thereby reinforcing that the dead look in his eyes was there for a reason.
That brings me to Nicky.
There’s something going on with her and not just the way she dropped that bomb about Courtney. Something else is going on there.
“There’s something fishy going on here,” Cole starts, voicing my thoughts.
We’re at the cliffs, aptly named the Devil’s Track, with our cars parked at the shoulder of the road, staring out at the sea. I feel like I’m going to wither with the glare of the sun, so I turn around to grab my shades from the dash of my car. I also grab the rolled-up blunt in there that I got from Liam’s room. The shithead always has the good stuff.
“Fishy?” I scoff. “Don’t make me point out that we’re standing up here looking out at that fucking fishing boat out there,” I mutter, annoyed with him.
“Fuck you, asshole, you know what I’m trying to say,” he mutters. I pass him the blunt after taking a hit, chasing some kind of elusive relief from it. “Liam’s?”
I nod and he takes a bit. “That boy always gets the good shit.”
“I wonder where he gets it from.”
Liam has a hunger for danger that doesn’t sit well with me and this disappearing act, it’s not the first time he’s done it. But it is the first time he’s been livid with me. He hasn’t talked to me or sent a text or smoke signals at the very least. He’s just gone.
“You do know he was right about what he said right?” Cole mutters, the asshole blowing smoke in my direction. “You’re overbearing.”
“I’m protecting him.”
“You’re suffocating him,” he counters, all straight-faced and shit, the easy smile gone.
“Look who’s talking,” I fire back, wanting to hurt him because I haven’t yet recovered from how everything fell apart with my brother. With Mia. With Courtney and now I’m here picking a fight with my best friend because I’m all bitter inside. “The man who ignores his own siter.”
“Fuck you!” he growls, taking a threatening step closer to me. “You know that shit is different.”
“She’s your fucking twin. I know you fucking sense when she needs you. I know you have nightmares about her…”
“That was years ago, we’re not kids anymore,” he growls, cutting me off.
“Fuck that! You and I both know that age doesn’t matter with that shit! It keeps coming back over and over again, but for God’s sake, do something about it before you really lose her.”
Cole and I don’t do cheap, sensitive, corny heart to heart conversations and shit, but we know each other to the very core. I know why this thing with Mia is eating at him and I hate that he cares about her this much. I hate that the accusation in his eyes is eating at me.
“J, I’m fucking warning you now,” Cole growls, taking another step toward me. “You have no idea the demons I fight and you speaking about them right now when you’re the reason Mia ran, isn’t in your best interest.”
Yeah, I deserve that, but that’s the thing about guilt felt by assholes, it makes us even more vindictive.
“And you can’t even look your sister in the eye because you’re fucking selfish!”
It’s a shitty thing to say. Between the two of us, we have no illusions of who we are or how bad we can be, but fuck, I’m not too far gone not to realize that between the two of us, I’m the selfish one. Not him.
“I failed her!” he shouts. “I failed my sister, sure, but at least I admit it. I’m not out here pretending everything is all right while I’m practically prying my eyes