let me go. After taking off his sneakers, he adjusted the drawstring on his sweats before padding barefoot to my bed with a cool swagger that didn’t match the nerve-wracking day we’d had. He plopped onto the mattress and propped his head up on one hand while staring at me, patting the spot beside him with a smile. “Come on, Scar. Come cuddle with me and pretend not to be angry for a minute.”
I rolled my eyes and joined him, not because I particularly found his patronizing and dismissive tone appropriate, considering everything he’d put me through, but because I was too tired to say no to comfort. I’d spent many nights cuddled up next to Bonham, and he’d always made me feel protected and loved. I shifted under the heavy comforter and turned to face him, taking in his boyish smile, glowing against my nightlight.
“I can’t believe you still sleep with the nightlight I bought you,” he joked before stroking my cheek tenderly.
I still remember the day he showed up at my doorstep with it in a pretty bag that his mother’s assistant packaged for him, thinking that I was Bonham’s crush. We were both seven, and I admitted to him that I was scared of the dark during a game of truth or dare on the playground.
Nostalgia was bittersweet, once again reminding me of how perfect everything was until they all turned on me. Those memories didn’t coincide with how they’d treated me for the last several months. “I can’t believe you called me an Heir Chaser,” I growled. I was still upset about that. Bonham’s face darkened and he scooted closer to me, brushing his nose against mine for an eskimo kiss.
“You and I both know that us Heirs have been chasing after you since the day we met. Not being around you was torture, Scar. Not being there to beat up the people that hurt you, not being the one to comfort you…” he swallowed hard. “Being the ones responsible for your pain—it was horrible. The first time Godfrey called you a Trash Whore at school, Rogue dragged him out the back of the cafeteria and sucker punched him in the gut until he puked by the dumpsters.”
My eyebrows raised in surprise. I remembered that day. I remembered being in the cafeteria, having no one to sit with, and Godfrey walking by with Stephanie on his arm. She and the other girls had been calling me that for weeks, but it was the first time that one of them had done it, too. “You’d started that little nickname,” I reminded Bonham.
He nodded slowly, watching my face. “We did all of those shitty things because we had to. If Johnny Jack’s people found out about you…” he shook his head, his eyes growing somber. “We thought that if everyone knew how much we despised you, you’d be safe once everything came to light,” he said with a sigh. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I’m shameless enough to steal it from you.”
I didn’t realize that tears were falling down my cheeks until he swiped one before it could land on my lip, hovering his finger over my pout before leaning forward to kiss my forehead. “You hurt me, Bonham. All of you did. And I feel like I don’t know who y’all are anymore.”
“You know who I am. You’ve always known. It’s why this whole thing was so fucking hard. You kept having faith in us, despite it all. I don’t deserve your friendship, but you’re one of the few people in this town who doesn’t try to use my back to climb the social ladder or use my parent’s influence to boost your own ego. You call me on my shit. You fight back.”
“I could have handled the truth,” I said with a sniffle.
Bonham leaned back and threaded his fingers through mine. “But don’t you get it? We couldn’t handle it. We care about you. Hell, Rogue is in love with you.” My heart skipped a beat at that. “This wasn’t about us trusting you with our secrets or trusting that you could take it in stride. This was about us being too scared, too fucking terrified to lose you. We panicked when we took that evidence, Scar. And we immediately pushed you away to try and keep you safe.”
Another knock on the window drew my attention away from Bonham, and I laughed when I saw Luis juggling a bottle of my favorite champagne and chocolate