Dare Series Collection - Shantel Tessier Page 0,220

into the pool.

“I blackmailed her to be your friend so I could keep you close,” I growl at Austin. “Does that sound like someone who is good?”

“You took the fall for her,” she says.

“For a price!” I snap.

She wraps her arms around her stomach as though she’s trying to protect herself from me. I take a step toward her. “Austin—”

“She’s right.” Deke interrupts me. He sighs. “You were in a very bad place for a long time, Cole. Months.” He looks over at Austin, and his eyes soften. “Until she came along, things were … different. I understand why you did what you did. But you should have come to me.”

The room falls silent. These people should be mad at me. I was evil. Nothing I did was good. I couldn’t save my friends. I couldn’t save myself from the hole I got buried under. Hell, I couldn’t even save Austin. She did it herself.

“What happened to the baby?” Austin asks softly.

I run a hand through my hair. “You have to understand after that, Becky and I didn’t talk. We didn’t even look at one another until that night I threw you a party to force you into the group, and I told her it was time to pay up. That was like eight months.” I can’t do the math at the moment. “And even after then, our conversations were limited.”

“What happened to the baby?” It’s Deke who asks this time.

They’re not going to give up. “I don’t know—”

“Bullshit!” he snaps, interrupting me.

I lift my hands, hating to see him hurting over this. Over something I did. “I’m being a hundred percent truthful with you, Deke. I’ve never asked, okay? I was a bastard and never cared to ask what happened to her or the baby. And she never offered any info. Hell, for all we know, it was David’s. I never got to ask how long she … and Eli had been fucking.” He flinches. “Sorry,” I mutter.

Austin sniffs, looking down at the floor. Her watery eyes unable to meet mine.

I hate that look on her face. Too many people have made her feel that way—hurt. Betrayed. I love it when she raises her chin. When she gets in my face and challenges me.

She lets out a long breath, and Deke just stands there. Without a word, she turns and walks up the stairs to the loft.

“Austin—” I call after her, but Deke interrupts me again.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

How was I supposed to explain to my best friend that our other best friend was fucking the girl he was in love with and she was pregnant? Possibly with his best friend’s kid? “Because I knew you loved her. Her being with Eli and involved in the wreck … it was just too much. I didn’t tell her to run for nothing just to get caught up in it months down the road.”

“That’s why she was so upset.” He sighs. “That day you skipped school after reading the emails we found on Jerrold’s laptop. Austin stopped me in the hall at school and demanded to know where you were. Later that day, Becky kept calling her. When she didn’t answer, she asked me what I knew. I told her that we had found evidence that you weren’t at fault for the accident. Bruce had paid to kill you.” He shakes his head. “She started bawling. I thought … I just thought that she felt bad for blaming you like the rest of this town did.” His blue eyes meet mine. “She shouldn’t have let you take the fall.”

“She was scared. Terrified. I may have been a fucking heartless bastard, but the poor thing couldn’t take that kind of pressure. She wasn’t a shark. And I wasn’t gonna let this town drag her to the deep end and drown her.”

After the wreck, kids feared me. Parents hated me. They all wanted me in jail. I never once disagreed with them. My father chose to get me off. I never asked for his help. I would have taken whatever punishment the courts thought I deserved at the time. Just because it wasn’t really an accident doesn’t mean I wasn’t at fault. They’re all dead because of me.

“Now you’re defending her?” he asks with an arch of his brow.

I throw my hands out to my sides. “What do you want from me, Deke? I didn’t know what was going to happen to us. I just told her to go, and she went.