“Do you remember when they left together?” Bailey asks. “Who was driving?”
“They left together?” Mason asks. “I didn’t see them go.”
Chris frowns. “He could hardly stand up straight. Trish had Keegan help her get him into the car. It was crazy. Arrow never drinks like that. Or at least he didn’t before the accident.”
I draw in a ragged breath. She had Keegan help her get him into the car.
Someone knocks on the door, and Bailey and I look at each other.
“I’ll get it,” I say.
I pull open the door, and Sebastian pushes past me into the apartment. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. What did you say to him?” he asks. He looks like shit. He’s always so composed, and today his eyes are bloodshot and his skin is sallow, like he hasn’t slept in a week. “What did you say to Coach?”
Bailey and I exchange a glance. We’re both still processing what Chris said, and I just want Sebastian to leave so we can talk about it more. Arrow wasn’t driving. It wasn’t his fault. But I need to know for sure before I go back to him, before I tell him he can stop hating himself for a night he can’t remember.
“Mia!” Sebastian growls. “What did you say?”
I pull my gaze away from Bailey and return it to Sebastian. “What are you talking about?”
“About his car. About the accident.”
Mason hops off the couch. “Coach was in an accident? Is he okay?”
“On New Year’s Eve,” Sebastian says, not sparing Mason a glance but continuing to skewer me with his gaze. “You said something to him. I told you to let it go.”
I shake my head. “No, I didn’t.”
Chris walks toward us. “New Year’s Eve?” He looks from me to Sebastian and back to me. “The dark SUV?”
“Are you sure, Mia? Because—” Sebastian drags his hands through his hair. “Fuck. You don’t understand what a good guy he was. He’s family to his players. Family. And he meant that and more to so many of us.”
“Coach didn’t have his SUV that night,” Chris says, and now he’s searching my face, too. All these people looking at me when I don’t have the damn answers.
“Talk, Mia!” Sebastian says.
Bailey steps forward, scowling at Sebastian with her arms folded across her chest. “Stop shouting at her.” He’s easily twice her size, but she’s coming at him like she’ll take a swing if she needs to.
“What’s going on?” Mason asks.
Sebastian sets his jaw and turns his gaze to the floor. “I have a friend at the station. Coach just turned himself in for the hit-and-run on Deadman’s Curve.”
Bailey and I draw a sharp breath at the same time.
Sebastian collapses onto the couch, elbows on his knees. “You were right,” he mutters. “I knew that damage didn’t look like it came from a doe, but I didn’t want to believe it. Goddammit, you were right.”
I spin when I hear a bedroom door open in the back hallway and Trish comes out, her T-shirt falling off her shoulder, her eyes bleary. “My dad turned himself in?”
Sebastian drags his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Trish.”
“That fucking asshole,” she mutters.
“Coach wasn’t driving his SUV that night,” Chris repeats.
“Arrow thinks he was,” Bailey says.
“Bailey!” I shake my head frantically, as if she could take the words back.
“That’s why he’s been such a mess,” she continues in a hurry. “Arrow can’t remember that night, but someone made him think he was driving.” She turns to Trish now and stares her down.
“Keegan had to help him into the car,” Chris says, and we all turn to Trish. “I watched him load Arrow into the passenger seat. You were driving.” His voice is deadly soft, and I’m not sure she can hear it.
As if all her bones dissolved, Trish crumbles to the floor. “I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do, and Daddy told me to go to my room. I shouldn’t have been driving.”
I draw back. She did it. There’s no more guessing or speculation. She did it. Arrow’s been torturing himself for months because she and her father made him believe he was guilty.
“Dad asked me if Arrow had been passed out the whole time,” she says, rubbing her arms. “When I said yes, that Arrow had been passed out since we left the party, Dad told me he’d take care of it. I didn’t realize how buzzed I was until I came over that hill. It was dark, and the sleet