The Wrong Path - By Vivian Marie Aubin du Paris Page 0,30
purse and unlocked the door while Will opened all of the doors to the SUV, her friends practically falling out in their inebriated state. She cringed at the sight and the smell of alcohol as she rejoined Will at the car. Together they began carrying her friends into the house, some of them rousing at being jostled, others never doing more than breathe.
Annabelle lightly touched Trevor’s cheek as he lay peacefully in one of Claire’s guest beds, sighing. She wished she could be as oblivious to the night’s events as he was. She turned off the light and shut the door behind her as she exited the room, joining Will down at the front door.
“What about Parker?” Annabelle couldn’t resist asking as she followed Will out of the house. She locked the door behind them with Claire’s key and then slid it back under the door, as they always did.
“What about him?” Will asked flatly, leading the way back to the car. He unlocked the passenger door and pulled it open, leaving it open for her as he crossed to the driver’s side.
She climbed in, shutting the door behind her as he slid into the driver’s seat. “Well… We can’t really just leave him there, can we?”
His hand, which had been about to put the key in the ignition, fell onto his leg. She looked over at him, startled, and was taken aback by the look of pure disbelief and disgust on Will’s face.
“Are you serious?” he finally asked. “He tried to rape you at the party last week. He tried to rape you while you were on the phone with me. And you still want to give him a ride home?”
She flushed and tugged on the short skirt, trying to pull it down. Suddenly, the car felt too empty, and she felt too exposed. “I-I just…” she trailed off, not sure how to answer. “Well… We came together. I feel bad just abandoning him…”
Will roughly stuck the key in the engine and gunned it. “You mean that you don’t want your friends to be mad that you left one of their pack behind,” he corrected flatly.
She looked up at him, horrified and embarrassed. “N-no!”
He shot her a dirty look. “You can do whatever you want when I’m not around. But you called, and I’m not going to sit idly by or passed out in a passenger seat while you get attacked. So you’ll have to keep up appearances on your own time.”
She scowled. “Trevor drank too much—everyone did. It’s not their fault—“
“Open your eyes, Belle!” Will snapped. “They’re not just drunk. No drunk person is that bad off. Get me?”
She fell back against the seat, stunned as his words sunk in. Her mind spun. “It… it must have been an accident…”
“An accident?” he repeated in disbelief, glancing over at her as he finished pulling out of a curve. “All of them except you?”
“Well… Your brother would never—“
“Don’t,” Will warned coldly. “I know the signs.”
She frowned in confusion, shaking her head. They couldn’t be talking about the same person, could they? Trevor would never do drugs. It wasn’t like him. He wasn’t a big partier. Will had to be mistaken. “No. You’re wrong. He has a two-drink limit usually, and he just went overboard tonight. Everyone did.”
Will gaped at her, then suddenly laughed and shook his head. As he pulled up to a red light he threw the stick shift into the proper gear with a practiced ease and fell back against the seat, still smiling and shaking his head. “Unbelievable. You really are unbelievable.”
She pressed her lips together unhappily. “I’m not naïve. I-I know that some of my friends do drugs sometimes. It’s just, I don’t think Trevor, of all people, would do them.”
Will let out a soft laugh and shook his head again, fluidly moving the shift into the correct position as the light turned green and he accelerated. He said nothing else, though, and while she was grateful that he had stopped talking bad about Trevor, she wished he would say something. Anything. She just wanted to talk to him.
But he didn’t. And she didn’t know what to say to him. Even with the heavy silence between them, when he pulled the car up to the street between their houses, she climbed out slowly, a bit reluctant to leave his company.
“I’ll wait,” he said, leaning against the side of the hood closest to her house. He crossed his arms over his chest and nodded at her house.