Page 73 of My Rose

It hurt.

So I snapped and pivoted. “You’re drunk, August. Go home.”

“Rosie.” August’s hand lunged for my arm, his fingers curling in too harshly around my bicep. “Iwantyou. Don’t you want me, too?”

“You’re drunkandhigh, aren’t you?”

His thumb dug into my arm. “I’ve been a wreck without you.”

“You’ve been without me for longer than you are willing to admit to yourself.” I tried to rip my arm back. His hand tightened. “We haven’t been real friends in years. You prioritized everyone else in your life and only sought me out when you needed your ego stroked.”

“I thought—” His voice lowered, a deep groove forming between his brows.“I thought you loved me.” His sudden shift did nothing to hide his cruel intentions—the narcissistic tendencies that I’d somehow missed all those years. Perhaps if he couldfeellove, his words may have been convincing.

“Loved you?” I sneered at him, trying again to jerk my arm free. Not that it worked. My eyes darted around the parking lot, my gut sinking as I realized it was empty. There was no one to help me—to see me trying to break free and run.

I think whether he knows or not isn’t important. What’s important is that he’s an idiot for either one of those being true.Clearly, he had known exactly how I believed I felt about him. But I’d been wrong. So, so wrong.

My blood boiled.

“The fact that you’re holding that over my head like you justknewI felt something for you makes me feel ten times stupider for ever having those feelings in the first place.” Briggs was right. August was an idiot. “Let go of me before I scream.”

August pouted, yet his hand didn’t leave my body. He yanked me sloppily towards him, making me shriek. His eyes lit up at the sound—two beady little blueberries that I wanted to gauge out with a fork. Or my house key.

“I don’t want to let you go, Rosie. I already did that once, and then you ran tohim, didn’t you?” He leaned in toward my ear, making my body freeze. “You ran to him, and you let him fuck you. You were supposed to wait for me, but you didn’t do that, did you?” His fingers went rigid, the tips of them digging in deeper. “You weremine. Mine to fuck and own. Mine to do whatever I wanted with as long as I played my part, and I fucking played it.” He pointed a finger at himself with his free hand. “I played it, Rose. No one else was going to dare touch you. But me? I was your friend. You ate from the palm of my hand. You should have been with me!”

“Stop, you’re hurting me, August,” I whispered, hoping the friend I once thought I knew was somewhere in there, buried deep down, waiting to be coaxed out, even if temporarily. But that August had never been there, to begin with. That person was as made-up as the sense of security I placed in my two-inch key in my pocket.

“You hurtmewhen yourejectedme! Instead, you spread your legs for a man who doesn’t give a fuck about you!” He shook his head, freeing his golden blond hair from behind his ears as a sick sort of laughter erupted from him. “I knew you couldn’t handle being wanted by a man like me—”

I snapped. “A man likeyou!?”My lip trembled as fear seized my insides. Briggs had said something similar, but when he said it, it made me turn to goo in the best way possible. All August’s words did was seep into my skin like the threat they were. My free hand started working down to my pocket, reaching for those keys. “Get your hands off me, August, or I swear to god, I’ll hurt you.” My fingers clamped around the cold metal, turning the key over and over. My palm grew damp as I fit the key between my fingers, notching it up by my knuckles. I didn’t know how to fight, but I was sure I could figure out how to jab him with the pointier side.

He cocked his head, blinking like the crazy just snapped from his body. “You wouldn’t ever hurt me, Rosie.” He seemed unfazed and wholly unaware of where my other hand had gone. “You love me too much to—”

A clicking sound reverberated behind August, and I released the key in my hand as I heard the man standing behind him growl out, “Get your fucking hands off of her.”

Briggs.

My chest swelled as he came into view, his frame towering over August’s the same vicious way August kept trying to tower over mine. My eyes darted to the gun in Briggs’ hand briefly as August’s head began to turn. But instead of wanting to run away from the gun,knowingthe sound brought me back to that night, I wanted nothing more than for the man holding it to take me up into his arms, gun and all.

It was conflicting, but the adrenaline coursing through me didn’t care so much about the weapon. I knew with Briggs here, I was going to be safe. He was going to save me from whatever August had intended to do.

“Oh, fuck off, dude,” August slurred and rolled his eyes before turning his attention back to me. “She chose who she wanted, and she wants me. Don’t you, Rosebud?” I wasn’t sure August realized there was a gun pressed to the back of his head. Perhaps he thought it was fake. I was positive it wasn’t.

I went to open my mouth, but when nothing but silence came out, Briggs spoke up for me. “She said to let her the fuck go. Doesn’t sound like she wants you at all.” He stepped to the side behind August, looking me over. His eyes darkened as they moved between my face and where August kept his hand on my arm. I jerked my arm as hard as I could, this time breaking his hold.

Briggs’ jaw worked as he pressed the barrel to the back of August’s head gruffly, causing his head to jerk forward with the force. August’s face paled over, that alcohol and drug-induced haze he was trapped in finally snapping under the pressure of the gun—ofknowing who was holding it. Briggs wasn’t someone who fucked around.

“Rose, get in the car,” Briggs ordered. I tried moving, but my feet were glued to the spot like I was trapped in Jim’s store all over again. I wasn’t afraid of Briggs—it was August who made this insane level of fear course through me. The maniacal, crazed look he’d given me and the way he gripped my arm had frozen me to the spot.

“Get. In. The. Car.” Briggs’ finger on the trigger wasn’t even shaking, his face a calm storm promising to leave nothing behind. His dark green eyes locked on mine. “Please, Rose,” he begged softly. Where his body was hard, ready to defend me at great lengths, his gaze told another story as they darted between me and his car. I held back the sob that threatened to leave my throat while I thawed on the spot.

He came for me.

“Please, man, I’m sorry.” August’s hands were slowly rising in the air as I took a step back.

“I told you to stay away from this side of town and to stay the fuck away from her. What part of either one of those did you not get?” August started to cry, his shoulders shaking as Briggs kept the gun pressed to August’s head. “Rose. Now.”

Without another word, I headed straight for the passenger side door left open no more than ten feet behind where Briggs stood. I wondered if he planned to run over August before parking and getting out like he did to his jacket that night at the bonfire. Seeing him hold a gun, I wouldn’t put it past him.

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