Page 67 of No Saint
“I’m in Dayton this weekend.”
“Fine, one night next week then?” Another burger landed on her tray.
At least it would get me out of the house and away from the guy who thought I was gross. “Okay.” I wheeled toward the waiting car, vaguely recognizing the beaten-up Toyota I’d only seen once. I didn’t put it together in time, though.
The window lowered, and Brent’s bloodshot gaze met mine, his right eye swollen, and a deep-purple bruise covered the bridge of his nose. I assumed that was Wolf’s doing. I might have pitied him if he wasn’t such a cheating asshole.
“Are you stalking me now?” I clipped the tray to his car door and rolled back, folding my arms across my chest while I waited for him to take his food. As if he were diseased.
“No.” He stared at me for a long moment.. “Look, I know you’re mad, but Jade, please talk to me. I’m trying here. I helped with your car…” Like that entitled him to any of my time.
“Thank you for your help, but did I not make myself clear the other night when I punched you? Just take your food, Brent, so I can get back to work.”
His hand rested on his steering wheel instead of reaching for his burger. I was two-point-five seconds away from dumping it in his lap.
“Are you with Brookes now?” A line sunk between his brows. “You know he did this to me.” He leaned forward, into the red glow of the Roller Burger sign, and pointed at his eye, not that I needed the light to see that shiner. “He’s an asshole.”
I wasn’t sure why it pissed me off so much. “If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black. Maybe you deserved that punch, Brent.” Because if he was the one who had blocked Wolf’s number…
“How did I deserve?—”
“Did you change his number in my phone?”
I caught his face blanch before he half managed to control his expression. “What?”
“That summer after I broke up with Wolf and you offered for me to spend the summer in South Carolina with you… Someone changed Wolf’s number in my phone. Was it you?”
Cassie wouldn’t lie. Monroe never wanted us to break up in the first place, so that only left Brent.
“I…” His mouth closed. A frown crumpled his features before he opened it again.
My heart thrummed out an erratic pulse as I waited for his answer. If he would even tell the truth.
“I was helping you! Wolf was bad for you, Jade.”
It felt like the world came crashing down around me. Everything was a lie. Brent, Wolf…everything I thought I knew and felt about them both had been a twisted image created by Brent. Anger bubbled through me, blending with a crippling sense of betrayal and sadness. I hadn’t wanted to believe Wolf’ssuspicions, and now I realized why. Because it hurt. The self-inflicted purgatory I’d spent the past eighteen months living in was, in fact, caused by a man who had claimed to love me. A man I had tried to love back, just so I could escape the pain of losing Wolf. And all along, Brent was the reason I had lost him. I couldn’t even speak.
“You had to know Wolf was fucking around on you,” Brent said, like I was stupid. “He’s Wolf Brookes. All those parties you never wanted to go to, all those games you couldn’t make because you were working so much… You really think he was loyal toyou?That helovedyou? He’ll never love anybody more than he loves himself.”
“You don’t know the first thing about him,” I snapped, pissed off that he was using my own insecurities against me. Things I had cried on his shoulder about when I thought he was a friend.
“I love you, Jade. More than he ever will.”
Whatever Brent felt for me, it wasn’t love. It was selfish. He’d gone to extreme lengths to get me, and I’d made it so easy. I’d enabled his manipulation when all I had to do was ask Wolf.
“I know I hurt you?—”
“Stay the fuck away from me, Brent.” The fact that he still thought I’d ever go near him again… He disgusted me. “And I suggest you stay away from Wolf. Because when I tell him what you did…”
The color drained from his face.
I rolled forward and grabbed the edge of the tray. “Now take your food.”
He didn’t move. “No?—”
“Fine.” I unclipped it, then upended the whole thing—drink included—onto his lap.
“Fuck!”
