Page 60 of Free Fall

I can’t stop the tears from falling over then. I’d been trying to blink them away, but sometimes it feels like grief is an unstoppable force. I can’t just hold it back, deal with it when it’s a more opportune time for me.

Reid nudges Lex, and Lex has to put his hand out before he falls to the ground. “Briar,” he says. My name on Reid’s lips make the tears come faster. “Jesus,” he says. He picks me up, cradles me to him, and walks me to his car. He whispers to me the whole time. Such sweet words that make me wonder what it’s going to feel like to lose all this.

There’s no fucking way on this earth I’m breaking up with Reid though. Sasha was stupid if she thought that something like this would make me do something so brash. I’m worried it’s Reid who won’t be able to tolerate me now though. Sasha said something at the party, something that stuck with me and I wasn’t sure why. She told Reid I wouldn’t be an innocent in his eyes soon. She was right. She had a backup plan this whole time.

“What’s going on?” Cade asks. His voice is laced in a compassion I haven’t heard from him before. “Is it Brady?”

I shake my head. Sasha’s hatred might be rooted in Brady, but it’s grown from there.

“Parker,” a voice shouts.

Reid moves in front of me, blocking me from view of the owner of the voice.

“What are you guys up to? Pizza at the Shack?”

“Sorry, dude,” Reid calls out. “I’ve got like a shitton of homework.”

The guys all surround me, blocking me from view. It makes my heart swell, but really all it does is make me feel worse. Why couldn’t I love myself as much as these guys wanted me to?

They turn back around once I hear a car start up a few rows behind us. Reid grabs my hands in his. “Talk to me, Briar. Do you want us to be alone? Do you—?”

I shake my head. The sight of his beautiful face is fractured before me, the tears still gathering even though I wipe then away. Right now, he looks so worried and affectionate. When I look into his eyes, there’s a warmth there, but I’m wondering how long that’s going to last. I can’t even really be mad at Sasha for this? It was me. I was the one who was dumb.

While I waited for the guys after practice, I sent Ezra a text, telling him I’d been hacked and that our conversations weren’t safe. I told him I was sorry. The only thing I didn’t tell him about was Sasha’s threat. She doesn’t care about him. She only cares about making me miserable enough to break up with someone she wants.

I don’t understand why she can’t see she has no claim on him. Reid Parker isn’t like a horse she can tame. Or someone she can buy off or convince that he likes her when he doesn’t. She’s all smoke and mirrors dressed up in Barbie doll outfits.

“You’re going to be so mad,” I tell Reid, looking him in his gorgeous green eyes.

He tilts his head. “It can’t be that bad.”

The heat from the car hood feels warm against my bottom. I take my phone out that’s been clutched in my hands. I want to tell him what I did first, then tell him Sasha’s involvement. How she wanted to make me suffer so bad she broke into my social media to make a Sunday special out of me. I can see it now.The dangers of online sexting.

I turn the screen on and angle it toward me so I’m the only one who can see it at first. “When Brady died, you know I made a lot of misguided decisions.” I give Lex a small frown. I hate lumping him into that category, but it’s true.

His lips thin, and he looks away.

“There was also one more that I didn’t tell you about. It didn’t seem relevant until…well, until now. I sort of, kind of had this relationship with a guy I met online.”

Reid’s gaze narrows. “What kind of relationship?”

He doesn’t say it accusingly. He’s only asking, even though I can see a spark of jealousy in him.

“Just talking, mostly,” I tell him. “I felt like he was the only one who would listen about what I was going through. He was just outside of everything, and it was easier to tell him things because he didn’t know.”

Reid kicks off the car and walks away, his hands diving into his hair. “Is this who you were talking to this morning in the car?”

I blink. He must’ve seen right through me. “Yes,” I tell him. Because he was who I was talking to, but it also feels like I should add an explanation to that sentence. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was trying to get him not to talk to me.

“Briar,” he growls, and a sliver of fear shoots through me.

“Let her talk,” Lex says. “You don’t know what’s going on yet.”

Reid throws him a gaze like fire. If it was actually fire, the center would’ve combusted right then and there, blown like a stick of dynamite.

To Reid’s credit, he stops. He places his arms over his chest and glares at me like I’m already guilty. “I’ve actually told him not to contact me again,” I say to Reid, making sure to hold his gaze. “I told him about you,” I tell him, letting a smile slip out. Being with Reid makes me so happy. He fills a place inside me I didn’t know I was missing, but now that he has filled it, I feel like I could starve to death if it wasn’t there.

“Go on,” Cade says. “We’re listening.”

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