Page 123 of Frozen Hearts
It’s equivalent to Royce standing at the top of the Empire State Building and screaming his feelings for all of New York to hear.
“So?” Grayson drawls, regaining my attention as I tear my gaze from Royce to level him with an unamused glare. His attitude is seriously beginning to piss me off.
Unperturbed, he holds my gaze. “Probably just another way for her to get attention when accusing my dad didn’t work.”
I blink at my best friend in shock for a minute before anger wells up and consumes me. “Fucking seriously, Grayson? You think she cut herself for attention? Why wouldn’t she slice open her wrists if that were the case? Why would she hide them away?” Smacking my hand against the table, I shove to my feet. I’m the tallest out of the three of us, so I have a good few inches on him perched on his stool. “Have you ever considered you might bewrong?”
His chair legs screech against the floor as he pushes to his feet, appearing far more calm than I am. However, I can feel the tension radiating from him. See it in the tense set of his shoulders as he turns so we’re chest to chest.
“No,” he snarls, jabbing a finger in my chest. “But the fact you’re questioning me means your loyalty is shot to hell. You let her get to you.”
I swat his hand away. “No, it’s not, but can’t you see shit isn’t adding up? Nothing makes any fucking sense anymore!” His eyes narrow, but I continue. “You’re so hellbent on revenge that you can’t see past it to actually look at the girl living beneath our roof. Maybe if you took a second to talk with her instead of making demands or choking her out, you’d have the same reservations I do.”
“Oh, so you have reservations now?” Gray sneers. “Good to know.” Lips pressed into a tight line, he shakes his head, looking thoroughly disappointed in me. “I thought you were a better friend than that, Logan.”
“Fuck you,” I seethe, enraged. “Being a good friend doesn’t mean I’m going to take your side if you’re fucking wrong.”
“You don’t know that I am wrong!”
“I don’t know that you’re right.”
“Maybe we should table this conversation until everyone’s calmed down,” Royce suggests, and I turn my ire on him.
“Fuck you too, Royce! You felt those scars too, yet you’re still letting Gray call all the shots.”
He cocks an unimpressed brow. And, pissed off at the pair of them, I shove past Grayson and out of the kitchen. At the front door, I stuff my feet into sneakers and grab a coat to put on over my bare chest before storming out the door. I’ll eat breakfast elsewhere. Fuck knows, I don’t want to sit in there with those two assholes.
With anger rattling my bones, I stalk down the street to my favorite breakfast spot, a small hole-in-the-wall cafe that does the best avocado on toast. While waiting for my order, I review everything from this morning. Royce, Grayson, and I have been tight since the first night we met. We instantly clicked, and nothing has come between us, until now.
My head’s a fucking mess. I’m at constant war with myself, a clash of blades between my head and heart as an ongoing battle ensues. I don’t know who to trust or what to believe. Grayson is my best friend. If he believes Riley is at fault, then I don’t doubt him.
But what if what he believes is wrong?
The evidence is starting to stack up against him.
When he initially told me and Royce about the shit that went down with his dad, I took him at his word. Especially once Royce opened up about his past. Who was I to refute the truth? So when he pointed Riley out at Lux that night, I was a loyal friend and shoved my feelings for her aside. I got on board with the plan to make her life miserable. I was all fucking in because he’s my best friend, and I knew he would have done the same for me.
But shit is no longer black and white, and I can’t stop remembering the disappointment in Riley’s eyes when she went off on me in the bathroom. Despite putting my feelings for her on lockdown, I felt awful that I’d let her down. Seeing her disappointment slayed me.
Still, I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a ploy to manipulate me. Regardless of the niggles of doubt already taking hold in my stomach.
But then there was the phone call with her mother.
The scars on her inner thighs.
The fact that she still talks to me like the girl I was falling in love with and not the narcissistic bitch Grayson has painted her as.
None of it makes any fucking sense!
So caught up in my thoughts, I barely taste my food as I swallow it down.
“Will that be all?” the server asks when I’m finished.
“Yes.” I remove some dollar bills from my wallet to pay for the food, but I pause, glancing up at the woman. “Actually, can I get a pumpkin spice latte to go, please?”
“Certainly,” she states with a professional smile, and I hand over enough money for my breakfast and Riley’s coffee.
I no longer have any fucking idea what I’m doing, but I think it’s past time I find out what Riley’s side of the story is.
