Blindsided (39 page)

S
hit. No, no, no.

She can’t think I did this.

I would never fucking hurt her this way. I’d never fucking hurt her any way.

Fuck!

I grab the nearest cab and throw a bunch of bills into his lap to silence his protestations. “The Ivy. And quick.”

He pulls away, leaving the money on his lap. It was probably the desperation in my voice. Fuck. I can feel it. I can hear it when I speak, dammit. I mean, fuck it. I’ve been outside here since the fucking show began because I found out.

I had to tell her that it wasn’t me. She has to believe me.

She has to believe she means the world and more to me and I’d never do this.

Fuck, I love this girl. I love her to the fucking end of the universe and back. Hurting her… It’s incomprehensible. It physically hurts me. And this…

If I find whoever did this to her, if I find whoever just destroyed her goddamn world, I will hurt that motherfucker so badly that he’ll never be able to talk again.

I almost fall out of the car in my desperation to get to her. I need to see her, feel her, hold her. I need to make her pain go away although I don’t think she’ll let me.

I shove past the media—they can kiss my fucking ass, too. They can kiss every New Yorker’s ass for all I care. I’m getting to my girl.

The elevator doesn’t move fast enough. No matter how many times I jab my finger into the button, it doesn’t seem to move any faster. Just that same, slow bullshit pace it always does.

The doors open on her floor and I run toward her door. I saw the look in her eye, the one that she thought was me. The wrong spark. The wrong fucking belief.

I bang on her door. “Leah! Leah!”

“Fuck yourself!” she screams, her voice hoarse.

“It wasn’t me, babe! Fuck, I swear to you! You have to believe me!”

She yanks the door open, and with tears streaming down her cheeks, she stares at me full on. “I don’t have to believe a word you say. I never fucking had to, but I did. And I was so fucking stupid!” She slams her hand into her door. “I never wanted to tell you, but you found out anyway, and now this. You know how much this means to me. Why did you do it? Why?”

“I didn’t!” I shout. “I didn’t! I would never do this to you. I would never do anything that would make you hurt this way.”

“Don’t lie to me!” Tears keep falling faster and faster, soaking her cheeks. “You are the only person who knows outside of my family. You did, Corey. I know you did. So do us both a favor and turn the fuck around.”

I shake my head, pain rippling through me. One by one, the waves hit me, because I’ve lost her and I didn’t do a fucking thing.

“I won’t give up on this, Leah. You get that? I won’t fucking stop until you believe that I’m not lying. It wasn’t me.”

She stares at me, every part of her body shaking. Her eyes spit anger and hatred and heartbreak, and each emotion cuts me to my core. It kills a little part of me.

“Leave. Now,” she whispers harshly. “Before I call security and have you removed.”

I look her square on although it’s killing me. “It. Wasn’t. Me.”

She pulls her phone from her purse on the side table and dials. Bringing it to her ear, she says, “I need security at room 716. There’s someone I need removed.”

I stare at her, unable to breathe. I can’t believe she really fucking thinks that I did it. I can’t believe she thinks I’d betray her that way.

She shuts the door. I hammer on it again and again, because fuck, fucking dammit, she needs to listen to me. She needs to fucking listen and believe because I can’t be without her again.

“
Leah!
”

Hands grab my arms and tug me away from the door. I yell once more, but it’s pointless. She’s made her decision, and now, I have two fucking assholes dressed in black removing me.

Two people who don’t care who I am or that my girl has it totally wrong. Two people who haul me into the elevator, down the stairs, through the lobby, and out onto the sidewalk.

Cameras snap and reporters shove microphones in my face. I shove more than one out of my way, but they keep coming, one after another, endlessly.

“Back the fuck up!” Jack roars, shoving one of them out of the way. “Disrespectful motherfuckers.”

He grabs my arm and shoves me toward a waiting car. I get in and bury my face in my hands. I don’t know. I don’t what the fuck I do now without her.

“You’re welcome.” Jack sits next to me, adjusts the collar of his T-shirt, and slams the door shut.

“Thanks,” I mutter, not really giving a fuck if I’d have floored one of those nosy pricks back there.

“What happened?” he asks.

“I knew. She thinks I told everyone.” I run my fingers through to the ends of my hair and drop my head so it’s between my knees. “Fuck!”

“Did you?”

“No.” I sit up quickly, and my head spins, but I look at the closest friend I’ve had in years. “I’d never fuckin’ do that to her, man. Never.”

He doesn’t say anything. He just looks at me.

“You believe me?”

“Yeah.” Jack nods his head. “I’ve never seen you so fucking cut up about anything, ever. So, yeah. I believe you, bro.”

“At least someone does.”

She’s like a poison spreading through my veins. Her eyes are the worst though. They haunt me, the heartbreak that shone in them and the tears that gave that extra shine I didn’t want to see. Even now, I wish I could step forward and wipe them away, kiss the salty wetness from her cheeks. I wish I could hold her until every single inch of that pain disappeared.

I wish I’d stepped forward and done exactly that.

Instead, I stood there when I could have pushed forward. I let myself be taken away from her because the pain of her pain overrode my need to make her understand.

And now, I’m standing in the middle of a fucking football field, trying to make a game happen. It’s almost impossible. I can hear her voice teasing me about throwing an interception. I can see her smile as she said it, sassy and sexy at the same time.

“Corey!” Coach bellows into my ear.

I jolt back to the game and call the snap. We’re first and goal, and not even I can fuck that up. If I do, I need to hang everything up and fucking quit.

I want to. Right now, I’m hurting so badly that I want to tell Coach to get that prick Anderson out here to take my place.

But I won’t because this is my family. The Vipers are my fucking family and I won’t let them down because things off the field have turned to shit.

We go through play after play, pickup after interception, after touchdown, and all I can really be thankful for is that I’m not the quarterback being sacked.

And by the time the end of the game is called, all I can really be thankful for is that we have won.

Even with my whole life in shambles, I can still play the game.

Go figure.

I shower and change without speaking to anyone. Jack and Reid try, but I cut them off by turning my back to them. They get the message, and before everyone else can leave, I sling my bag over my shoulder and head toward the door.

I just want to disappear into my hotel room and figure out what the hell I’m gonna do.

There’s a figure leaning on my car though, and in my darkness, my heart thumps. Could it be—

“Took your time.”

Her Texas accent travels across the parking lot, and I look up at my sister.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’m being the good daughter and sister and coming to check up on my poor big brother.” Lottie straightens, her hands on her lips. “Tell me, Corey. What’s it like to finally have your heart broken?”

“Fuck you, Lottie.” I slam the back door after throwing my bag in. “Seriously, if you’re only here to piss me the fuck off, then turn your ass around and hightail it out of here.”

She sighs, tucking her hair behind her ear. “All right, all right. Mom called and asked if I’d come and check on you since it is a weekend and this breakup is all over the news!’” She scoffs. “So here I am, being the good girl, as always.”

I open the door of the rental and look at her. “Well, either be nice or fuck off.”

“Got a new chick already, Corey?” Zander laughs from across the lot. “You sure attract them!”

“She’s my sister, you fuckin’ idiot,” I snap. “Keep your eyes on your dick and not on her.” I turn to Lottie. “Get in the fuckin’ car.”

“Excuse me?”

“Get. In. The. Fuckin’. Car,” I repeat slowly. “These assholes aren’t gonna use my sister for their next jack-off material.”

Lottie laughs and gets in the passenger’s seat. “Protective. Not somethin’ I see from you, big brother.”

“Guys findin’ you attractive. Not somethin’ I see, little sister,” I shoot back, putting the car into drive and tearing out of the parking lot.

She laughs again, clicking her belt into place. “So he cares. Is it possible there’s a heart under there?”

“Hey—you’re the one who decided to sit on the sidelines when we grew up. You’re the one who avoided me like the motherfuckin’ plague. You might piss me off somethin’ chronic, but I care about you.”

I turn the car toward our hotel. There’s a huge line of traffic in front of us, and I remember my mistake from my last trip to the Big Apple.

You never drive in New York.

Lottie doesn’t reply. She just sits with her hands in her lap, fidgeting with her fingers. It suits me fine. I don’t give a shit if I have to talk to her, especially not now. If Mom wants to know how I am, she can call me for the fourth time today and the seventh time since Leah’s identity broke.

It takes us twenty minutes of tense silence until we finally arrive at my hotel. She follows me from the car into the lobby then the elevator.

“Don’t you have anything else to do?”

Lottie shrugs. “Mom canceled dinner while she tries to do some damage control. Apparently, you’re causin’ craziness back in L.A. and she might have to fly back. Hey, Cor, you got room service?”

“No, I’m in an expensive-as-fuck hotel without room service.”

She rolls her eyes, typical twenty-year-old, and folds her arms across her chest. When the doors ping open, she follows me out, her eyes burning into the back of my head.

I let us into my room and throw a menu her way. “Have whatever you want.”

“Generous,” she mutters, looking down at it. “You want anything?”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I shake my head. Unless Leah counts as ‘anything,’ I don’t want a damn thing.

“Corey,” Lottie says softly, and I look at her. She sighs then sits in the chair close to me. “You tried talking to her today?”

I nod and rest my elbows on my knees, leaning forward. “Her phone’s off. So is her mom’s.”

My sister chews the inside of her cheek. “Maybe they were flying home?”

“Probably.”

“Why don’t you go back to L.A. and go to her house? Talk to her then?”

I wish that were an option. It’ll be a fucking media circus outside of her house until God knows when. Besides… “Like she’ll let me in.”

“I guess.” She pauses. “Does it really matter? I mean, I’ve watched you go through girls quicker than I go through underwear. You’ll have another girl on your arm by next weekend.”

My eyes narrow. Yeah, it matters. It matters a whole fucking bunch to me. I don’t want some other girl on my arm. Hell, I don’t even want Leah on it.

I want her in my arms, curled against my body, her fingers fisting my T-shirt as she clings to me.

“Wow,” Lottie says softly. “You really care about her, huh?”

I take a deep breath and run my fingers through my hair. Looking at the floor, I say, “I love her, Lottie. And now…” I swallow. “I don’t have a clue what to do to make this right.”

“Wow,” she breathes. “Really? You really do?”

I nod.

“Okay. I think…” She pauses for a moment. “I might be able to help you.”

My head snaps up and I meet her light-blue eyes. “Are you serious?”

She tilts her head to one side and shrugs. “I’m gonna need a few days, but yeah. I guess my degree should come in handy at some point in my life.”