14. Fourteen

Fourteen

The thing was, Whit reflected as he stared at the broken taillights and slashed tires of his Audi, he wasn't even all that surprised.

Shocked, yes—initially. He'd seen all the blood drain from Nell's face and had taken those last few steps at a run, his breath coming hard and his adrenaline spiking. He'd rounded the minivan in less than a second, expecting… he didn't know what he'd been expecting, but some asshole using his car as a pi?ata had definitely not been at the top of the list. For a moment he'd been speechless. And not just speechless, but frozen in place, completely empty of thought and sense. He'd felt a vague awareness that Nell was speaking to him, but the words hadn't registered. It wasn't until she'd reached out and touched his arm that he'd reacted, uttering the only response that had seemed appropriate at the time: " Motherfucker. "

But he wasn't surprised, at least not by the vandalism. The extent of the damage—that was something else. Not only were the tires sliced and all the lights smashed, but the entire driver's side had been keyed, the rear windshield shattered, the bumper dented, and the word CHEATER had been scratched across the trunk in huge jagged letters. A cheap department store baseball bat had been left lying just above the damning word, surrounded by tiny shards of glass.

"Whit," Nell said again, her fingers grazing his shoulder.

The pity in her voice was unbearable. He jerked away .

Shifting to the side, he did a quick scan of the lot. The damage had to be recent or someone would have reported it. But no unusual shapes caught his eye, no flicker of movement or sinister shadows lurking in the distance. Except for the minivan parked nearby and the pickup truck that had been left next to the tool shed, the area was empty. The only sounds were the low hum of highway traffic and the quiet rustle of his own breath. Whoever had chosen to make this little statement hadn't had the balls to stick around to see it received.

Which was probably a good thing, Whit thought. He really wanted to punch something, and the last thing he needed was a hand injury.

The glow of Nell's phone caught his attention. He turned, watching as she picked her way through the wreckage and began snapping pictures. When she reached the driver's side door, she stopped, sliding her fingers beneath the handle. Whit peered at her. "What are you doing?"

"Wondering why the alarm didn't go off." She gave the handle a sharp tug. The door swung wide with a soft mechanical groan, and Nell took a step backward, using her phone as a flashlight to search the car's interior. "Do you normally leave your car unlocked?"

"Never in my life." He slapped a hand to his right front jeans pocket. The denim lay flat beneath his palm—flat and empty. "The brawl," he said, frowning.

"You lost your keys?"

"Or someone on the field was one hell of a pickpocket."

"I hope you've got a spare," she murmured, gripping the top of the frame with one hand while she bent forward and ducked her head into the Audi. Since Whit couldn't muster up the energy to inspect the car himself—and figured he may as well appreciate the view of her behind she was presenting—he stood back and watched. "It doesn't look like there's any damage to the interior."

"Fantastic." He'd lost his spare key over a month ago and hadn't gotten around to getting a replacement. Not that it mattered, since he doubted he'd be driving his car again at any point in the near future.

He'd probably just get a new one.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. "I guess we'll need a ride. "

Nell straightened back up again, closing the door with a heavy thud as she turned to stare at him. The wind had been playing in her hair, whipping loose strands in front of her eyes, but even in the pale gleam from the school's security lights he could see the indignant look that spread across her face. "Someone turns your car into a Carrie Underwood song and all you can say is we'll need a ride ?"

"What do you want me to say?" He nudged one of the deflated tires with the tip of his shoe. A hard, humorless laugh worked its way out of his throat. "I told you this place had it in for me."

"That doesn't make any sense. Someone just happened to notice you lost your keys during the game and also happened to know exactly where your car was parked? I don't buy it. And why not just steal it?"

"You have a better explanation?"

"I don't know. Maybe you have a stalker. Someone edited that video and sent it to Meltdown ."

"The only people with this much animosity toward me were born right here in this town, and I can guarantee you none of them were at Gills on Thursday." He couldn't, exactly—not with absolute certainty, anyway—but the idea that some bitter Fallen Oaks local had tracked him down at the bar, then waited around just in case he managed to make an ass of himself on camera, seemed a lot more outlandish to him than a simple crime of opportunity.

Nell hugged her arms. "Whit, you really need to call the police."

He doubted the city would even bother to send someone, but it must have been a slow night, because not only did the dispatcher assure him an officer would shortly be on the way, barely five minutes had passed before a patrol car pulled up and a man in the bright blue uniform of the Fallen Oaks Police Department stepped out. By then, Whit had texted Allie to inform her that he and Nell wouldn't be making it to the after party and had let his grandfather know they'd need a ride back to the farm as soon as they finished their report.

Whit realized his mistake when he saw the officer's face. It wouldn't have mattered if there had been a rash of burglaries down Main Street, a hostage situation at the rec center, or a triple homicide. This particular cop would have found the time regardless. Slow night or not, Sawyer Brewster had come here to gloat.

Hey, Flash, sweet play on that grounder, man .

You and me in the big leagues, buddy. All the way to the Show.

Whit tensed, feeling all the air leave his lungs. His stomach twisted. If the vandalism had been a shock to his system, Officer Brewster was like a nuclear bomb. His mind went blank and his blood went cold. None of his family had bothered to warn him. Had they known? His father had to have. His grandfather, too. Bucky and Sawyer had always been close. But not a word—not the two words that would have kept Whit from returning. Sawyer's home.

He wondered how long he'd been back. Last Whit had heard, Sawyer had been applying to law schools somewhere out east; he wasn't even supposed to be in Fallen Oaks, let alone walking around in a uniform he'd always claimed to despise. But here he was, the fourth generation of Brewster to wear the badge, looking as hard-edged and irritable as the father he'd worked so hard to escape.

Karma, Whit thought. He'd known even before he'd pulled out onto the highway and turned his car north that a reckoning was coming. More than a decade overdue, but better late than never.

He glanced at Nell. She'd moved to his side without a word, sliding her hand into his as she aimed a tentative smile at Sawyer. Playing her role as the sweet, supportive girlfriend—the exact reason Whit had convinced her to stay in Fallen Oaks in the first place. Now he wanted her a hundred miles away. A thousand. Somewhere she wouldn't be able to see just how close he was to crumpling.

Heard your daddy got you off with probation.

Even after all this time, the words stung in his ears.

I hope you burn in hell, O'Rourke.

A million years ago, give or take, Sawyer Brewster had been his best friend. They'd met the same day Whit's father had moved the family to Fallen Oaks, almost the same hour. Five years old, and right from the start, they'd been inseparable, kindred spirits and polar opposites: Whit quick to temper and quicker to laugh; Sawyer quiet, reserved, serious. The brother he'd never had. Along with James, they had been the undisputed kings of the Fallen Oaks High athletics department. The triple threat, their baseball coach had called them. Whit had the arm, James had the power—and Sawyer, he had the speed. Even as a freshman, no one had been faster around the bases. He'd set the school record for steals his first year and broken it each year that followed.

Except the last.

"What are you doing here, Sawyer?" Whit asked finally. Somehow he managed to keep his voice steady.

Sawyer tapped the badge on his chest. "My job." The hard edge was in his voice, too, beneath the derisive tone and the sneer that curled his lips. He made a slow circuit around the Audi, beaming his flashlight along the shattered glass and the slashed tires, letting it hang a long moment over the word carved into the trunk. The letters gleamed up, bright as a neon sign against the chrome. Sawyer let a slow whistle out through his teeth. "Looks like someone's got a grudge. Can't really fault their accuracy though, can you?"

"No."

"I'd ask who you've fucked over lately, but I imagine the list is pretty long. So why don't we start with what happened?"

Whit didn't answer. He was trying to remember the last time he'd seen Sawyer. A few days before leaving for Vanderbilt, probably—some late summer evening only a week or two shy of September. Right after Sawyer had finally been released from the hospital. Over a decade had passed since then, and the face that had once been as familiar to Whit as his own was alien now, a grown man where the boy had been, the wry humor that had lurked in his light blue eyes replaced with a cool cynicism. Instead of awkward and gangly, he was tall, lanky, tough. Under his cap, his wild tawny hair had been clipped short.

He looked good for a dead man, Whit thought. Healthy. Fit. There was no trace left of the gaunt stranger that had screamed at Whit to get the fuck out of his house.

Not that Sawyer had been dead for very long. Two minutes, maybe less, between the time Sawyer's heart had stopped and the time the ambulance had arrived on scene, Whit doing desperate chest compressions all the while, counting beats, distantly aware that he'd cracked Sawyer's ribs in the process. It hadn't mattered. It hadn't been Whit's frantic efforts that pulled his friend back from the darkness, but a paramedic with an AED.

A strained whisper came from beside him. "Whit, could you, um, let go a little?"

He looked down and realized he was nearly crushing Nell's hand with his grip. "Shit. Sorry." He let her hand drop, wiping his sweaty palm against the front of his jeans. Let it roll off , he thought, trying to imagine himself back at the ballpark, all bright lights and roaring crowds, turning his focus inward as he stepped onto the mound. When he was on the field, he'd always been able to locate that concentration, that calm. Whit O'Rourke didn't collapse under pressure; he let it all roll off.

He left his arms loose at his sides, forcing himself to relax. If he couldn't actually find that inner calm now, he could at least give the appearance of it. And he'd better do it fast, he thought, before Nell got it into her head that he needed defending. God only knew what would come out of her mouth this time.

Curling his lips into his cockiest smirk—the one he used right before striking out everyone from MVPs to daredevil rookies who thought they could challenge him—he turned back to Sawyer and did his best to sound bored. "Do you really want a statement, or are you just here to enjoy the spectacle?"

Sawyer rocked back on his heels and matched him smirk for smirk. "I can do both."

For the next few minutes, they kept up a pretense of civility. Sawyer took their statements—including Nell's theory of a stalker—and examined the car, the points of damage, the placement of the other vehicles in the lot and their distance from the school, scouting the view from various angles in case there might be surveillance footage. Robbery was quickly ruled out as a motive, since Whit had already done a search of the interior and the only things missing were an extra pair of sunglasses he'd left in the glove compartment and a tacky hood ornament that belonged to his ex. After Sawyer had finished up his notes and taken the baseball bat into evidence, he advised Whit not to hold his breath; unless that footage turned up anything, these sorts of crimes usually went unsolved. Easy enough to decipher that code. The report would be going to the very bottom of the endless pile of petty incidents and department cold cases, if they didn't simply close it with suspect unknown.

It wasn't until Sawyer had finished his report and turned to leave that the simmering undercurrent of hostility rose to the surface.

Half a step from his patrol car, Sawyer twisted around, leaning back against his vehicle with his arms folded and his ankles crossed. The smirk on his lips was almost a snarl now. Under the brim of his hat, his eyes had taken on that hard, brittle gleam. "Don't you just love the irony? Whitney O'Rourke. Vandalized. Here . Not really karma, though. You still ended up with everything you wanted, didn't you? Doesn't much matter how you got there."

Let it roll off . "Nope." He could feel Nell bristling and draped his arm over her shoulder, drawing her tightly against him to keep her still. He couldn't take her jumping to his defense again. Not now, not here.

Not when he damn well didn't deserve it.

Sawyer's lips curled. "Whatever it takes, right?"

"That's right."

"I suppose some things don't change… but then, all that money never could buy character." Straightening, Sawyer turned to yank open the door of his patrol car, then paused again. He rubbed his jaw with one hand. "I've gotta admit, I was surprised to see you here. Weren't you banned from the premises?"

"For a year."

"Really? That wasn't a lifelong thing?" Sawyer shook his head slowly from side to side. "Huh. I guess someone didn't want to piss off Daddy. Though it looks like not everyone's quite so forgiving."

"Any time you want to take a swing at me, Sawyer, you go right ahead. First one's free."

"Tempting, but then I'd have to book myself for assault, and who needs all that paperwork? Still, you might want to rethink sticking around town. It would be a real shame if anything worse happened." He touched the brim of his hat and nodded at Nell. "You have a good night now." With a soft whistle that Whit recognized as the tune to the Fallen Oaks High School song, Sawyer ducked into his patrol car and shut the door. A moment later he was gone. Whit stared after him, watching the glare of his taillights disappear down the road. Their passage seemed to leave an imprint on the air. Two angry red eyes, harsh and accusing. Only after they faded did he remember to exhale.

He let his arm go slack and glanced down at Nell, wondering what the hell he was going to say to her. He knew he should say something . Explain, or at least try to. Offer up some flimsy excuse for what had just happened. Or he should just tell her that she was off the hook. That he'd changed his mind about staying, about all of it, and come morning, he was going to rent a car—steal one, if he had to—that he was going to turn out onto the highway and floor it, putting this godforsaken town behind them. Fallen Oaks would vanish in a puff of exhaust fumes and Nell could be back on a plane a few hours later, and Whit… well, who had he been fooling, anyway? What had he hoped to accomplish, here of all places? His reputation had already been firmly cemented, and at the end of the day, none of it mattered. No one cared what the media called him as long as he could still throw a ball.

In the end he didn't have to say anything, because Nell gave him his third shock of the evening. Without words, without warning, she turned, wrapped her arms tightly around him, and pulled him into a hard, fierce hug.

Whit didn't move. He recognized the hug immediately for what it was—nothing sexual or suggestive, not any sort of invitation, but an act of such simple kindness that he wanted to lay his head on her shoulder and weep. His throat felt thick, his every nerve raw and exposed. Rather than give in to an instinct that would undoubtedly embarrass them both, he kept himself perfectly still, his spine ramrod straight and his arms plastered to his sides. He didn't try to speak. He just stood there and let himself be hugged, breathing in the summer-sweet fragrance of her shampoo and that intoxicating, indefinable scent of warm skin, the heat of her body melting into his as he listened to the solid, steady rhythm of her heart .

It ended too soon. Only a few seconds had passed before her arms unlocked and she released her hold, taking a step backward and tugging at the wrinkled fabric of her sweater that had become bunched between them. She set a hand on her hip and tilted her head in the direction Sawyer had gone. One corner of her mouth tipped slowly upward. "Okay. You definitely slept with his girlfriend, right?"

A startled laugh choked out of him. "What if I told you I did?"

"I wouldn't believe you." She made her way to the back of his Audi, brushed away the glass that had been scattered over the trunk, then lifted herself up and perched there with her legs dangling against the dented bumper and her gaze fixed on Whit. Her eyes were dark pools in the moonlight. "You think he did it?"

"This? No. This would be too underhanded for him. And too crude. I did sort of expect him to arrest me just for the hell of it, though."

"Would you really have let him hit you?"

"I knew he wouldn't."

"But you would have let him." She shifted, propping herself up with her elbows on her knees, and peered at him curiously. "Why? I mean… I know the answer is none of my business, but why ? You weren't even trying to defend yourself."

The words were out before he could stop them. "I'd think you of all people would know I'm not worth defending."

Nell's lips parted. Her eyebrows dipped together. There was that pitying look again, the one that was so much harder to take than simple disdain. He turned away.

"You don't have to tell me," she said softly.

The strange thing was, he wanted to.

He didn't know why. Didn't even want to examine that why. It defied all sense and logic, but there it was, this compulsion to lay it all bare, to erase that pity from her eyes and let her see just how bad he really was.

Without thinking, he found himself moving up beside her. She said his name and he barely heard it. His blood was pounding in his ears. She was the last person he should ever want to confide in, but Whit was no longer operating on reason. He knew he should change the subject, or come up with some half-assed lie, or even tell her, rightly, that it was none of her business. He knew he should. But he didn't.

Instead he leaned back against the trunk of the car, drew in a ragged breath, and prepared to tell her how he'd betrayed the best friend he'd ever had.