28

“What the fuck are we doing here?” Chris asked when Noah pulled into a driveway that definitely wasn’t Ella’s.

“Ella’s parents are still home until next week,” his friend replied. “Riley suggested we meet here instead.”

Chris ground his teeth together. Ella’s parents were almost never home, but of course, they’d chosen the worst possible time to come back. Although he couldn’t really fault them for returning for the Christmas holidays.

“Don’t worry,” Noah said with a sigh as Ella’s car pulled in behind theirs. “Olivia’s working at the store with my dad.”

Chris shook his head and opened his door. “Fine, let’s just get this done.”

Asher’s car was parked in front of theirs, so Chris guessed Riley was already inside with her boyfriend, but he and Noah waited for Ella to get out of her car. Then they went into the house, though Chris did so reluctantly. He hadn’t been there since the video had come out, and it felt wrong to step inside after everything that had happened.

“Hey,” Ella said quietly, pulling Chris aside while Noah went through to the living room. “I’m sorry we couldn’t do this at my place.”

Chris’s shoulders lowered as some of the tension drained from his body. “It’s not your fault.”

She smiled sadly up at him. “Hopefully, this is quick,” she replied, obviously knowing how uncomfortable it was for him to be there.

Chris nodded, and they joined the others after Ella gave him a side hug that did little to put him at ease but was comforting nonetheless.

“Hey,” Riley said, sending Ella and Chris a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

Chris greeted her with a dip of his chin, and Ella approached the lavender-haired woman for a hug.

Asher walked over to Chris, his expression worried. “You okay?” he asked.

“Fine,” he replied with a nod in Riley’s direction. “What was so important that it couldn’t wait a day or two?”

Noah joined them, his forehead creased with concern.

“You’re not going to like it,” Asher warned, his focus on Chris.

Chris narrowed his eyes. “And why’s that?”

“It’s about Olivia,” Riley replied.

Chris scoffed and shook his head. Unbelievable . “What about Olivia?” he asked, his tone letting them all know he wasn’t amused.

Riley bit her lip and shared an uncertain look with Asher. “Maybe he shouldn’t be here for this,” she said.

Chris crossed his arms over his chest and lifted a brow in challenge. “Bit late now to uninvite me.”

“What’s going on with Livvy?” Noah asked his stepsister before an argument could break out about whether or not Chris should be there for whatever this was.

Riley bit down on her bottom lip and sent an apologetic look to Chris. “Maybe we should wait until she’s back from working with her dad. It doesn’t feel right telling all of you first.”

Chris let out an unamused huff. “We’ve spoken behind her back plenty of times. What’s stopping us now?” The words were harsh, and Riley winced in response, but he didn’t regret saying it. They’d all kept things from Olivia, and they couldn’t pretend otherwise.

“Look,” Riley said with a sigh, “I’m not even sure if I’m right, but I think we should have listened to Brett’s warning.”

Chris stiffened. Anything to do with Brett was bad news, but if this had something to do with Olivia as well, he hated to think why Riley had called them together.

“What does that have to do with Olivia?” Noah asked, sounding just as scared as Chris felt.

Riley wiped a hand over her face, her shoulders caving in. “Look, I think Brett was trying to tell us—” Her words cut off as her eyes widened on something behind Chris and the others. “Olivia. I didn’t know you were home.”

Chris looked over his shoulder as the others turned around. He expected to see Olivia walking down the staircase right behind him, but he frowned when he didn’t find her there. He turned his head back to look at Riley for answers, and Ella voiced the question he silently asked with his raised brows.

“Uh, where is she?” Noah’s girlfriend asked.

A line formed between Riley’s eyebrows, and she pointed at the stairs. “What are you talking about? She’s right there.”

Chris looked over his shoulder again, dread weighing down his stomach before his mind had even finished processing what was happening.

“She’s right th—” Riley started, sounding annoyed before she cut herself off and stumbled back a step. “No,” she murmured.

“Riley?” Noah asked, sounding so young and unlike himself that Chris knew he’d had the same realization.

Chris didn’t want to believe it, but Riley was looking at the staircase with a stricken expression that told him all he needed to know. “Liv?” he murmured, turning to face the spot Riley’s eyes had been pinned to. If she answered, he didn’t hear it, but he did hear Riley’s next question.

“Drew?”

Chris spun back around, his gaze locking on her pale face. He had so many questions, but he pulled himself together enough to ask the two most important ones. “What happened? Where is she?”

Riley seemed to snap out of her shock when she heard his barked words. She rushed past him and the others and up the first three steps. “Olivia, what’s going on? What happened?”

Her voice broke, and a painful ache built in Chris’s throat because there was no denying it anymore now that Riley was speaking to someone none of them could see.

He watched as Riley lifted her hands as though to place them on someone’s shoulders, only for them to fall through the empty space in front of her. “Tell me what happened,” she shouted. “Please.”

“No. This can’t be happening.”

Chris looked to the side and saw Noah shaking his head in denial, his fingers buried in his hair. Ella moved to her boyfriend’s side and placed a hand on his arm. Noah’s gaze snapped to her, and his eyes pleaded with her as though if she simply told him everything was fine, maybe it would become true.

“Shit,” Riley muttered, and Chris returned his focus to her a second before she bolted up the rest of the stairs.

With his chest heavy with the same feeling he’d been hit with when he’d gotten the call from his mom on the night of the accident, Chris followed her. He ran up the staircase and followed her down the hallway until they reached a closed door that he knew was for the guest bathroom.

Riley didn’t hesitate before twisting the handle and ripping the door open. Chris didn’t really understand. He’d just been following her blindly and out of fear. He hadn’t known what to expect. He hadn’t even been sure they were looking for Olivia, but when he saw the empty bottle of pills on the vanity and saw her in the bathtub, her pale hair floating around her, it all came crashing down on him.

Olivia hadn’t died in an accident. She hadn’t been shot and killed by someone robbing her dad’s store. All of the terrible things his mind had come up with were wrong because Olivia had chosen this. She’d chosen it, and the already-broken lump of flesh inside Chris’s chest cracked further.

He heard Noah scream something from behind him, but Chris was already racing to the bathtub. He pulled Olivia out, her body weighted down by her soaked clothing, and he set her on the tiled floor.

Chris checked for her pulse as soon as he’d carefully set her head on the floor. He wasn’t surprised when he didn’t find one, but a broken sound still escaped from his lips.

“What do we do?” he asked, his gaze lifting to the group standing in the entrance of the room.

“Hold on,” Ella said, tapping furiously on her phone screen. “Okay, start by giving her five rescue breaths.”

Chris followed her instructions, trying to focus on what he was doing and not on Riley, who’d called 911 and was explaining the situation to the operator. He started the chest compressions, hoping that Riley’s ability meant they’d found her in time, but terrified that they were too late.

Noah knelt next to him, his hand hovering over Olivia’s arm as though he were afraid to touch her. “Livvy?”

Chris’s throat tightened further, but he refused to believe Olivia was gone. It couldn’t end this way. He wouldn’t let it. He continued pressing on her chest, keeping count out loud before giving her two rescue breaths.

“Come on,” he said as he started the next round of chest compressions. “Please, Liv.”

It was after his fourth set of chest compressions that Olivia coughed up the water in her lungs. Chris rolled her onto her side, the tightness in his chest finally easing even if it didn’t let up entirely. Ella helped him get her into the recovery position while Riley updated the operator. Chris rubbed soothing circles on Olivia’s back as he listened to Riley’s tear-choked words over the sound of Olivia’s coughing.

“She coughed up some water, but do we need to make her throw up the pills?”

Chris’s gaze went to the orange bottle. He wanted to pick it up and hurl it into the trash, but it was too late, and it would do no good.

Riley put the call on speaker, and Chris gently pulled Olivia’s wet hair away from her face while the woman on the line told them to wait for the ambulance and to make sure Olivia was warm in the meantime.

“Should we get her into dry clothes?” Riley asked, and when the operator said they should if they were able to, she ran downstairs to grab something for Olivia to change into.

“I’m sorry,” Olivia said, her voice hoarse.

“It’s okay,” Noah told her, his hand finally resting on her arm and squeezing it gently. “It’s okay, Livvy.”

“No,” Olivia replied with a shake of her head, her face crumpling. “It’s not.”

Noah squeezed her arm again. “Shh. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“No,” Olivia repeated, her eyes meeting Chris’s gaze before becoming vacant. “Nothing is okay.”

When Riley came back with the dry clothes, she grabbed her phone from the floor and took it off speaker before handing it to Asher. “Stay on the line while Ella and I get her into the new clothes.”

Asher started leaving the room, and Noah stood up, but Chris couldn’t make himself get to his feet. “I’m staying,” he said, not caring what it revealed.

Noah’s eyes flew to him and narrowed. “Excuse me?”

“I’m staying,” Chris repeated, not moving his hand from Olivia’s back.

“Chris,” Ella said gently. “Riley and I will handle it. It will only take a minute.”

Chris’s jaw clenched. He wanted to argue, but he could see he wouldn’t win. His arguing would only hurt Olivia, so he stood up despite the fact that he hated leaving her, even if it was for just a minute. He left the room with Asher and Noah, his hands curling into fists when the door closed behind them.

Noah stepped up to him and stabbed his finger into Chris’s chest. “You better have a good fucking explanation.”

Chris stopped himself from shoving his friend back. Doing that would only make it worse. Speaking would have the same effect, he was sure, so he didn’t talk either.

Noah shook his head, something like disgust filling his eyes. “Tell me you didn’t.”

Chris swallowed and let his silence speak for him. Asher’s head dropped, and he rubbed a hand over his face.

“You fucking bastard,” Noah spat, shoving Chris so that his back hit the wall. He kept his voice as quiet as possible while letting his rage show. “You went after Liv?”

“I didn’t go after her,” Chris argued in an equally furious whisper. The way his friend phrased it made it seem far worse than it really was. He made it sound like Chris was some creep. “We spent some time together, and it just happened.”

Noah snarled and shoved him again. “She’s my sister,” he reminded Chris as though he ever could have forgotten. “Not some one-night stand you’ll never see again.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Chris said through clenched teeth. No matter what he’d said to Olivia after he’d seen that video, he hadn’t started anything with her to hurt her or just to get in her pants. “I actually liked her,” he added, much as the admission felt like he was pulling teeth.

He hated how Olivia had played him. The one time he’d felt something for a woman, and it had ended with him looking like the biggest fool alive.

“Then why keep it a secret?” Noah pressed, finally taking a step back but not letting his glare falter.

Chris threw his hands up. “Because I was scared of what my family would think, okay. And we were scared of how you would react,” he said, sending his friend a pointed look. “All you’re doing is proving we had good reason not to tell you.”

Noah didn’t react to the accusation, his stormy expression only darkening. “When did it start?”

“After I took her rock climbing,” Chris explained grudgingly. “But then Amy sent me the video of Olivia admitting to causing the accident.”

Noah stiffened, and his eyes narrowed into slits. “Wait. Did you spread the video?”

“Fuck no,” Chris replied, offended his friend had even asked. “I showed it to Olivia when I ended things, but that was it. Amy must have sent it around.”

Noah’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t show any signs that he didn’t believe him. “Were you ever going to tell me?” he finally asked.

Chris shrugged. “I wanted to. I just wanted to see where things went before you came in and fucked it all up.”

Noah scowled. “I wouldn’t have fucked anything up.”

Asher let out a cough that barely hid his muttered, “Bullshit.”

Noah rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I guess we’ll never know now.”

They’d never know because Olivia’s secret fucked it up before Noah or Chris’s family ever got the chance. Chris had been worried about so many things messing up what he’d had with Olivia, including himself, but he’d never expected her to be the one behind their ruin.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “It’s a bit too late now.”

Noah grimaced. “I’m sorry, man.”

Asher shook his head. “Honestly, I’m shocked you didn’t suspect anything,” he said before slapping Noah’s shoulder. “The two of them weren’t exactly subtle.”

“ You knew?” Noah asked, his voice too loud after their poor attempts at being quiet.

Asher lifted a shoulder. “Riley and I suspected.”

“Traitors,” Noah said, his mouth pressing into a thin line.

He looked at the closed bedroom door, and his annoyance seemed to disappear under the weight of what Olivia had tried to do. His shoulders slumped, and his expression melted into one of concern.

“She’ll be okay,” Asher said.

Will she? Chris thought. They’d saved her, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try again or that what had pushed her into choosing that path had miraculously vanished.

Noah nodded unconvincingly. “I was worried about her, but I never thought she’d ever do something like this.”

Chris hadn’t either. It just went to show how little he actually knew her.

“I need to call my dad and Edith,” Noah said after clearing his throat. Looking seconds away from breaking, he glanced at the closed door again before he turned his focus back to Chris and Asher. “You should go downstairs and wait for the ambulance.”

Chris nodded and did as his friend asked. He wanted to stay, but he doubted Noah would react well if he argued. He was walking on thin ice with his friend already. He didn’t need to push it further. After what Olivia had done, he shouldn’t have even cared enough to stick around, but Chris was proving to be a greater fool than he ever could have imagined.

He and Asher waited for the ambulance, and once Olivia had been put in the back by the paramedics, Chris didn’t think twice before joining Asher, Riley, and Ella in Asher’s car to follow the ambulance carrying Olivia and Noah to the hospital.

Once a doctor had told them that Olivia would be okay, he might have forced himself to leave if not for what Riley told them. What she said made Chris slump back into his seat. Maybe he still should have left after that, but he found himself stuck to that chair in the waiting area, his elbows planted on his knees and his head resting in his hands.