Cruz came back, dropping down to lay back on the blanket. The air around him felt different. He rolled his head, looking up to the sky. His one knee went up, his other leg extended out. “How long are you going to do this friends with no benefits stuff?” He flashed me a wolfish grin. “Because, gotta say, I’m missing the fuck out of you. Pun intended.”
And just like that, my body was an inferno.
I scowled at him, moving away, though my body wanted to do the opposite. “Dude.”
“God. Don’t ‘dude’ me. Barclay dudes me. Atwater dudes me. My teammates, yes. My brothers, but not you. I’m not a ‘dude’ to you.” He got quiet. “I’d like to be your man. That’s what I’d like to be.”
My gaze shot back to him, and my tongue got heavy. Real heavy.
My heart started pounding.
A whole different feeling slammed into me. Yearning. A desperation. I wanted that too, and my mouth opened.
I was leaning toward him—“Please tell me we’re in time to see live porn.”
The voice was abrupt, jarring, and not wanted.
I blinked, dazed, still in the trance Cruz’s statement brought over me. It took another second before it clicked who was heading our way.
Cruz stood up, his own scowl in place. “Shut the fuck up, Carrington. Keep it moving.”
“What’s your problem, Styles?”
My stomach fell, as I stood.
“Angela. What are you doing with them?”
Flynn Carrington was here, and he wasn’t alone. Angela, Wade’s Angela, was with them, along with three more guys. Flynn was wasted. Stumbling. His hair was all messed. His eyes were dilated, and enlarged, and his clothes were in disarray. His shirt was wrinkled, a corner torn off. His board shorts were dirtied with grass stains, and he was swinging around a bourbon bottle that still had a third left to go.
He stopped, his body swaying forward, and he held up his hands, the liquor swishing around in the bottle from the motion. “She’s with us. We’re hanging out. Having fun. What, Styles? You think you’re too good for us? You think you’re too good to hang out with us.” His eyes got mean and narrowed. They slid to me. “I was serious about the public porn.”
I didn’t look at Cruz, but I felt him.
Carrington’s friends also took notice of him, moving back an inch.
I held my breath.
A whole new stillness came over Cruz, his eyes were locked on the target. Every inch of him was rigid and alert. He was primed, seeing his prey stumbling around in front of him. Waves of danger were rolling off him. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I was tempted to take a step back myself.
“You wanna rethink what you just said, you piece of privileged frat brother shit?”
Cruz wasn’t wasting time.
Flynn blinked, that mean look just doubling. He whipped his bottle at Cruz, who stepped aside. It hit the rocks behind us. Flynn’s head bobbed back before he spat out at the same time, starting for us, his arm raised, “No. Fuck you, Styles! You’re nothing, but a–”
He didn’t even get to say his insult.
I jumped as Cruz was on him, and by on him, he was on him. He went at him, his hand going to Flynn’s throat. He hit him in the back of his leg. As Flynn toppled, Cruz went with him, but he wasn’t choking him. Cruz took Flynn’s arm. He flipped over, bringing Flynn with him, and tossed his body across the beach.
Cruz was after him once again.
He was moving so fast. Flynn’s friends stared, their mouths open.
I cursed but rushed forward and grabbed Angela. I pulled her away, just as Flynn tried to fight back. He threw a punch, but Cruz laughed. He laughed, as he dodged, grabbing Flynn’s arm and he did a whole-body twist again, sending Flynn in the complete opposite direction.
I got it then, what he was doing.
He was using the beach and the motion to fuck Flynn up, but he wasn’t hitting him. There was no physical normal confrontation where his friends would’ve instinctually moved in to pull him off and then it’d be four against one, or two because I would’ve waded in no matter my size or gender. This way, the guys didn’t know what to do and Cruz was landing punches, but he was doing it in a way where no one knew how to handle him.
He knew what he was doing.
I let out a breath, some relief lightening my chest as Cruz grabbed Flynn and lifted him up. They were by a cliff wall, and he slammed Flynn against it. They were far enough away so we couldn’t hear what was being said, but Flynn was struggling, trying to get free.
Cruz was still again, eerily almost frozen like a statue until slowly, inch by inch, he leaned in, his face next to Flynn’s. He was saying something, and whatever it was, Flynn stopped fighting.
Cruz waited, another beat, until he stepped back.
Flynn dropped to the sand, a hand rubbing at his throat, as he lifted his head to look at Cruz.
Cruz said one more thing. I strained to hear but couldn’t. The crashing waves seemed perfectly timed. He looked toward me, his head jerking, and he took a full step backwards, dragging in a breath. He started for me.
Flynn’s friends didn’t run to him. They seemed frozen until Cruz got closer. They stumbled back a step. One went running to Flynn.
Cruz stared at me, his chest heaving. He was fighting for control. I saw the rage simmering in his gaze, and moved into action. I began putting our things away, as fast as possible. Cruz didn’t move. His hands were in fists, pressed tight against his legs, and he was staring at me.
I paused, holding his gaze.
I was his lifeline right now.
I approached, slowly, a hand up. “Cruz,” I murmured.
“I want to fucking—” His voice grated out. “One look from him. One–I want to turn around and end him.”
I’d seen Cruz fight on the ice. He never fought in a clear and obvious way. You couldn’t in college hockey, but he still did. The other teams felt it and especially when he was pissed off. He turned into another being in the rink, and I saw him go after Ruiz at the bar, but this guy, this Cruz was another beast entirely.
Angela was sniffling next to us.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her.
“I didn’t know. I didn’t–I wasn’t thinking.”
Dread lined my insides.
Flynn turned to walk backwards, his smirk a half grin. “You should know that more than anyone, Kressup. How’s your girl? Oh wait…” The grin was gone, and it was just a smirk in its place.
Wade tensed. “You mean Rosa, the girl I liked before she woke up in your bed, naked and no memory how she got there? That girl? Who was so devastated after her medical exam that she quit school and moved back home?”
He picked her on purpose.
I looked at her more closely, but Cruz, he couldn’t. His eyes were only on me, like he couldn’t… A different foreboding sensation began to flood me. Cruz saw something I hadn’t. He was pissed, but he snapped and–I turned, more fully, taking in Angela in a whole different light.
She was still crying, but there were old tears dried on her face.
Her shirt was torn. Grass stains on her shorts and on her legs.
Her hair was a wreck.
There was blood at her mouth. Swollen eye. Bruised cheek.
Horror filled me.
She had one nail chipped. One nail was missing. The side of her entire hand was swelling up even as I looked at it, and it was bright red.
She had one sandal, one. The other was gone.
There was more. More scrapes. More bruises.
And she kept sobbing during my perusal.
“Babe,” Cruz choked out.
I swung my head to him.
His mouth was white around his lips. “I need to get the fuck out of here.”
I jumped, grabbing what I could in a mad dash. Books. Bags. Phones. Keys. Wallets. Then I heard myself repeating, my heart now pounding in the bottom of my throat, “Truck. Get to your truck. Now.”
“Styles!” Flynn shouted from farther down the beach. His friends had moved him in the opposite direction, which was smart of them. “I’m going to fuck you up, Styles! You are done. You hear me? DONE!”
Thoughts flashed through me. College. Flynn. His frat. His power. His father. And Cruz. His mother. Titi. What he told me about his other sister. He was the hockey star, but careers could be sidelined before the spotlight found them.
Flynn would do that. I had no doubt in my mind. He would do everything he was now saying he was going to do.
No.
I couldn’t let that happen.
I dropped everything. They landed back on the sand with a thud. “Cruz, go to the truck.” I tossed the keys his way.
He caught them. “What are you doing?”
“Go to the truck.” I was watching Carrington now, not fully knowing what I was going to do, but knowing I had to do something. “Go. Please. Just, go.”
“I’m not leaving you here. No–”
“Cruz!”
“No,” he repeated it, but he said it quietly.
He was more under control, but not me. I was starting to lose it.
“STYLES!”
My heart contracted, once. How Flynn was screaming, if he got loose, he would try to murder him. He was straining against his friends, trying to get free. They were holding him, all three of them, but Flynn wasn’t feeling anything. He wasn’t getting tired. Whatever was in him, was making him merciless.
Angela had both of her fists pressed to her mouth, tears sliding down her face. Her entire body was shaking. And then I went back to Cruz, who was still only watching me. His jaw clenched, and his eyes narrowed. “What are you thinking?”
“He’ll get away with it.” I spared Angela another look. “They always get away with it.”
I looked back at Cruz, who frowned. “What are you thinking?”
“I have no idea.” But I was reaching for my phone, pulling it out of my pocket. I just knew that this would be covered up. He had three friends. Four to our two? I wasn’t counting Angela because who knew what headspace she was in.
“Mara.” Cruz moved toward me.
I moved back, switching to video, and I hit record.
A part of me hated myself, that I was doing this, but the other part–he couldn’t get away with it. He just couldn’t.
“Angela,” I spoke up, quietly.
Flynn was still screaming in the background.
“Wha–what?” She hiccupped, focusing on me.
I motioned to my phone. “Can I record you?”
She frowned, blanching. “Why?”
“So there’s proof.”
She held my gaze, thinking.
She knew what I said was true. She knew it, but I waited, holding my breath.
Her head jerked forward. “Yeah.”
I knelt beside her, and hit the light on so I could really see her. “Who did this to you tonight?”
The question burst a dam. Her tears tripled and she folded over.
I swung the camera around, spotlighting Flynn, who was still screaming before I moved it back to her. I sat down, crossed my legs. “You have to say it. Say it once.”
She was nodding, but she couldn’t talk. She was gasping around the sobbing.
“Mara, maybe–”
“No.” I seared him with a look, keeping my camera on Angela. He didn’t get it. He just didn’t. She was still in it. She wasn’t out of it. Right now. Her words were the most powerful right now. And maybe, just maybe, she could use this later.
Maybe.
“Angela–” I started to prompt her, but she cut me off.
She bent over, but her words came out. She told her story.
