Page 19 of Knot Forgotten

“My mom was on my case that morning. She wanted me to take all these AP classes and change my schedule. She wants me to take the fast track to college and graduate early. Dual enrollment is in my future if she has any say. I just wanted to forget.”

“So, I kissed her to make her smile, and you kissed her to forget about your problems? Those two things aren’t the same.”

“Do you think I don’t know that? She hated it anyway. Basically took my attempt to talk about it as a way out.” He sighs and rubs the back of his neck. He looks torn up about it, and I soften. We both fucked up.

Matt chuckles, but it is without humor. He’s found my football, and he’s tossing it from palm to palm. “You two suck.”

Riley signs, ‘Agreed, jerks.’ A smile pulls at his lips as he shakes his head ruefully.

“How do we fix it? Rin isn’t answering any of my messages,” I say.

“She will eventually.” Matt leans back on my bed.

Riley joins him and props his back against my wall. And just like that, I knew we’d be okay. We’d make a plan, get the girl, and live happily ever after. If that shit existed.

I blink up at my dorm building. Hiding this information from them isn’t an option. It isn’t like when we were kids. If they found out I knew Quinn is Erin and I didn’t tell them—I would hate to see what they would do.

Sending a quick text, I tell them we need to talk. They should all be around. It hasn’t been that long since I left them at the Baldwin.

Blake replies first.

In the dorm.

I enter the building, and my feet eat up the distance between me and them. Within a minute, I’m shutting the door behind me and facing the guys. Rip the bandaid off. Pull the trigger. Set the bomb to explode. No matter how I think of it, it will do all of that and more.

Wetting my lips, I clear my throat. “Erin Walters,” I say, and a quiet settles over the guys as I say the name of the girl we all loved. The girl that broke us first. “She is here.”

None of us really moved on from her, not emotionally anyway. The memory of her is like a chain around my ankle; I can never shake it.

Blake blinks, his face a complete mask of his emotions. Matt shakes his head in confusion at my words, and he hasn’t even heard the best part yet. Riley’s eyes widen comically, and his mouth makes a circle.

I swallow, hard, my Adam’s apple bobbing in response. “She is Quinn.”

“What?” Matt explodes. “No fucking wonder she felt familiar right from the start.”

I nod and meet Blake’s still expressionless face. I know a war is waging inside of him, one he won’t let us see, not since everything with his parents happened. He is always a wall of blankness, only letting emotions shine out through his music, where he drowns in them.

“You good?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Erin Walter’s is ancient history.” I see straight through him. He's as run over by this train as I am.

Riley signs, ‘She needs to pay for breaking us.’

She does. And she’s in the perfect place for that to happen, stuck in a room with us. We are not the boys that were head over heels for her in the past. If there is one thing she will learn, it is that we never needed her in the first place.

Matt removes his headband, tossing it onto the table as he paces and his hair fluffs over his forehead. “I don’t think I can hurt her.”

“Don’t be a pansy. She had no problem hurting us,” Blake says.

Riley signs, ‘Breaking us.’

“If you can’t hurt her, at least don’t protect her,” I say. I know it is a long shot. He has always allowed his baser urges to drive him, and the urge to protect her thrums inside of me even as we talk about breaking her. Some part of me needs to see her hurt just a fraction of what we hurt.

He exhales and sinks into one of the chairs at the small table. His fingers curl on the table top. When he runs a hand over his face, I share a look with the other two. Matt isn’t going to be able to not step in and help her. But we could use that, too.

CHAPTER 9

Erin

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