Page 34 of Above All Else

“You put up a good fight, dollface. Don’t underestimate yourself.”

I hung my head with a hint of a smile. “Did you mean what you said...earlier? About how hard it was to walk away?”

He dropped the wipe to the table below him and grabbed another, clearing his face of any evidence of our struggle. “Yes.” His hand bobbed with the new wipe as if hesitating, then continued cleaning.

“Then why did you say those things to me?” I shuffled toward him and took the wipe from his hand, resuming where he had left off.

“It’s complicated.” He looked down at me as he lifted his head, giving me better access to the drying blood.

“I’m smart enough to comprehend.”

He tucked a finger under my chin and forced my gaze to his. “I know you are, but I don’t want your opinion of her to change.”

“My opinion of who? Was there someone else?”

Shaking his head, he dropped his hand to my shoulder and sighed. “No. Nothing like that.”

“Then tell me.”

“Amber.” He glanced away from me, his jaw pulsing. “She caught us kissing. Afterward, she confronted me and essentially told me I was an awful brother for trying to steal her best friend away.”

I shook my head. “I’d never stop being her friend.”

“She didn’t think the same way. She convinced me, and I stepped away.”

“Wait, so Amber told you to back away?” I dropped the wipe and crossed my arms over my tightening chest. “That bitch.”

“What?”

“I can’t believe her.”

“It’s understandable she didn’t want to lose—“

“No.” I scoffed. “She’s the one who introduced me to Ethan that night.”

“Are you serious?”

I nodded with a frown. “She saw how upset I was, and I told her someone rejected me, but I couldn’t tell her who. She convinced me to hit the party that night and introduced me to Ethan. She said the best way to get over someone would be to get under someone.” Backing away, I sat on the bed and crossed my leg over my scraped knee. “You were supposed to be there that night, and I wanted to make you jealous, but you never showed up.”

“I’d changed my mind.” He dropped down beside me. “Apparently, she was more secretive than any of us knew.”

“Apparently.” I shrugged. “This is so cliché.”

He chuckled, his broad shoulders shaking with the warm, sultry sound. “You were a teenager. It’s understandable you’d act that way.”

My mouth hung open as I scoffed and slapped his shoulder with floppy fingers. “I was eighteen. I knew everything.”

He raised a brow. “I’ve missed you so much.” He twisted toward me, raising his knee across the bed between us.

Prickling heat rose up my neck and settled in my cheeks. My gaze darted away, and he pulled me closer, his fingers threading through mine—his thumb caressing the reddened indentations circling my wrists.

“I wish this night never happened, but then again...” His lips pressed into the wound, his tongue sliding against my sensitive flesh, causing it to cool. “I never would have known the truth.”

“Carter.” My breathless words evaporated in the space between us as he glanced up at me through hooded dark eyes, my stomach swirling in a fit of knots.

“Yes, dollface.”

Chapter 9

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