Page 99 of Hero's Prize

“I’m not going to change my mind, Tony.”

Tony didn’t say anything, just slid out of the booth.

Bear moved over to the other side to replace him. “He doesn’t seem too happy.”

“Tony is the least of my concerns right now.”

Bear nodded. “Is this about that social media snafu?”

Jesus. Word had gotten around fast even for a town as small as Oak Creek. “How’d you know? It wasn’t Ella.”

“What wasn’t Ella? Lilah was pretty sure that shit was targeted at her.”

“Targeted at her? What do you mean?”

“All thatmean girlshit. I’m not one to condone violence toward women, but I would not mind watching those bitches get a taste of their own medicine.”

Colton shook his head at his friend. “Dude, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Bear pulled out his phone and showed Colton one of the most popular social media websites and what had been said during and after the sporting goods store incident.

If Colton had felt awful before, it was nothing compared to how he felt seeing this.

And furious. So very fucking furious. At the posters of these malicious remarks. At Rick for having planted the seed of doubt that had kept him away from Ella.

But mostly at himself.

“I’m sorry, man, I thought you already knew. Ella was upset—rightfully so—when she saw this.”

“Who wouldn’t be? Basically being called fat and ugly by a number of strangers when she hadn’t done anything but stand over to the side and mind her own business?” Rage was eating through Colton’s system.

“Lilah told her to talk to you about it last night. I guess this isn’t the first incident.”

Colton pushed Bear’s phone back over toward him, unable to handle reading any more. “It’s not?”

Bear shrugged. “Yeah, the night she was helping with the sting operation, she overheard a couple of people talking some shit about her in the bathroom.”

Goddamn it. He’d known something had been wrong that night and even the next day when they left for the wilderness survival camping trip. Ella wasn’t one to complain, but he should’ve pushed. Should’ve made her talk about it. Should’ve figured out how he could help.

But he hadn’t, and now he’d made it all so much worse.

“You’re looking a little green around the gills there, brother.”

“I’ve fucked up worse than anything I’ve done in my entire life.”

Bear raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been around when you’ve done some pretty stupid shit. Are you sure about that?”

Colton explained everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours.

“Goddamn, you did fuck things up,” Bear said when Colton was done.

“In my defense, somebody showed me this scrapbook thing Ella had collected over the years, and it sort of freaked me out.”

“That thing?” Bear looked sheepish. “Not to make you feel any worse, but that scrapbook is not even Ella’s. Or at least, notjustElla’s.”

“But it was on her computer.”

“On a shared file we all use. A few years ago, somebody came across some articles she had collected about you. You know all ofus, we are such assholes, we all started collecting every digital clipping about you we could find and sending them to her in a group file. That thing has to be huge at this point. It’s a running joke between us all.”

---