Page 15 of Cruel Devotion

Oh, fuck!I panicked, unable to think straight past the surprise that this had happened at all. I’d just been sitting there, with no plan to move this car at all. Andthiswas how it would go? Crashing a car into a tree? It wasn’t my fault.

Clawing for the door handle, I fought to exit the car. I couldn’t hide. I couldn’t run. I’d have to face the music that I’d crashed this outrageously expensive car! That asshole wasn’t going to take the blame.

Staggering to my feet, I backed up from the smashed vehicle. Finn and Britney were there, staring open-mouthed just like I was. Like that other guy who’d coaxed me into checking out this car was. More people started to crowd around, and I clenched my teeth at how people were videoing it and taking pictures.

Evidence.

They were getting proof of my connection to this destruction.

Outside the car now, it was clear that I’d totaled it.

No. Not me.

“Why’d you hit the gear stick?” I asked the other guy.

“Me?” He pointed at himself as more and more partiers came out to witness the chaos. Preston would show any second. I was sure of it. “You’re trying to blame this onme?”

“I’m not trying to.” How could he act like he hadn’t done anything? “I’m saying you?—”

“I didn’t do shit. You were sitting in the driver’s seat,” he accused. “I was in the passenger seat.Youwere behind the wheel, Young.”

“But you?—”

“What the fuck is going on here?” Preston demanded as he walked up. He looked so drunk and shit-faced that he couldn’t resemble a serious person. Not at the moment, despite the seriousness of the moment. The crowd parted for him as he sloppily approached, nearly falling over to reach the car. He was drunk. High. Totally wasted.

“Yo, Preston. Young crashed it, man. I was just looking at it and he said he wanted to check it out.”

“I didn’t,” I argued, damned if I’d be blamed like this. This was bullshit. I wasn’t thinking straight, riled up on adrenaline and shock, but that fact remained clear. He hit the gear stick! “I?—”

Preston held one hand in the air, cutting me off. “Go on, Drake.”

Drake shook his head, still looking shocked as he pointed at me. “He got in the driver’s seat.”

“Yeah, man,” someone else called out. “I saw Eli get in it.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

I tried to breathe through the panic of getting in trouble in such a way that I’d never be able to charm my way out of the consequences.

Finn stood next to me, glancing at me and wearing the same freaked-out expression I knew I was showing him. It helped to know I wasn’t alone, but he couldn’t do anything to get me out of this situation.

“And he must have changed the gears too soon or something and…” Drake gestured at the car with its hood significantly bent around the trunk of the tree. Metal was crumpled. Glass was shattered. Ice clumps had fallen down from the branches and littered the pleated hood of the car from the force of the impact.

All the details blurred. No matter what it looked like, the classic car stayed in place as evidence of this disastrous mistake.

I shouldn’t have even touched that car.

I shouldn’t have made it go and slam into a tree.

But I didn’t put it into gear.

“I didn’t.” Facing Preston directly, I shook my head. “I didn’t move the gears. I just got in and sat there. He begged me to since he couldn’t with his foot recovery. But I didn’t touch the fucking gear stick at all!”

Preston smirked. “Oh. So, it just jumped out on its own, huh?” He shook his head, approaching the car almost too calmly. As he circled the site of destruction, he studied it without another slurred word, just peering at it and quiet as he realized the extent of ruin.

Ruin I’d partly caused.

All the while, he didn’t yell. He didn’t shout. He didn’t seem ready or invested to react at all. Merely walking around the car and drinking his beer, studying the car as if he’d never seen a damaged vehicle before, he kept me waiting in suspense. I was hanging on a thread, bracing for the impact of his wrath. The longer he didn’t speak, the more I freaked out about what would leave his mouth once he snapped out of this stunned silence.

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