Page 158 of The Casualty of Us
“Miss Hastings.” She pauses, an apology filling her eyes while informing me. “Unfortunately, doesn’t remember much beyond someone passing her a drink at the party, but she did state that Thomas is not someone she would have gone off with.”
The innate kind of understanding slips past my lips next, words as empty as they feel. “So it’s he said, she said.”
“What the fuck do you mean?” Ollie pulls his hand from mine while turning on Sutton. “You’ve got to be kidding me, please tell me she isn’t—”
“Kyler was there.” My eyes flick to Hayes with the quiet admission, and I see the way he pushes off the door again with it. How he’s about two seconds away from launching into another assault if the quiet anger pulsing in the air around him is anything to go by, and it has me adding quickly. “I don’t know where he was—I mean, I couldn’t see him, but I heard him at the end.”
Sutton’s face falls a little, which I get, because Kyler possibly being involved just makes it messier. “What did Kyler say?”
“Not much.” I shrug. “I think he was just trying to calm me down.”
“Why would he be trying to calm you down?”
I flick my gaze up to Ollie’s confused one, not having the heart to say it right now and crush some more of his innate goodness, instead just looking back at Sutton to finish. “Maybe ask him what he was doing out there.”
“What he was—” Hayes’s voice bursts through the room before cutting out with a growl as he crosses it, making it to my side in maybe four steps and pointing at my wrist. “She has marks on her, fucking bruises on her skin—”
“I understand your outrage, Mr. Flynn.” Sutton lifts a hand, trying to quiet him, and I finally glance down to see what he’s freaking out—
Oh, that doesn’t look good.
“Did someone give me pain meds?”
They must have because it’s all red and purple with the clear outline of fingers, and I should definitely be feeling that more.
Although that could be the lingering alcohol talking too.
“And I share in it, but Thomas is saying it’s a misunderstanding, and the facts as they stand—”
“How much?” Hayes bites out, drawing my gaze back up to see him crossing his arms and squaring off with her across the bed. “How much do you want to get that fucker out of here?”
“Mr. Flynn!”
“We both know it’s always about the money in the end, so—”
“Mr. Flynn.” Sutton raises a hand, cutting him off with a hard look. “I do not accept bribes, and even if I did, it would not change my recommendation to the board, which will be that Thomas is expelled.” A beat passes before she adds. “He’ll be put on probation and sent home for now pending their decision, although I can’t guarantee what happens from there.”
That is apparently not the right thing to say though.
I can see how it sets him right off again as he growls back, “Well then, tell me who to pay off on the board or please pass along my regards to them with Thomas’s head.”
“Whoa.”
“Suspension!”
Ollie’s impressed mutter is quickly followed by Sutton’s shout, and Hayes curses back. “Bullshit!”
“One more word, and it’ll be probation!”
His mouth opens, and I shout before he gets himself into something that I can’t fix. “Hayes!”
Flinching at the volume of my own voice as his gaze snaps to mine. Hazel eyes instantly running over me with a good dose of panic in them before coming back up to find the blue again. They settle there with me silently begging him to just shut the fuck up right now and seeing when his shoulders sag a second later.
I clear my throat, injuries making themselves known the longer I sit here, and take the momentary win to ask, “Can I please go?” Turning my head back to find Sutton looking between us curiously and Ollie staring at Hayes like he’s never seen him before. “I’m really starting to not feel good.”
Because if we stay here…Hayes or Ollie is going to get themselves expelled, and then I’m really going to puke.
“Of course.” Sutton’s face fills with concern, and she immediately starts rattling off, “The nurse checked you over when you got here, and you needed a few stitches in the back of your head, but otherwise she said everything else should heal up on its own.” Her gaze darts to the boys before coming back to mine with a sigh. “Although she did say that someone will need to be responsible for waking you up every two hours tonight to make sure you’re still okay if you don’t want to stay here.”
