Page 96 of Chasing Blue
“You’re definitely staying? Staying up here?” I ask.
“Well, I’m not letting you do this on your own. I wanna be here for you.”
Before we can say any more, the voices I heard when I first woke up get louder.
“Did my dad stay here last night?” I ask. I went to bed before the boys and left them sitting around talking, so wasn’t sure if my dad had stayed over.
“No, he left. That sounds like a woman’s voice.”
“I wonder if Eden heard you’re here,” I voice my first thought out loud.
“Better fucking not be her,” Jack says as he slides out of bed.
Doing the same, I pull on a hoodie and a pair of shorts, and follow him out to the kitchen, where we find my brother arguing with Sloan. His ex, andEden’sbest friend.
When Asher looks over her shoulder at me, she turns, and I watch her mouth drop open as her eyes dart from me to Jack and she blinks rapidly.
“Here ya go. These are the two you should be apologising to. It’s their lives you fucked up. Scarlett you told lies to, and about.”
At the same time Jack throws his arm over my shoulder and pulls me into him, I fold my own across my chest. Sloan mirrors my move.
“Whadya do, Sloan, and don’t fucking lie,” Jack says.
“Tell them,” Ash orders. “Tell them what you just told me.”
Sloan looks over her shoulder at my brother before turning back to look at me.
“I lied. That night I came in the bar and told you Jack and Eden were back together . . .” She pauses and looks down at the floor before looking back up at me and shrugging. “I lied to you, Scarlett. Eden’s my best mate, she asked me to lie.” She shrugs again. “I did what I did to break you two up so that she could get back together with Jack. She’s my girl, I had her back. I don’t regret it.”
The rage I feel inside boils so hot it makes my head spin. My eyes go to the stools at the bench top, and I consider the steps it would take me to reach them and whether they’d be too heavy for me to lift and hit Sloan around the head with. I’m not generally a violent person, but right now, my body’s vibrating with the need to inflict pain on this person.
“You’ve no idea, do you? No clue what you did? The way you fucked up our lives, our chance at being together back then?” Jack says to her quietly.
His hand moves from my shoulder to my hip, his grip almost painful. I’ve never really seen Jack angry, but I can feel the tension radiating off him right now.
“I thought . . .Wethought you’d get back with Eden onceshewas gone,” Sloan gestures with her chin towards me as she speaks.
“I was never gonna get back with Eden. Me and her, we were done, we’d been done for months, and the monthsbeforethat, whatwehad, it was toxic, and there was no way,nofucking way I was gonna raise my kid in that environment.”
“How’d you know about the baby?” I ask before she can respond to the venom Jack’s just spat her way.
She tucks her long dark hair behind her ear and sucks in her cheeks as she looks me up and down. She looks at me like I’m shit on her shoe, likeI’vedone something wrong, and I jerk forward. I’m not sure what my plan is, but that look, it just triggers something in me that propels me to smash her fucking face in.
Jack’s arm is around my middle in an instant, and with his front pressed to my back, he holds me in place.
“As much as I’d love you to put her on her arse, she’s honestly not worth it,” Jack presses his mouth to my ear and says. I ignore him.
“Fucking look at me like that again bitch, and I’ll punch you so hard, your eyes won’t fucking open. Now tell me how the fuck you knew about the baby?” I say while still trying to get out of Jack’s hold on me.
Despite having a good five inches on me, she’d actually stepped back and closer to Ash, who, I’d noticed, had taken a step away from her.
“Tell her,” Ash again orders. “Tell them what you did, the lengths you went to.”
I draw in a deep breath through my nose and hold on to it as I brace for her words.
“Ash left his phone in my car.”
“I’d totally forgotten about that, Scar, I’m so fucking sorry. I forgot that I’d done that, but never, not for a fucking second did I think she’d do what she did.”
