Page 25 of November's Bad Boy: Kacen
And I believed her.
That’s on me.
Now I have to deal with the fallout with my brother.
CHAPTER 9
KACEN
Kingston's place is too quiet.
Not the peaceful type, either. The kind that settles in your bones like something's wrong, like you're waiting for a bomb to go off even though the explosion already happened.
I left Natalie standing in her kitchen, her eyes shining and her hands clenched. It was obvious she was holding herself together with sheer will. Like a coward, I slammed her door and drove off as my dad had done. And now I'm sitting on Kingston's worn leather couch, my shoulders hunched, my head pounding, and I can't stop replaying the whole damn fight.
My hands won’t stop shaking. My stomach is twisted in knots so tight it feels like I’ve swallowed wire. I’ve been pacing the living room for the last half hour, stopping every few steps to try and catch my breath. It’s as if my body’s trying to outrun the shame clawing at my chest.
I keep seeing her face. Hearing her voice. The way she stood there, blinking back tears, her voice shaking when she said she didn’t betray me. That she didn’t want to hurt me. And I walked out anyway.
More than once, my thumb hovers over my phone. I type her name in the search bar. Even open a new message, but I can’t bring myself to write anything. What would I say? Sorry I turned into my father right in front of you? Sorry I made you feel like trash for trying to do something good? Sorry I always ruin good things. Every time.
She promised. And I believed her.
The front door opens behind me, and slams shut. I don't have to look up to know it's Kingston. His footsteps are solid, unhurried. He doesn’t say anything at first, just walks past me to the kitchen. I hear the fridge open. The clink of a bottle. The hiss of carbonation. Then he's standing across from me, leaning against the counter with a soda in his hand and that look on his face like he knows everything without asking.
"So," he says. "You blew it."
I don’t answer.
He takes a sip, then sets the bottle on the counter. "I take it you saw the flyer."
I nod once.
"And then what? You accused Natalie of stabbing you in the back?"
My jaw tightens. "She helped with it."
"Yeah," Kingston says, pushing off the counter. "She was coerced into helping by Ruby just like you were with the Halloween Party."
I blink. "Ruby knew?"
He crosses the room, dropping into the chair across from me. "Who do you think has been helping me? This whole time, she has kept my secret. I don't know how she did it, but I expected her to let it slip a hell of a lot sooner than this."
My stomach sinks, pulling me down from the inside out.
Kingston lets that hang in the air before he speaks again. "You made her feel like she betrayed you. Like she used you. And you didn’t even give her a chance to explain."
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. Everything aches. "I panicked."
"No," he says. "You ran. Like always."
I flinch. "That’s not fair."
"Isn’t it?"
His words are sharp, but not unkind. Just true. Too true.
"You’re scared," Kingston says. "Of being wrong. Of being hurt. Of being seen. But you don’t get to ask people to trust you if you're not willing to trust them back."
