Page 24 of Finding Their Place

She backhanded where she’d smooched. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going after dick again?”

Because I’m not.

I shrugged, having enough of my own lies for the day. “I won’t be home, so don’t hold back on bringing Wyatt here if things go well. My ears won’t be around to listen in to tempt me to jerk off.”

Haley relaxed and leaned into me, filling my nose with the scent of lavender and sweetness. “I’m so glad you aren’t letting the Alec situation hold you back from finding love.”

I’d already found it—but my place wouldn’t ever be beside her because I was nothing but a jaded liar.

I can give her one truth…

“Alec’s sister was sexually assaulted because of me.” I blurted out my life’s worst mistake, needing some sense of honesty for all the shit I’d been spewing at Haley lately.

“Fuck.” Haley set her coffee aside—something she never did until the mug emptied—and wound an arm around my chest to squeeze me tight. “Give it to me.”

So I did, puking out words and emotions in the hopes I would feel better about myself.

The party Sindy had been told by her parents to not attend. A phone call from Alec asking me to go pick her up, his words something along the lines of trusting me to keep her safe. How my ignored plea for her to leave with me had ended with my body battered by the three guys she’d been there with.

She had laughed the entire time boots battled with my guts.

I had held back the curses I’d wanted to scream at her and left the second they’d allowed me to stumble away.

Those men later took advantage of her, and I’d been blamed because I didn’t have big enough balls to make her go with me.

“She lied about what happened. Alec’s little sister told him that she would have listened to me—if I’d shown up.” Anger burned inside me as I spilled the rest of the shit from the following days.

The text demanding I move out and how the whole affair had landed me on the damn blacklist in Hollywood.

“What a fucking asshole,” Haley muttered. “He wouldn’t even listen to your side of the story?”

“She’s his little sister, the supposed angel the entire family adores. They never met the nasty side of her like I did.”

“Why did she let you see beneath her mask?”

“Sindy is a needy little bitch and hated that I took her big brother’s attention away from her. She put on a sweet front for the family, but any time she happened to catch me alone, those true colors raged. I secretly always wondered if she had…unhealthy feelings for him.”

“Spoiled princess, fake ass cunt,” Haley muttered, her support warming my chest.

“That sums her up perfectly.” I set aside my empty mug and tipped my head back, closing my eyes. My fingers entwined with Haley’s atop my heart, and I soaked in the moment of closeness without the usual arousal. The sweet contentment was almost as good as sex.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her breath hot on my shoulder where her cheek rested.

“Yeah, me too.”

“So, what are you going to do with your dream about becoming a movie star?”

“That dream died. I’m a master of washing dishes, haven’t you heard? I’ve had offers from dozens of five-star restaurants and everything.”

“What other skills do you have?”

“Sucking dick.” I muttered the poor truth of my life.

Haley snorted a laugh and snuggled closer, bringing on the beginnings of that attraction I couldn’t control. “That’s one thing we have in common.”

I barely bit back my groan over the image in my head of her sinking to her knees between my thighs and closing her lips around my girth. It wasn’t the first time I’d fantasized—and certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Time to move.

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