My buddy, not long ago, had said I’d been blind. He’d said I couldn’t see, but it wasn’t because I didn’t.
It was because I hadn’t wanted to.
The reality was this now. My grandfather had moved his way in, and now, I was the idiot.
I was the one she didn’t trust.
Calling my grandfather out on the carpet now would just make things worse. He had her too invested, and her reaction to me today stripped me of all my power when it came to her. I had no validation when it came to her.
I came forward. “Sloane—”
“Dorian was just leaving,” she said, effectively cutting me off when she hugged her arms. “He wanted to talk, and we did that.” She wet her lips. “Did you get what you wanted out of it all?”
A dagger could have dug less. She obviously felt I’d used her, gotten her to fuck me, and why shouldn’t she think that? That was basically exactly how it looked. We had talked. We had fucked, and when she woke up, I hadn’t been there. I’d been going through her house, sneaking around.
I was the liar.
I started to say her name, but her head whipped in my grandfather’s direction.
“Are you going back to the hospital?” she asked, dismissing me and my presence here.
My grandfather nodded. “Eventually. Just want to take care of that bill so you both don’t have to think about it.” Bracing his cane, he studied me. “Good to see you again, Dorian. Maybe we’ll run into each other in the future.”
He didn’t want to say such things to me, my knuckles digging into my palm.
Sloane faced me. “Goodbye, Dorian,” she said, and my grandfather’s manservant/driver chose that opportunity to enter the kitchen.
Lucas (the guy was still a gorilla) had his billed hat on. He took it off. “Is everything all right, sir? You told me to leave the car running, so I thought I’d check.”
I didn’t miss Lucas’s glance in my direction. My grandfather’s manservant was his safety net obviously.
He’d probably been watching me too.
I had three sets of eyes on me in the moment, but out of all of them, my attention stayed on Sloane. I didn’t want her anywhere near my grandfather.
Lucas’s hand on his jacket let me know that may not be my choice today. I wet my lips. “I’ll see you at school.”
My grandfather was joking if he thought I actually believed what he said about his presence in Sloane’s life. My grandfather had an agenda, and win today or not, he wasn’t going to do that another time. He wouldn’t have her, and I wasn’t going anywhere.
Sloane appeared confused about what I said, but I meant the words. I wouldn’t be returning to my parents’ cabin. I wouldn’t be leaving Maywood Heights.
I shouldn’t have left the first time.
My phone was in my hand the moment I hit my car. Thatcher and Wells were still at the lake with the families, but they’d come back today once they heard from me. We all needed to be here, but I didn’t even think about contacting them until I heard from Wolf. I needed to talk to him the most and for obvious reasons. I’d fucked up when it came to my brother, and I could only hope he hadn’t given up on me, that he had more trust for me…
Than I clearly had for him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sloane
Ares was in my brother’s room when I arrived back at the hospital, and I was surprised to see him. He’d stayed until visiting hours wrapped last night, and yet, here he was there again today.
He and my brother sat on his bed when I came in, playing a loud-as-fuck video game that bled into the hallway.
“Watch my back, kid,” Ares barked, laughing. “Next time, we’re not going to be on teams, bro, if you can’t cover me.”
He chuckled after it, but my brother rolled his eyes. They were playing some kind of first-person shooter, blood and guts everywhere. There definitely hadn’t been any games in my brother’s room when I’d left this morning.