Him.
I can’t tell what he’s saying, but I’d pick out his voice amongst millions. Vic’s lying.
“Why are you lying to me?”
Thrown off, he says, “Listen, Winter, I know this might be hard for you to understand, but just… stay away from him, okay? Trust me, this is for the best.”
I frown. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m sorry. I have to go.”
“But—”
The fucker hangs up on me.
Maybe I should’ve listened, left it alone, agreed to sit this one out, but I found myself on my way to Vic’s place before my voice of reason could catch up with my emotions.
Striding down the hall, I try and remember which door is Victor’s. Rushed footsteps echo in the distance and pique my curiosity. A gorgeous ginger girl in heels passes me five seconds later. We make eye contact, and my gaze lingers on her hoop earring as she walks—yes, earring, singular. She’s missing one. I can only imagine the insane story she’ll tell her friends.
Must’ve been one heck of a night.
Who knows, she may even be leaving Vic. From what Haze’s told me, Vic broke up with Bea and it’s led him to meaningless hookups.
I come to a quick stop in front of Victor’s door and knock four times. Motion rises on the other side. Footsteps, whispers, murmurs. Then nothing.
The door opens.
“Hey,” I greet Vic.
Shifting from one foot to the another, he says, “Go home, Winter. He’s not here.”
“I heard his voice on the phone.” I glimpse at the guest room door over his shoulder. “Sorry, no time for manners.” I push past him, inside the apartment.
“Winter, wait!” He grips my wrist. “I’m trying to help you here. Just go home. Don’t do this to yourself.”
If I thought I was scared before, I’d obviously never felt like this. Something in his eyes rubs me the wrong way.
It’s pity. He’s pitying me.
What the fuck?
Intent on getting what I came for—who I came for—I snatch my wrist away and close my hand around the handle, glancing back at Vic one last time. Ashamed, he eyes the floor. Weirded out by his behavior, I turn the knob.
I don’t put the pieces together at first.
Not when I see Haze sitting on the pull-out couch he calls his bed with his head in his hands.
Not even when I notice his luggage piled up in the corner of the room.
The first red flag is the guilt radiating off him.
The second is the condom foil on his floor.
But what truly ends me…
Is the hoop earring on his nightstand.
I’m shocked—the kind of shocked that knocks you on your ass, steals your breath away, leaves you for dead. His blue eyes snap up to me.