“Can you walk me through what happened?” Hayes asked, looking at me, then Addie and Serena.
Addie cleared her throat. “He came in and, right off, I could tell that something was off with him. His eyes were jumpy. He said some crass things, and then Laiken and Serena came out.”
I gripped Boden’s hand harder. “At first, he was just trying to start trouble. Saying cruel things about Boden. But when he saw Addie texting, he flipped out. I got between them, and he was livid. I told him to leave, and he grabbed me. It escalated from there.”
Hayes looked between me and Boden. “I’ll need more details eventually, but it can wait for now.”
Serena edged forward. “You have to tell Hayes what he said before he left.”
Boden stiffened next to me, his body vibrating with barely restrained rage. “What did he say?”
I swallowed hard. “That he wasn’t done with me.”
34
Laiken
Boden rana rag across an invisible spot on the counter, over and over again. My eyes tracked the movement, worry burrowing itself deeper with each pass of the cloth. I pushed off the counter and moved in close, wrapping my fingers around his arm. “Boden.”
He didn’t look up, just kept scrubbing. The invisible wall he’d erected between us clawed at me—jagged cuts in my flesh made by his silence. By how he wouldn’t meet my gaze.
I squeezed his arm. “Look at me.”
“I just want to get this kitchen cleaned up before we call it a night.”
“It’s clean. I’m pretty sure you could do surgery on this counter.” I tugged at Boden, forcing him to turn towards me. The expression on his face had me sucking in a breath. So much pain. It was carved so deeply into the planes of his face I knew it had to have been there for years. But, somehow, I’d missed the severity of his hurt.
I reached up, ghosting my hands over his cheeks. His jaw. Boden pressed into my touch. “I don’t deserve that.”
My hands stilled. “Why?”
“He could’ve killed you.” The words tore from his throat. “And I brought him into your life.”
I gripped Boden’s face with a little more force. “His actions aren’t on you.”
“But they’re tied to me. Action and reaction. I always have to think about how what I do might cause him to respond.”
I couldn’t imagine the kind of pressure that put on a person—needing to analyze every step you took and preemptively brace for impact. I stroked my thumb back and forth across Boden’s cheek and jaw. “Why didn’t you tell me that it was Eli that Carissa cheated with?”
The muscle in Boden’s jaw tensed beneath my fingertips, fluttering. “I didn’t want anyone to know.”
“Who does?”
“My parents. The police. That’s it. Her parents probably suspect. If it got out in the press…”
I could only imagine. The way they’d harassed Boden after Carissa’s death had been horrible as it was. But if they got wind of this kind of scandal? They’d go rabid.
I dropped my hands from his face and wrapped them around his waist. “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how much it hurt to find out.”
He rested his chin on the top of my head. “Some part of me knew there was someone else. We weren’t sleeping together. Some days she didn’t come home, saying she needed the quiet of her place. But the thought of her being with Eli never even crossed my mind. It should’ve. He always wanted what I had. And if he couldn’t have it, he wanted to destroy it.”
My hands twisted in Boden’s sweatshirt. “Do you know why he’s that way?”
Boden shook his head. “It’s been that way since middle school. I think my parents thought he was just wrapped up in a bad group of kids, but it wasn’t that. He couldn’t stand to see me succeed. To see me happy. I don’t know what creates that in a person.”
I didn’t either. As much as Jase and Jax had fought, there was never any hatred there. Anger and frustration, sure. But they had loved each other. Still, that love had created hate for Jax. Love for Jase that ultimately made him hate me. Hate anyone who was still here when his brother was gone.
I stroked a hand up and down Boden’s back, my thumb playing over the ridges in his spine. “I wish I could make it better. Had some magical way to fix it.”