Page 104 of Devious Love

I swallow my nerves and hide my trembling hands in my pockets. It’s not Mia I see anymore.

I see myself.

Engines roar and music blares.The crowd is excited.The murmurs and the laughter mingle together in my mind, my head heavier than usual.

I shouldn’t have smoked before coming here. Shit, this stuff is stronger than what I’m used to.

“Dom, please don’t,” Remi says. Her voice is tinny, like it’s coming through a speaker. She curls her fingers around mywrist, halting me in my tracks on my way to my car. “You don’t need to prove anything to them. You’re already running on empty, and”—she looks me over, frowning—“are you high?”

I pull my arm from her grip. “I’m fine.”

“Please, baby, don’t do it.”

I ignore the plea in her voice and eye Miles, who’s sitting in the driver’s seat of my car, revving the engine. He throws me a smirk. “Backing out, Watson?”

“Never,” I state loudly.

With a shake of his head, he climbs out and saunters over to me. “You sure you wanna do this? You barely slept, and that joint is probably?—”

“Give me a fucking break.” I throw my hands in the air. “I’m fine.”

Remi is at my side again. “Dom?—”

I continue ignoring her. “You coming or not, man? What’s it gonna be?”

Miles rolls his eyes and rounds the car.

“Hell yeah!” I throw my fist in the air as he climbs into the passenger seat. Then, I plant a kiss on Remi’s cheek. “Cheer for me.”

“Always.” She smiles sadly.

Not five minutes into the ride, a fucking apple tree comes out of nowhere, or maybe I drift into it. The crunch of metal is deafening. My shoulder jerks and explodes with a kind of pain I’ve never experienced. Then, only blackness follows.

I wake up to a beeping sound and my dad’s pale face floating above me.

“Wh-what happened?” I lick my parched lips, desperate for water.

“You were in an accident,” Dad explains. “Doc says you tore your rotator cuff. They had to operate.”

I blink, my mind working hard to decode his words. “And football?”

Dad blows out a breath then shakes his head. “I’m so sorry, son.”

My chest implodes, the pain as visceral as the throbbing in my shoulder, but it’s tempered when I remember Miles was in the car with me.

“And Miles? How is he?” I rasp.

“He’s okay.” Dad hesitates. “He says the two of you switched places at the last minute, and he was the one driving.”

My mind spins. “But…I was…”

Dad nods. “I know. He told me what really happened.” He swallows, examining one of the beeping machines beside my bed. “He knows what happened to your shoulder, and he doesn’t want you to be kicked out of college on top of it. He wants to take the blame. For you.”

Silence stretches, long and heavy, but not as heavy as the guilt pinning me to this mattress.

I lost football, and if I say I was the one driving, I’d lose my college degree too. Frowning, I ball my hands into fists on either side of my body.

“Miles was driving,” I choke out. “We switched places.”