Page 17 of The Deception You Weave

Luca lays down and pulls me with him until we're almost nose to nose on my pillow.

He studies me in silence for the longest time, and although I'm totally comfortable in his company, the longer it goes on, the more my heart rate begins to pick up.

"Scarlett," he whispers, lifting his hand to tuck a lock of my hair behind my ear. "I rea—" He stops himself and my breath catches in my throat.

"Luc," I breathe, desperate for him to continue but equally terrified that he's about to confess something that I'm not ready to hear.

His eyes drop to my lips as I say his name and his hand comes to rest on my waist. His touch heating me from the outside in.

He swallows almost nervously. It's a weird look on him because he always seems so sure of himself. After a second, his eyes find mine once more.

"I really hate that he did this to you."

"I gave as good as I got." The second the words are out of my mouth, I realize I've made a mistake.

His entire body tenses. "Motherfucker,” he breathes. “It was you."

"W-what was me?" The thought of Kane bragging about what happened between us in the locker room with the team—with Luca and Leon—makes a shiver wrack my entire body.

"Fucking hell." He scrubs his hand down his face. "It was nothing. I confronted him and… it doesn't matter. Tell me you're done with him," he begs.

"O-of course. We've never been anything."

"So why?"

"Remember Riley?" When I first moved to Rosewood and met Luca and Leon, Riley and I were still together. We were for a few months until I realized that one, I had a mega crush on my best friend and was thinking about him more than my boyfriend, and two, the long-distance thing—even if it was only about thirty minutes—was never going to work. I'd left the Creek and was becoming a different person with an actual future ahead of me. "He was Kane's best friend.”

“Oh,” he says, not needing any more words from me to explain why Kane might have such an issue with me. “He blames you.”

“For that and a few other things.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, shit.”

4

Kane

“Tell me you’re not,” Ellis begs the next morning after it’s taken me about a million years to get my ass downstairs.

“I’ve got classes. I’m already falling behind.”

He stares at me with his eyes wide in shock.

“You almost died.”

“Over exaggeration much?” I mutter, pulling the chair out opposite and trying to sit down without showing him quite how much pain I’m in.

“If that truck didn’t swerve, you’d be in a wooden fucking box by now. You were lucky as fuck that he only clipped your back end.”

“I know,” I mutter, wishing I had a better memory of that fateful moment.

I remember the panic, the fear, the anger that was driving me forward. But I don’t remember anything past seeing the truck’s headlights.

“Did the doctor say you could get back to it so soon?”

“I don’t give a shit what the doctor said. I’ve got a few bruises. I’ve come off a football field worse before now and spent the night partying.”