Fake Skating(97)

“And look at this—you brought her to a crumbling shack in the woods. That’s kind of a red flag, so I’m just making sure my old friend is okay.”

“Your old friend?” I looked at his ferret face and wanted to pound him. “She was never your friend.”

“You guys,” Dani said, sounding uncomfortable. “Knock it off.”

“Oh, she wasn’t?” Benji said. “Then how did I know where this place was?”

“You just said you followed me here, fuckface.”

“Dani brought me here a couple years ago,” he said, wearing that smug smile he was born with. “We had a nice walk, caught up, and then she showed me the terrible artwork you drew on the wall. Remember that, Dani?”

I wanted to level him as I remembered the way he’d gleefully showed me the picture of Dani on his phone that night, the one where she was laughing with him in our spot.

“Benji,” Dani said quietly, sounding different,and when I glanced over, I hated how nervous she looked. “Stop.”

“Feels like it was yesterday, though,” he said, his tone full of innuendo. “Great night.”

“Fuck right off, Worthington,” I said, pushing him with both hands. “Just get the hell out of here.”

“Maybe we should go, Alec,” Dani said, looking more like the girl who’d been unable to deliver her intro speech than my champagne girlfriend of five minutes ago. “Let’s go.”

“One sec,” I said, not willing to go first because I didn’t want them to ruin our spot. I’d leave just as soon as I got themto take off.

“I was supposed to take her to see you at the hospital, if I recall,” Ben said, grinning like he thought he was hilarious. “But Dani decided to hang with me instead.”

“It wasn’t like that and you know it,” she said, rolling her eyes.

Apparently I wasn’t completely over the past, because the red-hot rage I’d felt the night I learned she brought him there was still alive and well.

How could she bringhim here?

But I needed to keep my cool, so I just stared down at his ugly face and started counting.

Ten. Nine. Eight.

“The plan was to go see your dad, but we never made it.”

“Knock it off, Benji,” she said, and I didn’t like the sound of her voice. I shot her a glance, and she looked like she was about to pass out.

Seven. Six. Five.

I said, “Just leave, Worthington.”

“Yeah, let’s take off,” Austin said. “It’s fucking freezing, anyway.”

Four. Three.

I tried again. “Listen to your friend, Benji.”

“I’m going,” he said, shaking his head and grinning like a psycho. “But God, Dani—we spent a lotof hours here, remember?”

Two.

“Stop, Benji,” Dani snapped.

One.

“That’s not what you said that night—”

I pulled back my fist and slammed it into his nose.

“Oh my God!” Dani screamed.

But all I could hear was Worthington’s ghoulish fucking laugh as his nose gushed, so I tagged his right eye, that little fuck. I’d heard of people seeing red when they were angry, but for me it was like I went blind.

Everything else disappeared, and all I could see was Worthington’s nasty little face.

He swung at me and grazed my cheek, but my reflexes were faster than his fist.

“Alec!” Dani yelled. “Stop!”

Ben was still smiling, so I shoved him into the wall with both hands. “You prick.”

I heard Dani shouting, but I couldn’t make out her words and I didn’t want to.

Because staring down at Ben Worthington just reminded me of the day my dad had been fighting for his life and the cops came to the hospital to arrest me.

It reminded me of my mom’s face when they led me out.

Of my guilt when she had to leave my dad’s bedside to go to the police station.

And now he was making Dani have a fucking panic attack. I pushed him again, raising my arm to pin that fucker against the wall when—

“Stop it!”

Dani jumped in front of me, popping up between my fists and that piece of shit.

“Dani, move,” I said, needing to get at him.

Needing to teach him a fucking lesson.

“No, Alec!” she said, shaking her head and looking up at me with wild eyes. “Think.”

“Is this seriously where—” Kyle stopped talking as he entered the shed with Vinny, their laid-back smiles immediately changing into looks of confusion.

“Help me!” Dani yelled to them as I waited for her to move.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Vinny asked.

“This motherfucker right here,” I said, “is about to get his ass handed to him.”

“Stop!” Dani yelled, pushing at my chest. “Alec, think about what you’re doing!”

“I am,” I said through clenched teeth, finally seeing her.

“He’s trying to piss you off, don’t you see that?” She pushed me again and said, “He wants you to do this!”

“Then I’m more than happy to give him exactly what he wants,” I said, my eyes back on Worthington.