“Is that what she told you?” He cocked his head just slightly as if he was analyzing me. “She really is a filthy little whore, isn’t she?”
The last words were barely out of his mouth when I barreled into him and tackled him to the ground. My shoulder slammed into his midsection as his back hit the ground, but I didn’t have time to think about the ache that already started there. Eli had already thrown his glove to the ground and was throwing punches.
His fist connected with my jaw, then my elbow connected with his nose. After that, it was nothing but a chaos of fists and elbows and jabs and grunts. Eli managed to get himself flipped over me, and he rained down punch after punch into my face and chest.
I barely felt a single one of them.
I caught his fist in my hand and threw a right hook into the side of his head that seemed to stun him. I could hear yelling around us, but I didn’t let them stop me. I threw Eli off me, and I continued to throw punches until I felt the crunch of bone beneath my knuckles.
Even then, I didn’t stop.
I didn’t stop until someone’s arms wrapped around my torso and jerked me off of him.
“Fucking stop.” Coach’s booming voice finally registered then, and I went slack against Beck. “Get him the fuck out of here.”
He pointed toward me, and one of the assistant coaches moved in my direction. I shrugged Beck off of me and held up my hands when they looked like they thought I might attack again.
Eli was sitting up and he shoved one of the guys off him that was trying to help him up.
“Remember what I said, Eli.” I walked backward away from him in the direction that the assistant coach was leading me. “You talk about her again, and I’ll finish wrecking that face of yours.”
“Carson, shut your mouth.” Coach pointed at me, and his face was so red that he looked like he would have a heart attack at any moment. “You’re about to find your ass riding the bench for the rest of the year.”
“I don’t give a fuck.” I looked him in the eye because I didn’t. I knew that baseball was important and that I had scholarships to play in college, but none of it mattered at that moment. I couldn’t see past anything but Allie and Eli and the thought of him touching her.
I would give up everything to make sure that he never spoke of her or touched her again.
Chapter Three
Allie
I walked through the hallway of my school, and I could feel people looking at me. At first, I thought it was in my head, but then I overheard some girls talking about me in the bathroom.
The news of the bet had made it all the way to Clermont High, and I obviously wasn’t the only victim of the bet. There were a few other girls from High and several from Prep, but apparently, the bet that involved me specifically was a little more interesting than the others.
And I had heard it all so far. Both Eli and Carson had managed to sleep with me before the bet’s time limit, neither of them had, and I even heard one guy whispering that he had heard it ended in a threesome.
I couldn’t do anything but roll my eyes.
I had no idea where these people got their information, but none of it could be further from the truth. I hadn’t even spoken to Eli since I left that campground even though he had text me to apologize on multiple occasions.
I didn’t reply to a single one of them.
Because his apologies didn’t matter one way or another to me. Not when I was so focused on Carson.
And I knew that wasn’t fair. They were equally guilty in entering the bet. If what Carson said was true, Eli was even more so, but I didn’t trust Eli. I didn’t care about him.
“Hey, Allie.” I looked up from my phone to see Will Hollis leaning next to my locker. He had his thumbs hooked in the straps of his backpack, and he looked nervous. Will was nice. He always had been, but I hated how my stomach dropped seeing him there.
“Hey, Will. What’s up?” I opened my locker and shoved my books in before grabbing the ones I needed for my homework tonight.
“I just wanted to check on you.” He lowered his voice and leaned in closer to me. “The shit I’ve been hearing around school has been pretty rough.”
“Most of it isn’t true.” I shrugged and tried to play the whole situation off. “But thank you for checking on me.”
“You’re welcome.” He turned toward me and crossed his arms. “You should come out this weekend. We’re planning on having a party down on the north beach.”
I nodded my head because I used to go to the beach parties all the time, but it had been a while since I had been to one. “I’ll think about it. I just have a lot going on.”
“No. I get it.” He smiled. “Is work busy as hell right now?”
“Work’s busy, trying to keep my grades up, then finishing out my community service.”
“I heard about that.” He laughed. “I was a little shocked to find out that you are the one who got in trouble, but hey, we all have our wild streaks.”
“Not a wild streak.” I smiled and closed my locker. “It was just a major lapse in judgment.”
“We’ve all been there.” He held up his hand for a high five, and I couldn’t help smiling as I slapped my hand against his.
Will was so damn wholesome and nice, and he didn’t have to be. He was also hot, incredibly so, and I had no idea how he was still single. He should have been scooped up long before now.
“You know where the party is but text me if you need anything.” He shot a finger gun at me, and I laughed as I hiked my bag onto my shoulder and turned in the other direction.
“Maybe she’s sleeping with all three of them,” I heard a girl whisper from across the hall, and I told myself to ignore it. It didn’t matter what they thought of me. I knew the truth.
And that truth was so much sadder than any of them realized.
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” another snickered, and my spine straightened. I used to be friends with these girls, or at least friendly enough. But people were quick to drop you when they thought they knew you better than you knew yourself. They had heard a few stupid rumors and suddenly they were all experts.
But they forgot that I already knew some of their secrets. Secrets that they had told me themselves. Secrets I would never share because I wasn’t like them. I would never be like them.
I pushed outside of the school and took a deep breath as I walked to my car. I was due to be at community service in an hour and a half, but I needed to do something, anything to take the edge off the rising panic that was filling inside of me.
Knowing that I was going to see Carson soon did that to me because I didn’t know what to expect. I had been avoiding him as much as I could while we were there. I absolutely refused to speak to him, but he didn’t care.
He was far from ignoring me.
I felt like he watched every single move I made.
I hadn’t seen him in a couple days. He had baseball practice yesterday which got us both out of community service, and even though I was dreading seeing him now, I would be lying if I said that I enjoyed being away from him.
It was like my own personal hell.
I wanted to be around him almost as much as I wanted to avoid him. But I guess it had been like that with Carson for a really long time.