He swallowed, his eyes clenching shut momentarily. “I . . . no. I did not have this flyer printed, but it’s my fault. I asked my recruit to look into Easton.” He glanced at my brother, then away. “I take responsibility for this. But I didn’t think . . .” He breathed out a sharp breath, running his hand through his hair as my heart slowly shriveled.
“Your . . . revenge,” I said.
His shoulders dropped and he looked at me pleadingly. “Yes. My revenge.”
Voices began to rise as more people gossiped about what they were reading. It looked bad. It looked terrible. I wouldn’t have wanted us as part of this idyllic community either.
What trash.
We were. We were trash, and this flyer didn’t even detail the half of it.
Easton made terrible choices. There was a list of them grasped in my hand. But I had dragged him across the country because of my issues, and he’d acted out because of it. I was selfish and thoughtless. He’d needed to stay home and heal, to remain with the people and things familiar to him and I hadn’t let him. I was the one who’d caused the trail of wreckage in our wake. Me.
Travis reached out. “Haven, please,” he said, “Let me make this right. I’m so sorry.”
The loud whir of a plane flying low overhead could be heard above the murmurs. “It’s trailing a banner,” someone near the window could be heard saying.
Travis’s eyes widened. “Oh, dear God, no,” he gasped.
“It’s an ad for parasailing lessons over in Calliope,” another person answered, turning away from the window back to the more interesting drama unfolding in front of the crowded room. Travis’s eyes closed briefly and his shoulders dropped and he exhaled a big gust of breath, evidently relieved about something.
Most unwanted.
Us.
Travis looked at Easton and then back at me. “Let me explain this,” he said.
My gaze moved slowly over the room, the people a blur, hurt a gray pulsating fog before my eyes. Perhaps Travis hadn’t meant this to happen, or perhaps not to this extent, or in this way, but he’d had a hand in it nonetheless, and now the damage was done.
Give us a chance, Haven.
His words, they’d been lies.
And I’d been lied to over and over and over and yet I’d kept on hoping.
I’m clean.
I’ll never use again.
I won’t spend the grocery money on drugs.
And the worst of them all: I’ll be there this time.
All those old wounds ripped wide open and I bled, fresh pain in the light of this betrayal. He’d said he cared for me and he’d let this happen. Somehow.
“Congratulations,” Easton said, his voice still dull, his lips tipping humorlessly. “You exacted the perfect revenge. You waited, and you struck, just like you said.” He held his hand out. “Brilliant strategy. The win goes to you.”
Travis’s lips thinned, and his jaw ticked as though he was clenching it. He looked down at Easton’s hand, but didn’t take it. “This isn’t how it seems—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, lifting my chin. I felt a sob moving up my throat and I could not cry in front of these people. I could not. “There was no need to make flyers to get rid of us,” I said to the crowd at large. “I’m sorry you wasted the ink. And the research time. We were never staying anyway. Let’s go.” I batted Easton’s hand down, still held out in the air, yanking at his sleeve.
Easton only hesitated a moment before he took my hand. We turned just as Travis reached toward me, but I avoided him, walking on legs that felt like rubber, my deep self-consciousness making my muscles twitch as I focused solely on moving. Away. Away. Run.
I waited until we’d gotten in the car and Easton was pulling out of the lot before I allowed the tears to flow, my heart and my pride in utter ruin.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Travis
Devastation rolled through me. What had I done?
I groaned in despair, gripping my head in my hands. She’d never forgive me, and why should she? It had been my stupid, misdirected need for revenge that had started the ball rolling and ended in Haven and Easton’s very public humiliation.
I’d wanted to kill Spencer when I’d approached him after Haven and Easton had left. But his eyes had been wide with shock and shame and he’d said miserably, “We didn’t know they’d be here.” I’d tried to hang on to my rage about the fact that he hadn’t sought my approval regarding the flyer, but I knew it had all started with me, and that I’d been negligent in letting it be printed at all. I was the chief. The fact that that had gotten past me was unacceptable. The buck, so to speak, stopped here.
As a result of me being asleep at the wheel, I’d destroyed Haven, and Easton too. Dear Jesus. I pictured the wounded looks in their eyes, the way they’d both tried so desperately to hold on to their pride and only barely managed to do it. Two people who’d been unwanted all their lives. It felt so . . . callous. Heartless.