Broken Hill Hurt (Broken Hill High 3)

“Oh, hey,” I call after him. “I never apologize for the whole ‘jumping on your back at the gas station’ thing.”

“Ha, no problem,” he laughs before winking. “I kinda liked it.”

I shake my head as he turns and walks away. I look back at Jesse to see him scowling. “Stop it,” I demand. “The guy was just being nice. I was stuck and he helped me out.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I never asked you to.”

He lets out a heavy huff before pulling his phone out, hitting a few buttons, and holding it to his ear. “I got her,” he says, clearly to Nate. “She’s at Crystal’s party. She’s fine. Pissed off, but fine.” He hangs up a second later before looking down on me. “You’re going to want a few drinks in you before he gets here. That fucker is not happy with you.”

“Good,” I grunt. “Because I have a few things to say to him.”

“Fuck me,” Jesse groans. “Why the hell did I insist on coming out tonight?”

He drags me inside and the first thing he does is fill me a drink right to the brim. As I take my first sip, Brooke appears beside me. “So, you’re still alive? How the hell did that happen?”

“Brooke,” I grunt as she holds her hand up, cutting me off.

“You know what,” she says with narrowed eyes. “I don’t want to hear it.” With that, she turns and walks away. I let out a sigh. I hate when she’s pissed off with me, but she always comes around. But then, on the other hand, I’m pleased to see she made it out of the races unscathed as well. So, points for that, I guess.

Jesse goes to walk away from the table and I reach out and take the whole bottle of Vodka. “I think I’ll be needing this,” I tell him.

He grunts out his approval and grabs a bottle a bourbon for himself. He leads me outside where Jesse sticks to his promise of helping me forget. We stay shot for shot yet no matter how many I throw down, I can’t forget. I’ll never forget. If anything, all this is making me do is talk about it more, but luckily for me, Jess is more than happy to listen. Hell, he even agrees. Nate never should have broken up with me. He should have fought.

I don’t know how long we’ve been sitting here when one hell of an angry Nate comes storming through the back door before beelining straight to us. Jesse flies up to his feet and I don’t miss the way he wobbles as his body reminds him of just how much he has drunk tonight. “What do you want?” he slurs to his brother.

Nate ignores him and aims his heavy glare on me. “What the fuck was that?” he demands. “Were you trying to kill yourself?”

I don’t respond. After all, I don’t owe him any answers. Not anymore.

“Hey,” Jesse yells, punching his shoulder to push him a step away from me. “Don’t fucking talk to her like that.”

Nate turns his glare on Jesse and just like that, we have the attention of every last person here, but somehow, these two dickheads don’t seem to notice. “You don’t know what she did,” he yells back at him before turning to me. “How’d you get here?”

“That’s none of your damn business,” I tell him. “You lost the right to know anything about me.”

“Bullshit,” he growls.

Jesse gets in his face. “What’s your fucking problem?” he demands. “You’re the one who left her. You fucking hurt her, man.”

Nate’s eyes flick to mine before going straight back to his brother. “We’re not doing this now,” he says with a low warning.

“You hurt her,” he repeats. “And you didn’t even fucking tell me.”

Nate steps into his brother. “You don’t think I know how much I hurt her?” he demands with his eyes flicking to me. “I feel sick to my stomach. Every fucking day. She’s everything to me and I had no choice. Do you think that was easy?”

I push myself between them and look up at the man I’m so desperately in love with. “You did have a choice,” I tell him with tears in my eyes. “You could have fought for us, but you didn’t do anything. You just gave up. You let me down.”

His eyes close and his arms rush out to pull me in. My face squishes against his chest and for the first time in a week, I feel like I’m finally home. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs for only us to hear as his lips graze my forehead. “I fucking love you, Tora, but I swear to you, I had no choice.”

I shake my head as the tears in my eyes threaten to spill over. “You could have fought,” I tell him again before bringing my hands up between us and pressing against his strong chest. I pull out of his arms. I can’t be here in the safety of his arms any longer without doing my heart more harm.