“What the fuck, Henley? You smoke now?” Jackson demands as Jesse pushes in beside him. I find myself cowering behind Jesse’s shoulder and grabbing his hand, unsure why this seems to be terrifying me.
Henley looks up and down Jackson with a heavy scowl. “Excuse me?” she scoffs. “Since when do you care?”
I can’t do this. I try to tug on Jesse’s hand to pull him away but he’s not going anywhere, not as long as Jackson is standing right before a scowling Spencer. “I’ve always fucking cared about you,” Jackson says. “You were like a kid sister to me.”
Henley flinches at his words and regret instantly seeps into Jackson’s features. That probably wasn’t the best choice of words considering everything that went down. Henley raises her chin while narrowing her eyes, seeming like a completely different person than the one I once knew. “Fuck off, Jackson. You didn’t think that highly of me when you screwed me. How about Kaylah? She didn’t care when she left right along with you. You both abandoned me. I had no one, so don’t come all up in my face pretending to care about me now.”
Fuck, that hurt. I squeeze my hand into Jesse’s and he rubs his thumb over my knuckles, trying to silently soothe me, yet I can’t stop the anger that begins to pulse through me. What about me? She didn’t care about our friendship when she was busy screwing my brother.
Henley watches us with a smug smile playing on her lips as she lifts a bottle of Midori and takes a long sip. As she lowers it, she looks to Spencer. “Take me away.”
He grins down at her as though he’s imagining her naked and I watch as Jackson’s hands ball into fists. Before things went to hell, we were a family. Jackson wasn’t sugar-coating anything when he said she was like a sister to him, she was. She was like one to me too and seeing her like this is hard. She’s a good girl, not this…I don’t even know what she is now.
Spencer begins to pull her away but Jackson isn’t finished. He steps in Spencer’s way and as if on cue, Jesse steps with him, pulling me along.
Jackson looks down at Henley. “What are you doing?” he questions. “Who are you?”
Henley sets her jaw, trying to appear braver than what she is but I see the hurt in her eyes. “Get out of my way.”
Jackson doesn’t dare move, not nearly done here, but Spencer has other plans and steps forward, making the muscles in Jesse’s back twitch. “You’ve already fucked her over, man,” he says. “You looking to do that again?”
Jackson pulls back in surprise. “What? No.”
Spencer scoffs as though he’s won something. “Right, then move the fuck on. She wants to party.”
Jackson shakes his head, his fists clenching at his sides while his jaw clenches. I squeeze Jesse’s hand, silently begging him to do something. This can’t happen. Jackson can’t start a fight here, not with Spencer and certainly not with Henley.
Jesse nudges Jackson and puts a calm hand against his chest. “Come on, man. She’s not interested.”
Henley turns and walks away and I’m left feeling empty. Jackson has a hard time coming to terms with it and has to help himself to a drink. He feels things hard so I’m sure he’s currently flooded with all sorts of self-blame and hurtful thoughts.
I watch Henley go, seeing who she’s talking to and trying to get some sort of idea of what her life is like now, and honestly, what I’m seeing isn’t great. Is this our doing? Did we hurt her that badly that she’s fallen into the arms of guys like Spencer Jones?
Questions flood my mind and suddenly I feel exhausted. “Are you alright?” Jesse asks, turning into me and taking my shoulders. His hands rub up and down my arms and I sink into his chest.
“Can you just take me home?” I ask, really not wanting to be here a second longer.
“Yeah, babe. That’s fine,” he tells me, dropping his hand to mine. “Why don’t we find Jackson and see what he wants to do?”
I nod and let him pull me along. We find Jackson a moment later, throwing back shot after shot and I realize that it’s a lot worse than I had thought. He’s taking this hard. “Come on, man. Let’s get out of here.”
“No, I’m staying. I need to keep an eye on her,” he demands, scanning the crowd for Henley having already lost her.
“She’s not yours to look out for,” Jesse tells him. “She’s got her friends here and doesn’t want you hanging around. It’s only going to end up badly. Give her a few days and then you guys can go and check on her. She’s probably just surprised to be seeing you, and I’d dare say even hurt.”