Chapter 27

Sebastian

I jump out of my bed with a start at the post on William’s Snapchat.

A picture of Evelyn sits on my screen with a horrid caption underneath, sending me into explosive anger.

“Poll for all to answer. This chick’s been all over me tonight. Do I let her down gently, or do I take her back home to show her a good time?”

Evelyn went on a date with him? After I told him she was off-limits? What in the fuck do they think they’re doing!

I throw the first object my hand can find, which is my pillow, and chuck it across the room. It lands with a quiet thud, but I’m still struggling to keep myself together.

She isn’t supposed to be seeing another guy! He isn’t supposed to be going out with her!

I can’t keep my head on straight as I pace around my room, plotting William’s death and the fastest route to killing him. He thought he could do this to me? Me?!

I think back on the conversation that night I made Evelyn swear not to go out with another guy. I had pushed him out of my room and said she wasn’t on his list.

Right?

The memory comes back in full, and I realize no, I’d encouraged my roommate. I thought I’d told him never gonna happen, but something must have been lost in translation. Obviously, I’m the fool now!

I call Evelyn immediately, waiting to scream at her and tell her that I’m going to tell the world she’s betrayed me and lost the damn game. She’s going to regret ever stepping foot in Lolita’s, I swear to God.

I hear her pick up, but I talk before she can say a word. “You need to leave right now!” I demand. “You know you’re not supposed to—”

“Sebastian.”

I stand up straighter, electricity shooting through my spine so fast I almost wonder if I’d imagined it. She’s crying. She’s crying.

What the hell is going on here?

“What happened?” I insist immediately.

“I just—I didn’t want to!” She cries, sniffling as she does. Her voice is shaky and wavering, and I don’t think twice.

“I’m on my way, don’t move; you hear me, Princess?”

I grab my keys and run out the door, calculating in my head how quickly I can arrive at Lolita’s.

I’m still going to kill William, no matter what the hell happened tonight.

I drive as fast as the speed limit will allow. I’m not letting a ticket happen tonight.

“You’re so handsome,” I remember Evelyn saying to me as she pushed her way into my room that night. The night of the first promise. When I had her swear not to be with any other guys.

“God, it’s crazy to me. If you weren’t this fucking hot, I wouldn’t be making all these damn mistakes.”

What mistakes had she been referring to then? Mistakes like hurting me? Or mistakes like hurting herself?

“You know how hard it is to watch you just be so easy and smooth with everyone around you? I don’t get it, how you slip into this cool guy persona.”

She was handsy that night, and so very drunk. I’d used it to my advantage. I wanted her, but even I knew I couldn’t have her that night.

But what mistakes did she refer to that night? I hadn’t thought about it since so why am I questioning it now?

“Because you care about her, asshole,” my brain insists.

That is true.

But, now’s not the time to get sentimental.

It takes me about ten minutes, but when I finally pull into Lolita’s parking lot, I can see Ava and Olivia comforting my stepsister. She’s crying into her hands, but the other two must notice my approaching truck.

I roll down the passenger window without hesitation. “Get in the truck, now,” I tell all of them.

Evelyn lifts her head so fast that I expect her to get whiplash. Her eyes are red, with smudged makeup surrounding them. She seems to be physically shaking as she looks at me, her face scrunching up harder as she begins to shed more tears.

“I’m not asking again,” I demand, unlocking the truck’s doors. “Get in, right now.”

Evelyn still doesn’t move, but Ava helps her stand as Olivia walks toward the truck. She jumps in the backseat with no questions while Ava opens the door and helps Evelyn into the seat next to me.

After everyone’s in, I peel out of the parking lot, not wanting to see William’s fucking stupid face. I’ll be reserving two fists for each eyeball as soon as I see him again.

We drive in silence, no one bothering to even open their mouths. Evelyn continues to cry, and it takes everything in me not to reach over and touch her in some soothing way. I can’t do that when the others are in the backseat.

“Ava, I’m taking you back to their room tonight.” I don’t ask it, I tell her. She nods, and reaches her hand up to touch Evelyn’s shoulder to comfort her.

“Thank you for picking us up,” Olivia says quietly. I look in the rearview toward her, and nod my head, not saying anything further.

“Thank you,” Ava echoes but adds nothing more.

Once we reach their building, the two in the backseat jump out immediately.

“Come on, Eve, let’s get you to bed,” Ava dotes. I’m so glad she befriended Evelyn, because someone’s got to be there for her when I can’t.

To my surprise, Evelyn actually shakes her head. “Go up. Let me talk to Sebastian.”

Olivia raises her eyebrow in surprise. “Are you sure? We don’t want you to go up alone.”

“I’ll make sure she’s safe,” I say without thinking. “Go.”

The two girls share a glance but don’t argue as they go inside. I let the truck continue to run as I wait for whatever it is Evelyn has to say.

The night we slept together she’d been hurt by Lucas. Her heart was clearly broken, yet she still found a way to me.

I’d asked her when we were in the hotel if she was afraid of me. But she managed to shoot back a joke.

“I’m afraid that you might be too ugly,” she’d teased me.

The bounce between the girl I met and the girl before me is stifling.

“You refuse to take off your masquerade mask. For all I know, you’re disfigured like in Phantom of the Opera.”

I hadn’t expected her to make me laugh with such ease. I’d tried to hide it, the laughter that came out. But it was impossible to ignore her charm.

“The mystery fades away between us.”

It wasn’t true.

I’d thought I’d found a perfect one-night stand and that she’d be charmed by my looks and money. But Evelyn Walters isn’t like the girl I expected that night.

She’s got so many more sides to her than I ever anticipated. And as she wipes her tears away, turning in her seat to me, I wonder if I’m not at all what she thought, either.

“You didn’t have to rescue me, you know,” she murmurs finally. “I would have been fine.”

I reach out to her, taking her chin in my hand as I watch her react, another tear joining the others in her lap. It rips away at my core, and I continue to be amazed at my dedication toward making her happy.

“And I wouldn’t have been.”

I stare into her eyes as I say this, wanting for her to hear the hidden meaning behind those words. I want her to see me as the man she saw from the Halloween party. Where she told me about her comfort in Boo.

Where I told her my comfort in Iron Man.

Where, for the first time ever in my life, I told someone a truth no one else knew.

I lean in, and I kiss her softly, and she doesn’t push me away. Her lips taste like pizza, beer, and salty tears.

My heart instantly cracks at that realization.

I should have been there to keep her safe.

I should always be there to keep her safe.