Broken Pretty Things by Amber Faye

Chapter 44

Three days after Logan’s party…

Aurelia looksgrim as she holds up her phone screen.

“I screenshotted it from her phone and sent it to myself,” she says. I rub my eyes hard. “I know you don’t want to see this, but you have to. Gunnar. Look.”

It’s a text exchange. Aurelia must have done some digging, which would be strange in any other circumstance, but I know her. She’s thorough, and she knows exactly how and where to get the good dirt. Say what you want about her, but she’s tenacious.

After a quick scan, I have to admit, it looks damning.

Andie: I love him, I know I do, but I don’t know what to do about Cole. I don’t want to end things. It’s just really complicated.

Andie: Being in that relationship with him makes me feel so safe. Throwing it away for a ‘maybe’ feels too scary.

Andie: What if he just doesn’t feel that way about me?

Aurelia’s big eyes are filled with tears and she blinks them back. “I didn’t realize she was like that.”

I look away. The messages physically pain me. “Send them to me,” I say. It hurts now, but later I’m going to need to read and reread them. Make sure I understand them. Make sure there’s no way we’re wrong about this.

But it doesn’t look good. For her, for us.

Two of my best friends died that day.

* * *

We’re clothed,straightening up our outfits and each other’s hair, when we hear the squeak of the far door, the rumble of a male voice. Gunnar doesn’t hesitate, he grabs my wrist and pulls me back to the ground, under the buffet table, and out of eyeshot.

“What—” I start to whisper, but he clamps his hand over my mouth.

“That’s my father,” he says in my ear.

He talks a good talk about not caring, but I guess he doesn’t want his patriarch to see us red, tousled, clearly post-sex at a public event.

“I know, I know,” Preston is saying. We can see his shoes at the other end of the room. “I know she went to Dutch. He waved her off.” I tap at Gunnar’s arm with the back of my hand but he softly shushes me.

Dutch. The name of the police captain here in Torrent Bay. One of Preston Rayne’s inner circle.

“You know kids.” He chuckles. I grip Gunnar’s arm so tight it must hurt, but he doesn’t move. “I know, I probably am.” He paces up and down. “But you weren’t here, you didn’t see what just played out.” Is he talking about us? “No, I’m not worried, not as such. I just think I didn’t give my kid enough credit. I think the redhead got caught in a lie. Ah, I gotta go.” We hear him tap his screen and see him shuffle from foot to foot, then the door squeaks open again.

“Preston,” I hear another low male voice say. “Everything OK? I can’t find them.”

“Yeah. They’re not in here. He probably drove her home.” Preston laughs darkly. “Did you see that kiss? They’re long gone.”

I look at Gunnar and see his usual composure is completely shot, his eyes wide and confused.

“I think you’re worrying over nothing,” the second voice says, almost too quiet to hear.

“In any case,” Preston says, heading over to the door, “my lawyers are prepped and ready.”

Both men leave. I pull in a sharp gasp, catching up on oxygen I’d been too scared to breathe, and Gunnar wraps his arms around me and holds me tight. “We gotta get out of here,” he says.

“What did we just hear?” I whisper. He just shakes his head.

“I don’t know,” he says, and then runs his hand over his paled face. “But I think I might have played this all wrong.”

* * *

We’reout of the country club, finally, and the grey clouds are rolling in fast. There’s a crack of thunder.

In Torrent Bay, whenever it rains, it pours.

We exchange a look, and I take off my heels and we sprint as fast as we can across the golf course, avoiding the road and heading to the parking lot. Gunnar whips off his jacket and holds it above both our heads as best he can, and the heavens open.

He picks me up at the waist and turns in a circle, then drops me back to my feet, cups the back of my neck, and kisses me. It’s hot, even in the freezing October rain. Slow, even though I feel like we should be running. Delicious, perfect, sweet, despite everything.

“What do we do?” I yell. He shakes his head, smiling at me.

“I have no idea,” he laughs. He brings his hands to his head, raking them back through his soaked dark hair. “I have no plan!” he shouts into the sky.

“Let’s go.” I take his elbow and we keep running. He never has no plan. He never has no angle. He’s as lost as I am. Maybe even more so. And he’s never looked happier.

We get into his car and he doesn’t even take the time to turn the heat on before barreling out of the lot and shooting through the gates. We’re shaking, teeth chattering, going fifty before he blasts the hot air, reaching over to grab my knee and catch his breath.

“I need to show you something,” he says. “But where do we go?” He tips back his head and laughs again.

“My house,” I say, arms wrapped tight around me. “I need clothes, and you need to sit down and talk with my mom.”

He bites his lower lip. He looks wild again, but in a totally different way. It’s like a part of him has been freed. “That’s fair,” he says finally, and then turns up the music and sings along. We pull in at my house just a few minutes later, laughing and shivering.

“Look at this first. I think I know what you’re going to say, but I need you to see what I saw.” He fishes his phone from his soaked pocket, rubs the screen pointlessly on his pant leg, and then navigates it to an image. When I look at it, he laces his fingers through mine and watches my face.

I cover my mouth with my hand as I read. “That looks bad,” I say finally. I point to the top of the screen. “But it doesn’t say who I was texting. It doesn’t show the reply.”

Gunnar nods. “You could show me the original, if you want.”

I squeeze his fingers, and look up at him. “Aurelia broke my phone. And it’s … not really my place to tell you the whole story. But I was texting Barkley. Not about Barkley. This is from a conversation with him I had a few days before the Palace.” I push my wet hair out of my face.

“Was it about me?”

I nod. “It was about you. Not some affair.” I take a deep breath. “It’s kind of embarrassing to see it laid out like that, even if you know the real truth.”

“It doesn’t look good,” he says quietly, and it takes me a second to realize he means that it still corroborates the rumors about me.

“I know, I—”

“I think I believe you,” he interrupts me. Then he squeezes his eyes shut. A droplet of rain runs down his face from the dark hair stuck to his forehead. “I mean, I want to believe you.” He swallows, another shiver running through him. “I think I do.”

“What made you think about it?”

“Everything,” he says, after a moment. “I’ve been confused, numb, since it happened. I thought I lost you both, and it was too much. I trusted you. I loved you.”

“I know,” I say, but no sound comes out. I look down at our hands instead.

“Then you told me how you felt about me. You kissed me in that field.” He smirks. “You kept kissing me. And I kept thinking about these messages. About how the context was all cropped out. That’s not how screenshots work. And it occurred to me, you know … that’s what I’d do.”

“You?”

“If I wanted to, well, try to fool someone. I’d cut away everything else. The context. The pesky truth. Leave the convenient, bad-looking stuff.” He smiles, but it’s wonky. “I’m going to be a politician, after all, right?”

I pull my hands away. “No,” I say. “Not if you don’t want to.”

“I just started thinking, and then I kept thinking. And you kept showing up. Kept telling your truth, and didn’t change your story once, even though it was kind of stupid.” We both laugh at that. “I don’t know, Andie, but you’ve been through hell. Lying would have eased a lot of it, but I don’t think you have been.”

I don’t know what to say.

“You don’t hate me anymore?”

“Does it matter?” He pushes his wet hair back. The heat is still blasting, the rain still hammering the car. We’re in a bubble right now, but eventually we need to step outside again. “Even in hate, you rule me. Body and soul.”

I lean in at that, wrap my arms around his neck, and we kiss. Long and slow, until we’re warmed from the inside out. It’s me that pulls away, and he catches me by the cheek when I do, willing me back into the kiss. The bubble.

When we finally stop, I turn towards the front door and see my mother standing in the doorway, arms folded and mouth hanging open. When she catches my eye, her face twists into a stupid grin and she gives me a thumbs up.

“We need to go deal with that,” I say to Gunnar, but he has almost the same stupid grin on his face as my mom.

* * *

I shower,taking my time, and get changed into dry clothes, throwing my soaked gala dress over a chair to deal with later. When I get downstairs, I am greeted by peals of hysterical laughter. I stick my head in the dining room to see Pietro and my mom sitting at the table, all listening intently to Gunnar as he speaks.

“What’s so funny?” I ask as I step inside, combing conditioner through my hair with my fingers.

“Oh, dear, Gunnar was just telling us everything.” My mom gets carefully up from her chair and pulls me in for a hug. I am stiff and uncooperative at first, looking over her shoulder at Gunnar, who leans back and threads his fingers together behind his head. “I’m sorry, honey.”

“For what ex—?” I begin, not wanting to get my hopes up just yet.

“For getting caught up in a misunderstanding,” Gunnar says smoothly, and gets up. “It’s easy to get confused sometimes when everyone in this town is lying.” He throws her his perfect smile, and my mom lets me go and actually legitimately melts. Horrific. “Now, I said I’d take Andie back to Larissa’s before curfew.”

“I can’t believe you two are actually finally dating,” my mom says, and tears actually spring to her eyes. She presses her hands to her mouth. “I know it’s stupid, but I really always wanted you guys to get together.” She adds, in a whisper, “I’m so glad it’s not Dimitri.”

“We’re—” I say, but Gunnar speaks over me again. I shoot him a look.

“We only just started,” he says, moving over to slip his hand around my waist. I frown.

And, when I look at him sideways, I can’t help still wondering what his angle is here. I never agreed to date him; I haven’t even forgiven him yet. Surely he isn’t naive enough to think everything is over and done with just because we slept together?

Suddenly I’m very aware of his fingers, possessive, on my waist. His touch heats me. I think about the fullness, completeness, I felt when he was buried inside me completely, skin on skin. His zipper rasping on my ass. His tongue in my mouth. My knees threaten to go weak in front of my family, and, blushing, I let Gunnar stride me out of the room.

“You have to understand how sorry I am, honey,” my mom says, skipping after us. “Can’t you stay here tonight?”

“Sorry, Jen,” Gunnar rumbles, pulling me closer. “We promised we’d get back to Larissa’s.” My mom stares at us, a dazed smile on her lips, and I force a smile onto my own as Gunnar plants a hard kiss on the top of my head. “Let’s all get together for a dinner sometime soon.”

“Yes, great,” she says, clasping her hands together. “Always so good to see you, Gun.” She reaches out and touches his shoulder. “And Andie,” she adds, “we’ll talk more later. Please come home soon, OK?”

“She’s been really enjoying hanging with Larissa,” Gunnar says, almost rolling his eyes as if our girlish antics have been close to getting on his nerves. Effortless lie. “Just try to pry those two apart.” He laughs. My mom laughs too. We say goodbye, and get back into Gunnar’s car in the driveway.

Now the interior is stiflingly hot, the world outside wet and cold. We are no longer in a bubble. I drum my fingers on my thigh and glance sideways at him as he drives us back to the Rayne house. He doesn’t say a thing, or look my way. But every now and then, a smile tugs at his lips.

What is he thinking about?