Spinning Out(The Blackhawk Boy #1)(58)

       
           



       

"It's complicated," I say.

"Complicated?" Chris asks, "Or Gwen didn't like you sleeping with  Arrow?" Bailey and I both spin on him, and he holds up his hands, palms  out. "I'm not judging! I just know she doesn't like your relationship.  It's pretty much all over her face every time she sees you two  together."

"I'm not sleeping with Arrow," I say. Then I grimace. "I mean, not anymore. Exactly."

Bailey moves toward the kitchen. "It doesn't matter. But speaking of people who are sleeping with Arrow-"

"Or not sleeping with him," I say.

"Yeah, whatever." She rolls her eyes. "What do you all know about him and Trish?"

"Oh, man," Chris says, turning away from us and busying himself stacking dishes from the drying rack in the kitchen.

Mason shakes his head. "I don't want to get into that. She's a hot mess. A live grenade ready to blow."

"A live grenade? You play too many video games," Bailey says.

Mason lowers his voice and points his thumb toward the hallway. "And she's sleeping in Chris's room."

Bailey and I both turn to stare at Chris.

"Not like that," Chris says. "He's right. She crashed here last night.  Showed up at our door drunk-maybe high. I don't know what she's doing.  She started going off about her dad, and we took her keys so she  couldn't drive home. I gave her my bed and slept on the couch."

Bailey looks at me, then back to Chris. "What did she say about her dad?"

He slides a stack of plates into their spot in the cabinet and shuts the  door. "Normal daddy-issue stuff. He's a selfish asshole. He's made her  life hell." He shakes his head. "I don't know. But I do know that the  last thing I need is for Coach to catch his daughter at my house, high  on God-knows-what. I'd have taken her home myself if she hadn't  threatened to slit her wrists if I did. Someone needed to keep an eye on  her."

"Do you guys remember her and Arrow being together on New Year's Eve?" Bailey asks.

"Who could forget?" Mason mutters.

I have goosebumps and that uneasy tightening in my chest and stomach. I  always feel like this when we talk about that night. It's as if I'm  standing on the side of the road again, the sleet slicing at my cheeks.

"Do you remember when they left together?" Bailey asks. "Who was driving?"

"They left together?" Mason asks. "I didn't see them go."

Chris frowns. "He could hardly stand up straight. Trish had Keegan help  her get him into the car. It was crazy. Arrow never drinks like that. Or  at least he didn't before the accident."

I draw in a ragged breath. She had Keegan help her get him into the car.

Someone knocks on the door, and Bailey and I look at each other.

"I'll get it," I say.

I pull open the door, and Sebastian pushes past me into the apartment.  "I've been looking everywhere for you. What did you say to him?" he  asks. He looks like shit. He's always so composed, and today his eyes  are bloodshot and his skin is sallow, like he hasn't slept in a week.  "What did you say to Coach?"

Bailey and I exchange a glance. We're both still processing what Chris  said, and I just want Sebastian to leave so we can talk about it more.  Arrow wasn't driving. It wasn't his fault. But I need to know for sure  before I go back to him, before I tell him he can stop hating himself  for a night he can't remember.

"Mia!" Sebastian growls. "What did you say?"

I pull my gaze away from Bailey and return it to Sebastian. "What are you talking about?"

"About his car. About the accident."

Mason hops off the couch. "Coach was in an accident? Is he okay?"

"On New Year's Eve," Sebastian says, not sparing Mason a glance but  continuing to skewer me with his gaze. "You said something to him. I  told you to let it go."

I shake my head. "No, I didn't."

Chris walks toward us. "New Year's Eve?" He looks from me to Sebastian and back to me. "The dark SUV?"

"Are you sure, Mia? Because-" Sebastian drags his hands through his  hair. "Fuck. You don't understand what a good guy he was. He's family to  his players. Family. And he meant that and more to so many of us."

"Coach didn't have his SUV that night," Chris says, and now he's  searching my face, too. All these people looking at me when I don't have  the damn answers.                       
       
           



       

"Talk, Mia!" Sebastian says.

Bailey steps forward, scowling at Sebastian with her arms folded across  her chest. "Stop shouting at her." He's easily twice her size, but she's  coming at him like she'll take a swing if she needs to.

"What's going on?" Mason asks.

Sebastian sets his jaw and turns his gaze to the floor. "I have a friend  at the station. Coach just turned himself in for the hit-and-run on  Deadman's Curve."

Bailey and I draw a sharp breath at the same time.

Sebastian collapses onto the couch, elbows on his knees. "You were  right," he mutters. "I knew that damage didn't look like it came from a  doe, but I didn't want to believe it. Goddammit, you were right."

I spin when I hear a bedroom door open in the back hallway and Trish  comes out, her T-shirt falling off her shoulder, her eyes bleary. "My  dad turned himself in?"

Sebastian drags his hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, Trish."

"That fucking asshole," she mutters.

"Coach wasn't driving his SUV that night," Chris repeats.

"Arrow thinks he was," Bailey says.

"Bailey!" I shake my head frantically, as if she could take the words back.

"That's why he's been such a mess," she continues in a hurry. "Arrow  can't remember that night, but someone made him think he was driving."  She turns to Trish now and stares her down.

"Keegan had to help him into the car," Chris says, and we all turn to  Trish. "I watched him load Arrow into the passenger seat. You were  driving." His voice is deadly soft, and I'm not sure she can hear it.

As if all her bones dissolved, Trish crumbles to the floor. "I was so  scared. I didn't know what to do, and Daddy told me to go to my room. I  shouldn't have been driving."

I draw back. She did it. There's no more guessing or speculation. She  did it. Arrow's been torturing himself for months because she and her  father made him believe he was guilty.

"Dad asked me if Arrow had been passed out the whole time," she says,  rubbing her arms. "When I said yes, that Arrow had been passed out since  we left the party, Dad told me he'd take care of it. I didn't realize  how buzzed I was until I came over that hill. It was dark, and the sleet  made it hard to see, and I shouldn't have been driving."

"You killed Brogan," Mason says. He steps toward her, hands clenched at  his sides, and Chris grabs him before he can go further. "Get out of my  fucking apartment."

Trish wraps her arms around her knees and rocks herself back and forth.  "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I was scared, and I didn't know what to do,  and Dad said he'd take care of it. He told me to go to bed, and when I  woke up the next morning, the cops had already been there to file the  report on the deer, and he'd already made Arrow think he'd been  driving." She looks so pathetic, so utterly destroyed that I can't hate  her like I want to. Hate would be so much easier than this mess.

My head snaps up. "Sebastian, did you tell Arrow that Coach is at the station?"

"I went to his house first," he says. "I was looking for you."

Bailey stops pacing and looks at me. "Oh no."

"Arrow knows Coach turned himself in." I'm already grabbing for my phone  and punching in Arrow's cell number. "Voicemail," I tell Bailey when  Arrow's message clicks on.

"What did Arrow say when you told him?" Bailey asks Sebastian.

He shakes his head. "He said he had to do something and he . . ." His  frown deepens. "He got his keys and got in his car and left, but he's on  house arrest."

Bailey rushes over to me and wraps me in her arms.

"Where would he have been going?" he asks.

I squeeze my eyes shut and open them again, like a child trying to wake from a bad dream. "The police station."





When I pull up to the police station, I'm trembling. I want to be this  brave guy who isn't scared to do what needs to be done. But even though  I'm anxious to unload this weight from my shoulders, I'm terrified.

Coach is right. They'll make an example of me. They'll compare me to  that affluenza kid, and my life will be over. My dream shattered on  Deadman's Curve.

But I'm ready to be free of this terrible secret, and the second  Sebastian told me Coach had turned himself in, I knew it was time.