Page 87 of The Love Penalty
“I’m sorry.” She hangs up on me before I can say anything else.
Holding the phone away from me, I scowl at the screen and mutter, “What the fuck?” as I call her back.
She doesn’t answer.
So I try again.
It goes straight to voicemail.
I slap my phone down on the dashboard and shout, “What the actual fuck!”
Liam and Casey just happen to be walking past my truck, and they both jerk to a stop, blinking at me like I’ve lost my mind.
Well, I fucking have!
Slamming the wheel, I yell out a few more profanities until my door pops open and Liam calmly asks, “What’s up?”
“Lani just dumped me!” I spit, turning to my friends like they can somehow help me understand this shit.
But how can they possibly?
No one can because it’s fucking insane!
Yesterday, we were telling each other “I love you,” and today she can’t be in a relationship because she’s not in a good place? I know she can be unpredictable at times, but this is like fucking whiplash. She does not want to break up with me. I know she doesn’t, so why the fuck is she?
What did I do?
What changed?
“Did I pressure her?” I whisper. “Did I move too fast?”
I can feel my insides crumbling at Liam’s hopeless frown, but then I just happen to look Casey’s way, and his guilty face makes me snap.
Jumping out of my car, I step up to him, poking my finger into his chest as I try to read his mind. “You know why, don’t you?”
He shakes his head but then looks to the ground.
“Casey,” I growl. I was going for calm, but that is so far beyond me right now. “What’s going on?” I bark the question at him.
He shakes his head again and I let out a roar, fisting his shirt and swinging him around. Smashing him against my truck, I yell in his face, “Tell me!”
“Dude, calm down.” He shoves me away, but I rebound right back to him, fisting his shirt again.
“Don’t tell me to calm down! Now start talking, you fuckhead!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Liam tries to get between us, but I stick out my elbow, catching him in the throat. He coughs and splutters, backing away from me while another arm wraps tightly around my shoulders and hauls me back.
“What the fuck is your problem!” Ethan shouts in my ear. “Calm down! Right now!”
Liam rubs his throat with a sad frown while I look at Casey with… I don’t even know how the hell I look, but my struggle against Ethan’s hold on me loses some of its power, and there must be a desperate stench wafting off me, because all of a sudden, Casey shouts something that ends my world.
“It was Harvey!”
“What?” I snap.
Casey closes his eyes, looking sick as he scrubs a hand down his face and softly explains, “Harvey’s the guy from the party. The one who raped her. That’s why she’s breaking up with you.”
Even with his gentle tone, his words are bullets, hitting my flesh with a shocking pain that burns me.