Page 129 of Trusting You
“Fuck yes. Often and always. Especially when I saw how much he drank, how loose he was with any attractive woman that passed him by. It was unhealthy and sick, in a way—” Astor cuts herself off, drags her stare back to me. “I’m sorry. This is all really insensitive of me to say, what with…”
“Paige?” I sigh. “I’m well aware of Locke and Paige’s relationship, or lack thereof.”
“I can’t believe they bet on her,” Astor says, shaking her head.
The cafe goes silent. All sound funnels away from my ears and instead, there’s a clogging, cloudy weight against my head. “What?”
Astor freezes with the coffee cup halfway to her mouth. “You didn’t know?” The cup hits the table with a clonk. “But Carter, you just said…”
“Bet?” I grind out. “Paige was a bet?”
“Um…” Astor pretends deep interest in the tabletop.
“You’re a badass lawyer, Astor. You can look at me while you explain exactly—everything—you know.”
On a deep inhale, Astor says, “Locke should be the one telling you this.”
“He’s unavailable at the moment. And lucky for him, too weak to be punched in the throat. Tell me. Now.”
Astor splays her hands. “I don’t know all of it. Once Locke learned about Lily, he confessed some of it to me, mostly because he was trying to convince me he actually could be the father. I was ready to sue the shit out of you,” Astor says succinctly. “For what, I wasn’t sure of at the time, but I was mighty pissed at you for coming to Locke’s door and saying he had a baby. I thought you wanted money or fame or some kind of payoff…yeah, I was ready to raise my fists.”
“No shit,” I say. “I’d think the same thing if some girl, out of Locke’s many lines of girls, claimed he was their baby daddy. Except I didn’t. And I’m not.”
“You’ve slept with him.”
I gulp, but that’s all I’ll give her. “You’re deliberately changing the subject. Tell me about him and Paige.”
Astor sighs and falls back into her chair. “It was some party, right? That you and Paige were at? The four of them saw you two—and remember, I did say they were some royal assholes in college—still are, by many degrees. And apparently you were mooning over Locke, or staring at him from afar—I’m really uncomfortable telling you this, by the way. I’m using Locke’s words, but still…”
“Keep going,” I say through the ramming of my heart.
“So, the guys dared him to bang your friend. They were mean like that. Those four, they got any girl they wanted”—Astor frowns at this and appears to look deep inside herself. I think, Ben, but I don’t stop her—“and, therefore, they enjoyed upping the odds on one another. Or making some sort of lame play like they did with you and Paige. Complicating things, you know. I guess in your case, they wanted to instigate a fight between you and your friend.” Astor softens at my expression. “Like I said, they’re cocksplatters.”
I clear my throat, spin my coffee around in a jerky circle. “So, I was…Paige was…we were really nothing to him. To Locke.”
Astor rubs her lips together as she regards me. “He was younger then.”
“It was only two years ago.”
“A lot’s happened since,” Astor says, and she doesn’t need to expand. The injury. Locke’s fight for sobriety. Lily.
“How much did he get for her?” I ask.
Astor takes a big gulp of bad coffee.
“How much?” I repeat.
“A grand,” she responds.
“So that’s what Paige was worth, huh?” I stand. “That’s what Lily amounted to?”
“Carter, that’s not fair. Sit down, I’m not your enemy—”
“I’m going home—to Locke’s place, not my home because I have to be here to make sure Lily is…to have Lily—” I start breathing heavily, and Astor gets up from her chair.
“Easy. Easy, Carter. Sit back down.”
“I can’t…I’m…” Tears build up.