Remaining silent, Ryder shakes his head.
Rage coils through my muscles as I bring my confused gaze back to Brock’s. “What are you hiding from me?”
“I’m not hiding anything, Ber. Let’s go.” He levels Hailey with a glare and wraps his fingers around my waist, attempting to herd me out of the bar.
“Are you kidding me?” I spit, my tone clotted with venom. Forget not taunting the lion. I shove against his chest, hardly moving him. “Are you fucking that skank behind my back with Ryder? Is that what’s going on?”
“No!” Brock argues, his voice barely controlled as he reaches for my hand. I wrench it back, my lips parted in silent shock. “Calm down.”
“Calm down?” I feel heat explode, blotching across my face. “You didn’t answer the question. What the hell is she talking about?”
“What a mess I’ve caused,” Hailey interrupts through a slur. She tilts her head, the movement unsteadying her. She falls against my shoulder, her listless weight knocking me back a few inches.
Ryder catches her by the elbow, hauling her away from me. “What the fuck are you doing, Hailey? Huh? You getting off on this shit?”
“I’m totally getting off on it.” She pulls her arm from Ryder’s hold. “And I’m telling the truth. I’m done with you and Brock warning me to stay away from her and not open my mouth about what happened.”
“What the heck’s going on?” Madeline asks, confusion pinching her forehead as she and Lee approach. “I go to the restroom, and all hell . . .” Her words die in her throat, her eyes narrowing on Hailey. “What’s she doing here?”
“The last time I checked, I was allowed in any bar in Maryland.” Hailey turns to me, one side of her mouth curled up. “But she’s not. Maybe I should let the owner know her ID’s fake?”
“Goddamnit! Just shut the fuck up already!” Ryder booms, a muscle ticking in his jaw. He looks at Hailey’s friend. “You sober?”
The petite brunette nods, something akin to fear breaking out across her face.
“Good. Get her the fuck outta here before she makes me do something I can’t take back.”
The girl swiftly obeys and snags Hailey’s hand, but as though unaffected by Ryder’s threat, Hailey yanks it away and resumes tripping up my brain. “Let me guess, your lover boys here had the ID made for you? No surprise. They conjured up one for me too, while they were fucking me, together, at the exact . . . same . . . time. Again, you’re nothing special, bitch.”
Confusion dips its poisonous rods into my alcohol-soaked brain as voices fade into nothing but sinister notes of chaos. I take a deep breath, my hearing sparking back to life when Hailey speaks again.
“The only thing that actually has me surprised is that they’re willing to share a bitch whose father wasted a bullet on her mother instead of her.”
The hairs on my neck jump, prickling at her words. Every wicked thing the skank’s ever done to me has nothing on this very moment. All coherent, rational thoughts peel from my head, tearing the sanity right out of my skull.
I lunge, my hand gripping her neck faster than any of us can comprehend. Before I can process what’s happening, I have her on the ground, my legs straddling her Coke-bottle waist, as my fist connects with her dainty nose. Twice. With blood streaming down her rosy cheeks, she no longer looks like a porcelain doll. I barely have time to relish the destruction I’ve caused to her overpriced nose job before I’m hauled off her by Brock, his hands under my armpits as he drags me into the amped-up crowd.
“Ber, look at me.” Brock’s voice is panicked, his hands all over me. Face, shoulders, arms, neck, he inspects every inch of my body. “Look at me, baby.”
I catch his eyes, the sincere worry in them sinking me. But it only lasts a second. Resting against a metal pole, I turn my head and bask in the sight of Hailey crying as she scrambles to her feet. Blood’s spilling from her nose, seeping between the grains of the wooden floorboards as her friend and a bouncer help her toward the exit. Eyes flaming hot as coals, I lunge again, attempting to nip one last piece of her before she leaves.
Brock stops me, caging me in. “Ber, no! She’s not worth it, baby.”
“She’s not,” Madeline says, approaching us with Lee. She swipes my hair away from my face, a sad smile on her lips. “Are you okay?”
“Not worth it?” I scoff, ignoring Madeline’s question. “Not worth it, Brock? Apparently she was worth it to you at some point. My God, how could you lie to me about her?”
He drops his forehead to mine, anguish thrumming through his whisper. “I didn’t lie to you.”
“What?” I take an exasperated breath. “Yes, you did! I asked you about her.”
“And I told you the truth. That she meant nothing to me. Every time we hooked up, I was drunk, she was drunk. That’s all it was.”
“But you so conveniently left out the part where you double-teamed her with Ryder?”
“Yeah, I did. Why the hell would I tell you that?”
My eyes bug from their sockets. “Why the hell wouldn’t you?”
“That’s not something I’d tell Madeline,” Lee interrupts, curling his arms around Madeline’s waist from behind. “Definitely not.”
Madeline swivels her head. “Oh, really?”
“Don’t get upset, pussycat.” He burrows his face into her neck. “It’s just not something a dude’s gonna tell his girl. Amber knew he messed around with her. She didn’t need to know the specifics.”