Page 57 of Cocky Brutal Sinner

“So , you knew in Italy?” Tears brighten her eyes. “You seriously held me, slept with me, told me you loved me, and the whole time you kept this from me?”

“I did.” I could fight with her, tell her that she kept a bigger secret for me from far longer. Again, I don’t have the energy. Any anger I carried about her Toronto Tea columns dissipated long ago. By the time I acknowledged the truth, I loved her too much to resent her for it.

“Why?” she blurts out. “Why keep it a secret? Why not tell me, or Luke? Why didn’t you just break up with me the second you found out?”

“I didn’t tell Luke because…well, because it wouldn’t go well. I didn’t tell you because I understand why you did it.”

The room goes quiet. Brinley gapes at me, her eyes dark portals of hurt behind her thick glasses. She doesn’t say anything, so I just word vomit it out. The worst part of our relationship, the worst thing I ever did.

Brinley and I have rules, like Luke can’t know and don’t say I love you. I might as well break the most important rule of all—don’t talk about that night. Don’t reopen that wound. Don’t acknowledge that it’s real.

So I say the thing I’m not allowed to say.

“You did it because of the Never Have I Ever game.” Brinley’s eyes flash with fury, but I don’t let it stop me. “Because of what happened after, when Luke read your diary out loud and the guys laughed at you. When they humiliated you. That’s why you did it. That’s why you created Peppermint.”

Brinley takes a long inhale, then exhales. She’s counting, I realize. Carefully taking slow breaths to keep herself from panicking, and my heart swells. I wish there was a way to make this easier, and I hate that there’s not.

“I don’t blame you, Brinley,” I say softly. “You wrote about us because it was the only way to take control of the narrative. To use your words to humiliate us, the way we did to you. We deserved it. I can’t imagine how you must have felt, and what you needed to do to heal that hurt.

Brinley’s expression shifts from anger to something rawer. She looks like an injured animal, waiting for the final blow.

“Don’t.” Her voice sounds different now. Younger. “Don’t act like you understand. You were there. You saw it.”

As I look at her, I see that fourteen-year-old girl. The one with the big, bright eyes, who lingered at the edge of the room, simultaneously hoping nobody would see her and that anyone would acknowledge her. The dreamy, sweet girl Brinley was before we made her turn prickly and suspicious.

“I know I was there, but it wasn’t what you thought.” I swallow around the lump in my throat. “I didn’t know their plan, and when I found out, I tried to stop it⁠—”

“Shut up!” she snaps, holding up her hand. “I don’t want to fucking hear it. Whatever you were going to say about that night, I can’t hear it right now. Maybe not ever.”

“But I⁠—”

“If you say another word right now, I will never speak to you again.” She’s played her last card. She’s dangling the one thing I need, and the one thing I can’t survive—losing her. She’s not bluffing. The pain runs deep enough that she would rather leave me than be reminded of it.

I shut my mouth and just gaze at her beautiful face, willing her to understand how much I regret it all. How much I wish I could undo that shitty game. Every inch of space between us feels like a rusty nail jabbed into my skin. I want to pull her into my arms and hold her so tight, she can’t doubt that I’ll be there for her.

She turns away.

I don’t stop her as she walks out of the hotel room, and maybe, out of my life. I just stand there in the hotel room surrounded by food she didn’t eat and wine she didn’t drink, and sit with the reality that I’ve spent five years trying to make up for one night, and I’m still failing.

20

TEN YEARS AGO

BEAU

Luke is the only one of us who has a normal basement. The kind that’s half-finished with a shitty old couch and stained armchairs that his dad had from college, with a TV from the 90s and a bunch of old-school video game consoles to match it. The overhead lighting is bare lightbulbs, not expensive sconces and Tiffany chandeliers.

He doesn’t get why we’d rather hang out in his basement than ours. Yeah, James’s basement has an in-home movie theater, Nate’s basement has a pool table, and Ryan’s basement has a sound system and the latest Call of Duty. They also had housekeepers prone to coming down to check on what we were doing and offer us gourmet snacks.

In Luke’s basement, we’re unsupervised. In Luke’s basement, we can drink, fuck around, eat pizza rolls, and generally be hooligans in peace. We can also play the original Super Smash Bros. until our fingers bleed. So most weekends, Luke gets outvoted and we end up right here, sprawled on his couches with N64 controllers in our hands.

“Oh, fuck you, Kirby!” Luke yells. “Who the hell just killed me?”

“Should’ve been faster,” Nate grunts, right before I stomp him to the ground.

“Suck it,” I say as Bowser’s face fills the screen.

“Where’s Ryan with the booze?” James mutters. “I’m tired of losing to Bishop.”