Page 35 of One Mistake

Yeah, he did. Not only did Jameson King not know a stranger, Ryder had introduced us before. I didn’t answer but took another long drink of my beverage and suffered an ice-cream headache. I held my forehead, and he chuckled.

“Hard to look cool when you have the same affliction a six-year-old gets from eating her pushup pop.” I chuckled, still massaging my temples.

“You look fine.” His voice was as smooth as butter. Like they all—the Alpha I knew anyway—took a class on how to sound like every word just rolled off their tongues.

I smiled. “Mm. What girl doesn’t want to look fine?”

“Why don’t you let me buy you a real drink?” He nodded to the headache maker. “Kiddie cocktails aren’t gonna do the job.”

“Who said I’m here to get drunk?” Although it was two o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon. If that didn’t say desperation drinking, not much else would.

He cocked his head. “Well, if not, you can sit with me while I do.” Like that was going to happen.

The temptation to ask him about Ryder loomed large between us, and the clinking ice in my new drink, the warm burn of the whisky, the smoldering look I didn’t think Jameson could control, faded my resolve. And by my third drink, I was pouring out my heart.

“I knew I knew you.” He smiled as soon as I mentioned Ryder’s name. “You’re the nun.”

“Not anymore.” I held out my leg and showed him my ankle tattoo—a very tasteful pair of ballet shoes being sliced by a blood-dripping knife. The guy who’d done it made it look like the knife had sliced a three-dimensional gash in my calf before attacking the shoes.

He took my calf in his giant hand and pulled it up at the same time he bent. If he looked left, he would have a view of my panties and whatever the thin strip of fabric didn’t manage to hide, but he kept his gaze trained on my tattoo. “Wow. That’s sick.”

I could only guess, but the way he said it made sick sound like a good thing, so I smiled. “Thanks.”

Then he let go of my leg and rolled up his sleeve, shoving his forearm toward me. “Check this one out.” It was in the same three-dimensional style as the “gash” on my leg, but it was a black hole about halfway between his wrist and elbow. Then he lifted the bottom of his shirt and showed me a “bullet hole” inked into the space of his chest just above his heart.

“That’s awesome.”

As he rolled his sleeve back into place, he gave me a once-over. “I guess Ryder’s the reason for all of this?” He wagged his finger in front of my smoky-lidded face before resuming the fastening of his cuff button.

But the question was all the opening I needed. “Let’s call him the inspiration.” But it didn’t matter what pretty name I gave it, the truth was that as I was, I hadn’t been able to look into the mirror anymore without feeling like I’d lost all that made me who I was. It was either reinvent myself or fade away.

Jameson leaned in. “You want to hear something?” When I nodded, and took a drink so he didn’t have to look at me, he sighed. “I’m as guilty as Ryder. I made the website.”

“I thought all the punishments have been handed down already.” The press had made a giant deal of the cops not pursuing criminal charges against any of the boys except Ryder. There were rumors of scholarship losses, and the four of them had been kicked off the football team, which benefited Keaton who’d been signed to a pro team, and didn’t much affect Jameson who’d been injured and had a knee brace on his left leg. Finn hadn’t been seen at school in a couple days and Felicity was beside herself, but Ryder had a trust fund as big as the college’s budget and a job at his parents’ firm waiting for him no matter if he had to finish his law degree online at some half-ass law school.

“They were.” He nodded. “But no one knows I helped Ryder.” He shook his head. “Not even Finn and Keats.”

I shrugged. Didn’t matter. What was done…done. “Why would you help him with that?”

Now, he shrugged. “You know him. He’s Ryder. My best friend. If he asks, I do. No questions.” Such loyalty was hard to find. I hoped Ryder appreciated it.

“He’s lucky to have you.”

He laughed. “I’d say he was lucky to have you.”

I rolled my eyes to keep the tears back because just the mention of my failed relationship with Ryder made me tear up, and drinking while I discussed it certainly wasn’t going to turn out better. “That’s all over now. “

“Yeah. He was out with Susie last night.” I didn’t know what he saw on my face, but he started shaking his head almost before he finished talking. “You know…no big deal. I ended up taking her home.”

Too much information. And it made me mean. Or maybe that was the whisky. “You’re actually bragging?” The fucking nerve.

“No!” He shook his head and scoffed. “I brought her home and sat with her. All night. Just sat and talked to her because not all of us are pigs.”

“Says the guy who created the website that started the whole mess.” Bitterness didn’t just heat my blood, it burned in my tone, too.

“Yeah. I know.” He motioned for another round. “Hey, Alex. A couple more.”

The bartender nodded and made our drinks while I babbled to Jameson. “I loved him, you know? And he…broke me. Like a hammer through a glass window broke me.” I shook my head. “Not everything he said to me was bullshit, though. It was…not.”