Friend Zoned (Barnett Bulldogs #2) (32 page)

“This is my fault,” she finally admits.  Her voice sounds strangely thick.  As if it’s clogged with tears.  What I can’t understand is why she would even say something like that.

Her fault?

That’s absolutely ludicrous.

Of course this isn’t her fault.

I shake my head.  Mia is completely blameless in all this.

Unfortunately it’s clear who the asshole is in this situation.

And that would be me.

“This isn’t your fault.  I’m the one who took the picture. And I shouldn’t have.”  Shaking my head, I mumble, “I just wish I knew how someone got ahold of it.”

Sucking in a deep breath, Mia finally looks up, her eyes skewering mine.  That’s when I notice the guilt, the regretful little glint that fills them.  I feel the breath catch at the back of my throat as I wait for some kind of rational explanation as to what I’m seeing written across her face.

She starts out slowly, shifting uncomfortably beside me.  “Last night… when we ordered pizzas… and all the girls were here…”

When she doesn’t immediately pick up the thread of her words, I ask in a low voice filled with tension, “What about it?”

Why is she even bringing this up?

What does that have to do with what’s going on now?

All I remember from last night is feeling irritated by the way those girls were talking about Sam.  Dissecting him as if he were nothing more than a piece of meat.  And then telling me to slide my leftovers their way when I was done with him.

And now every single one them is drooling over that damn photograph.

Feeling distracted by the memory, I simply nod.

But in my mind, I’m still combing through everything I did since snapping that picture.  How the hell could something like this happen?  Was my phone hacked?  Can a phone even get hacked?  I have absolutely no idea.  I’m not the tech genius around here.  That’s Mia’s department.  Maybe she’ll be able to figure out what happened.

Looking utterly miserable, she bites down on her lip as if she doesn’t want to say the words.  Which is definitely odd.  Normally Mia is so forthright.  She doesn’t beat around the bush when something needs to be said.

Which can be both a blessing and a curse.

My eyes sharpen on her.  On the guilt written within her mossy green gaze.  She’s all but drowning in it.  An odd prickle of unease slithers its way through me as my heartbeat picks up speed.

I was thinking that maybe she just felt bad for me, bad about the situation I’m entangled in but now… now I’m starting to realize there’s more to it.

Which is exactly when it hits me.

Like a locomotive barreling through my brain.

Last night when we ordered pizzas.

Sitting around with the girls.

Needing to get away for a few minutes when they started discussing the men’s lacrosse team.

Rather stupidly, I’d left my phone on the table.

And when I came back, Caroline had it cradled in the palm of her hand.

I remember all the smirking looks that had been hurtled in my direction before she finally handed it over.  The way they all scattered like rats within minutes of my return.  And yeah, the weird prickle of unease that had skittered its way down my spine but… I hadn’t thought too much about it.  I’d simply shook it off and returned Sam’s call, needing to hear his deep voice filling my ear.

With wide eyes, my hand flies to my mouth as I whisper harshly, “You
knew
she looked through my phone?”

I… I can’t believe this!  My mind is somersaulting.  The nausea sitting in the pit of my gut continues to grow, thrashing around within it.

I think I’m going to be sick.

Almost immediately she shakes her head in denial before her shoulders finally slump forward.  Her low voice is thick with regret.  Sucking in a ragged breath, she continues, “I thought they were looking at something on Caroline’s phone.  It wasn’t until you came back from the bathroom and she handed it to you that I realized it was your phone they’d been messing around with.” 

I can’t help but explode, “
Mia!
  She must have forwarded the picture before spreading it all over campus!”

“I know,” she admits miserably, “I’m so sorry, Vi.  I was talking with Sasha about a class and wasn’t paying attention to what they were doing.”

Oh my God, I’m so angry I could literally explode.  “But when she handed my phone back, you knew they’d been looking at it, right?”

Her eyes drop to her fingers which lay twisting in her lap.  Guilt swamps every single facial feature.  “Yeah, but-”

Before she can even start to explain, I cut her off.  I want to tear at my own hair right now.  At this point, it would be less painful.  “Why didn’t you say something right away?  I could have gone and… and…” I start to sputter because I’m so damned worked up, “I could have at least talked to her about it!”

As we hold each other’s eyes, her entire body seems to fold in on itself.  “I’m sorry,” she whispers again.  But it’s not good enough.  Her words aren’t going to fix the irreparable damage that has been done.

“You have to believe me, I had no idea what they were looking at.”  Shaking her head, she continues, “After you came back, it didn’t seem like such a big deal.  I thought maybe they were messing around or playing some stupid prank…”  Her eyes plead with mine for understanding.  “I figured they were just setting a different ring tone or something juvenile like that.”

I almost start laughing.

Oh my God!

If Mia had just given me the heads up, I could have done something about it.  I could have gone to Caroline’s room and spoken to her about messing with my phone.

Feeling headachy and emotionally drained, I fall back against my pillows.  What kind of damage control can I possibly do at this point?  Sam won’t even talk to me.  He has to know that I’m the one who took the picture.  Which means that he assumes I simply put it out there for the world to see.

My heart seizes at that painful realization.

Just as Mia opens her mouth, I quickly interrupt.  I really can’t deal with her right now.  The throbbing in my temples is growing by the minute.  “Can you just leave?  Please?”

“What?”  Surprise laces her thick voice.  Her eyes are round with shock as she watches me from where she’s still perched at the edge of my bed.

In the three years Mia and I have been friends, we’ve never gotten into a fight or even been angry with one another.  More often than not, we find ourselves on the same side of an issue.  I’ve never had a girlfriend like Mia before.  Over the years, I’ve grown to trust her implicitly.

And now that trust has been broken.

I don’t know if her telling me about what happened last night would have made one damn bit of difference.  For all I know, everything might have played out exactly as it did.  But I would have liked the opportunity to get in front of it.  As much as it would have sucked, I could have at least spoken with Sam and prepared him for what was coming so that he wouldn’t have been totally blindsided this morning.  Because that’s exactly what I imagine happened.

Whatever I’m feeling, it has to be a thousand times worse for him.

It still makes me nauseous to think about his naked picture being out there, circulating around campus.  Women gawking and drooling over at it.  Glimpsing something so private and beautiful.  Something they have absolutely no right to look at. 

With exhaustion filling my voice, I finally say, “I just want to be alone right now.  I need to figure out what I’m going to do about Sam.”

Christ.  What a fucked up mess.  Worse, I have no idea how to make it better.  He won’t even return my calls or texts.

Even though I’m not looking at her, I hear the thick tears she’s trying to choke back.  Very rarely have I seen Mia cry.  Not even through all this Carter drama has she actually broken down and bawled.  She’s always so strong and clear headed.  Mia is all about perspective.  About looking forward and not dwelling on past mistakes.

Life is too short
… that seems to be the motto she lives by.

“Vi… I’m really sorry about all this.”  Reaching out she grabs my hand, squeezing it tightly within her trembling one.  “I should have told you right away.  I… I had no idea this would turn into such a shit storm.  I really didn’t.”

Not wanting to discuss it anymore, I gently pull my fingers free of hers before repeating tiredly, “I know… I just… I want to be alone right now.  I need to figure out how I’m going to fix this mess.”

How I’m going to explain everything to Sam.

How I’m going to get him to forgive me.

Which, at this point, might not even be possible.

For all I know, I’ve already lost him.

“If you think it’ll help, I’ll reach out.  I’ll tell him exactly what happened.”  Her voice continues to wobble as she fights back the tears that are still filling her voice.  “I’ll tell him that this is all my fault.”

Her husky words have the sharpest part of my anger instantly draining away because, at the end of the day, Mia isn’t responsible for what happened.  I am.  I did this by taking a very private picture of Sam without his consent and leaving it carelessly on my phone where anyone could find it.

“No.”  Sucking in a ragged breath, I force my eyes to meet and hold hers.  “You should have told me what happened, but I’m the one who’s responsible.  I took the picture and left it on my phone.  I should have never snapped it in the first place.”  Tears instantly gather in my eyes. I can’t help but shake my head at my own stupidity because you hear about this kind of thing happening all the time.  Someone getting their hands on private pictures and then leaking them onto the internet.  “I’m such a dumbass.”

“No, you’re not,” she says softly. “You just made a mistake.”

I shake my head.  She’s wrong… this is way more than a mistake.  A mistake is ordering a sandwich with mayo and the waitress bringing it out with mustard.  That’s a mistake.

“No,” I choke out, “I used really bad judgment and invaded Sam’s privacy.  Then I was careless with a picture I should have never taken in the first place.  That’s so much more than a mistake.”

“It’s not like that, Vi.”

“Yeah,” I laugh almost hysterically, “it’s
exactly
like that.”

After a few uncomfortable moments of silence, Mia sighs heavily before finally getting to her feet.  “If there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know.  Okay?”

Her quiet words are met with a deafening silence because I have no idea if there’s even a way to repair the damage I’ve inflicted to my relationship with Sam.

And that scares me more than just about anything.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Sam

Even though the entire first floor is lit up, the house itself is eerily silent when I finally slip inside my family’s home later that night.  This has been one hell of a long ass day.  Fending off comments as well as the very determined girls who were chasing after me to sign their photographs is seriously the most messed up thing that has ever happened to me.

By the time I got to practice, I just wanted to work myself over so I could finally stop thinking about all this bullshit.  About Violet.  And her part in this.

For the life of me, I still can’t wrap my brain around why she would do something like this.  I really can’t.  If I didn’t know better… if her bag wasn’t in the shot… if I didn’t remember the morning we woke up naked in my bed… I could easily come up with some other plausible scenario, but I can’t.

It was her.

After inspecting the photograph carefully, I’m all but certain that it happened the night after I took her to the pool.  The morning after we made love for the first time.

I still haven’t returned any of her calls or text messages.  Avoiding her like this is killing me.  But I just can’t bring myself to speak with her.  Not yet.  Not right now.  Not when I’m still feeling this raw… this exposed.

Then throw in confused… and pissed off.

Never, not in a million fucking years, would I have ever associated any of those emotions with Violet.  I love her.  I’ve
always
loved her and she’s gone and… I don’t even know.

She fucking broke my heart by doing this.

What the hell was she even thinking?

That’s what I can’t figure out.

Stepping into the foyer, I pause trying to gather myself.  Because what needs to be dealt with right now is going to suck some major ass.  I almost laugh.  Yeah… that’s a massive understatement.

For about the umpteenth time today, my phone goes off signaling an incoming text.  Palming the device, I glance at the screen.

Violet.

Again.

Even though it pains me to do so, I ignore it.  I have to give the situation with Violet more time to settle before I deal with it.  I want to be clear headed when we finally sit down and talk.

As much as I would dearly love to do the same with my family, that’s not possible.  There’s no way I can continue ignoring them.  I’ve been avoiding their calls and texts for the last two hours.