Give Me Love (39 page)

I stepped forward unsteadily and Matt and Ethan shared a look that seemed to communicate something without saying anything at all.

“Dance with me,” Matt murmured in my ear, tugging on the arm he hadn’t let go of.

I readily agreed and he led me out to the dance floor where I wrapped my arms around him tightly like a lifeline because if I didn’t, I was pretty sure I would ass plant on the floor.

“Evie,” he bent down and whispered in my ear. “Are you all right?”

I looked up into his midnight eyes and tried to focus, but all I got was blurred vision and unresponsive limbs. “Actually, I’m not so sure I am.”

He ran an arm gently down my back until his fingers touched mine and he tucked my hand in his. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

I nodded blankly. “Fresh air.”

That was the last thing I remembered because it felt like only a minute later I was blinking sore, gritty eyes open in a strange bed in another hotel room. I moaned, holding my head at the movement and frowned as I took in the room. Weren’t we back in Sydney? Why wasn’t I at home?

I felt a warm, male body stir and roll over at my movement, wrapping an arm around me. A warm,
naked
male body. What the hell? I sat up hastily and looked down to see Matt lying there sleeping peacefully. His hand slid down at my sudden movement and gripped my hip possessively.

I almost shrieked in horror and slapped a hand over my mouth. Quickly, I slid my legs over the side of the bed, wincing at the hideous hammering that pounded my skull. I panicked when I realised I was only wearing my two little black scraps of underwear and my heart sank. I racked my brain but I couldn’t remember a thing. All I knew was that this wasn’t me. I wasn’t the person who went out and drank and just slept with anyone.

I flew off the bed and raced to the bathroom, throwing up the entire contents of my stomach. Oh God, what had I done? In less than twenty-four hours, I’d lost the one thing that had come to matter more to me than anything. The thought left me empty and weak and sinking into a tight ball on the floor, I pressed my forehead against the cold tiles and sobbed until there was nothing left.

Chapter Twenty-Three

A warm hand brushed at the skin of my back.

“Evie, I…”

I weakly pushed up off the floor, feeling like a giant wrecking ball had taken a few aims at my head. I wiped at my face and imagined that Matt was probably thinking he’d somehow stumbled onto the set of a horror movie.

Wearing nothing but a small hotel towel perched precariously about his hips, he helped me up until I sat on the edge of the bath. I watched him carefully as he ran a washcloth under the tap and began wiping gently at my face. He looked how I felt: pale, red eyes, unsteady, and wincing at every movement.

“What the hell happened, Matt?” I croaked out.

He paused to look at me, frowning, confused. “I don’t know.”

Random snippets flittered through my head: the bar, Ethan, shots, Matt. Matt! Matt was gay!

He turned back to the sink and I grabbed his arm, stopping his movement. “We couldn’t have done anything, right? I mean, you…you’re gay, I remember our conversation.”

He cringed. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” We both winced at my voice which hit a frequency so high it should have been inaudible to anyone but dogs.

What I did know was that I needed to find my clothes and my phone because everyone would be frantic and wildly furious. If I wasn’t already wishing the wrecking ball pounding my head had taken me out quickly and quietly, the wrath of Coby and my friends would be enough to have me wishing for a speedy death.

I stood up and immediately pitched forward. Matt grabbed at me and between the two of us we managed a shuffle back into the bedroom.

“Where are my clothes?”

Matt chuckled. “I’m not answering that on the grounds that I don’t want to keep repeating myself. Sit down, I’ll go look.”

“No,” I pushed away from him. “I’ll look. You go find your own.”

As I shuffled out to the front room of the suite, Coby and Travis burst through the hotel door. I jumped and the fright had my stomach rolling.

“Holy shit!” Travis was taken off guard by my involuntary leap, his eyes trailing over my almost naked appearance.

The relief on Coby’s face was immediate as he did a full body scan for potential injuries. “Evie, thank fuck,” he whispered, his whole body seeming to sag.

Spying my skirt and top on the floor, I made a grab for them just as Coby seized me, yanking me in for a hug so tight I could feel him trembling.

“God, honey. I thought we’d lost you. I’ve never been so scared in all my life.”

He pushed me back to glare into my eyes, and I waited for the wrath of hell to rain down upon me but before he could open his mouth, Matt came out of the bedroom, hair mussed, slipping on his jeans in a scene that made me want to melt into a little puddle of nothing and ooze quietly out under the door.

Both Travis and Coby looked instantly furious, and I wondered if my day could get any worse.

“Get the door right now, Travis,” Coby ordered, fists clenching tightly to his sides.

Travis moved to the front door at the speed of light, but even that wasn’t fast enough to waylay Jared, who a second later burst through it. Besides looking frantic, he also looked completely and utterly exhausted, and the sight had tears stinging my eyes.

I grasped the edge of the couch as I felt the room tilt, realising that yes, my day could get worse. Just like Coby, Jared’s eyes did a rapid scan of my body for potential injury. Seeing none, the relief vanished from his face when his eyes shifted to Matt who was still in the process of casually buttoning up his jeans. His eyes swivelled back to me in my underwear, then back again to Matt, and I saw comprehension dawn in his eyes.

“You goddamn motherfucker,” he ground out at Matt.

If I’d thought Jared was a sight to behold when he last faced off with Matt, it was nothing compared to how he looked now. Now, his eyes were cold and his face was carefully composed and completely blank, the whites of his knuckles the only tell-tale sign of his fury.

Perhaps Matt was either too jaded or a bit daft because he stopped buttoning his jeans and simply folded his arms with a smirk. I could only conclude he had a death wish.

In the blink of an eye, Jared rushed him.

“Jared, no!” I called out in panic.

Travis grabbed Jared about the waist as Coby moved to stand between him and Matt, and I felt immediate relief that certain violence had been avoided.

Unfortunately, my relief was short-lived because while Travis held Jared back, Coby turned to Matt and slammed a fist in his face. “Stay the hell away from my little sister, you fucking asshole.”

Oh. My. God.

During the scuffle and before the situation could deteriorate any further, if that was possible, I quickly slipped my clothes on.

Jared shoved Travis away in irritation as Matt held a hand to his jaw. Coby stood looking slightly satisfied, and I returned to grasping the edge of the couch like a life preserver.

“Fuck!” Jared roared and I flinched as he slammed a fist in the wall. Then he stood there, his back to all of us, head tilted to the floor, breathing hard. I wanted to close my eyes but they were stuck watching his body radiate pain as he struggled for control. He turned and pointed a finger at Matt. “You’re not worth it.”

His body shifted to face me and his gaze was so carefully constructed, and so empty, I couldn’t breathe. “Neither of you are.” He turned and walked out the door.

Hearing his words, seeing him walk out the door like I was nothing, had me feeling like my life was circling the drain. I wanted to hide, I wanted to cry, and I wanted to yell at him to let me explain. I ran out after him.

“Wait!” I called out to his retreating back.

He stopped but didn’t turn around. His shoulders moved up and down as though he was taking deep breaths, and when he did eventually turn, his face was still blank.

“Jared, I…it’s not what you think.”

I hadn’t made a joke but he laughed anyway, and I hated how the sarcasm sounded on his lips.

“Really? It’s not what I think?” He rubbed at his jaw. “Did you find it amusing that I trusted you? Because I never thought I would trust anyone again until I met you. Not once did I ever doubt my feelings for you or the absolute faith I had in putting those feelings in your hands, until now. Christ, Evie.” The hand that was rubbing his jaw now moved over his face, and I stood silently, each word feeling like a poisonous dart as I waited for him to finish. “I can’t remember the last time I slept. I was out,
we
were out all night looking for you. I thought I was going to lose my mind thinking Jimmy had finally gotten his hands on you but...” he waved his hand towards the suite door “...here you were, sleeping with someone else.”

“Jared, please,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself as tears climbed my throat.

He looked at me in disgust, and the last time I could ever remember feeling so low was the day my mum had died.

“Did I really mean so little?”

“He, I…Matt. I didn’t…”

“You didn’t what?” He spread his arms wide. “You didn’t fuck him? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

I hesitated. “I…” Struggling to remember the events of last night, I couldn’t offer anything. It would have been impossible for anything to have happened, I would've known, and Matt was gay. I needed to tell Jared, and even though it wasn’t my place to share Matt’s private business, in this situation I was sure he would understand.

“I would have given you the world, done anything for you, but you were always too scared to take that final step.” He sighed and rubbed at the furrow between his brows. “You know what I wish? I wish that I had never fucking met you,” he whispered, raking his gaze over me from top to toe and back up again, making sure I could see the insult in his eyes.

Before I could say anything, he turned and left. This time I let him go because even though some days I felt like I could move mountains, today was not one of those days.

Feeling completely drained, I sank down against the wall of the hallway as the look on Jared’s face played on repeat inside my head.

Travis walked out and took in my pathetic huddle, my head on my knees, my hands wrapped around my ankles. I knew his first instinct was likely to slap me into next week for doing whatever he thought I did to his brother, but as he crouched down to eye level, the concern furrowing his brow must have won out over anger. “Come on, Evie. Let’s get you out of here. Go get your bag, okay?”

He gently brushed his hand down the side of my head before he stood back up.

I pushed up off the wall but my limbs struggled to respond. In fact, it felt like I couldn’t breathe, and I slumped uselessly back against the wall, taking shallow breaths as my panicked gaze hit Travis’s.

“What the hell?” he muttered under his breath and crouched back down in front of me. “Show me your eyes,” he ordered and looked into their red dilated depths. “Oh hell no. Fucking hell! Have you taken anything?”

“I, drugs? What? No! The hardest thing I’ve ever taken in my life is a Panadol.”

Well unless you counted the times that Asshole Kellar slipped whatever the hell he did into my drink, but that wasn’t voluntary. Panic over the whole situation must have blinded me to the same symptoms, and adrenaline must have kept me going, because now I was crashing. Hard.

“Coby?” Travis shouted. “Get out here.”

He slipped an arm under my back, one under my knees, and lifted me up. Feeling woozy but safe, I huddled into his chest and gratefully closed my eyes. I wanted to be angry, but my energy levels had reached critical flashy red light status and that image of Jared was still stuck on repeat, ensuring I wouldn’t forget the pain.

“What is it?” I dimly heard Coby ask.

Travis sounded grim as he cradled me gently to his chest. “She’s been drugged.”

I tried to lift my head to speak to Coby and tell him I was okay, that I was sorry, but I couldn’t move.

My eyes were slits as I watched Coby slam his fist against the wall in anger, jaw ticking as he struggled for control. At that moment, I hated myself for what my actions had done to him. Our lives had not been easy: Dad taking off, losing Mum, him taking responsibility for me only to watch me slowly self-destruct. Now it appeared to be happening all over again. He pulled out his phone and began dialling, and I closed my eyes again because the agony in his expression was enough to make me want to howl.

After a moment, he spoke. “Jared’s phone is off. Can you get her to the hospital for me, Travis? She needs to be checked over. I want a blood test so we’ve got the means to lay this fucker out.”

I heard him whisper something further in Travis’s ear, but I couldn’t make it out. All I knew was that what he said was cause for Travis to grip me tighter in his arms, and I felt a shudder rip through his body.

He rumbled something, feeling the soothing vibrations against his chest, and next thing I knew I was being placed gently in a car.