Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 131271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 656(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 656(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
After a long silence, Hayes rests his hand against the middle of my back. “We need to talk to her. Together. No more secrets. No more hiding.”
Jacob grunts his agreement, and I nod reluctantly, though the knot in my chest doesn’t loosen.
37
RILEY
Facing down the Draytons when they finally come in from the cold is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. The look in their eyes destroys me. Gone is the openness and the affection, replaced with caution and suspicion that slices into my heart and fills me with regret.
What have I done?
I should have dumped the channel because nothing is worth losing these men.
They wait for me to settle in the den before they take their seats, each of them sitting stiffly on the furniture that’s been witness to so much between us. These are the couches where we’ve laughed, tangled together, and shared the most tender, intimate moments. Seeing them like this, closed off, their usual ease replaced with tension, ties me in knots. “So,” I start, my voice shaking. “You know.”
Jacob turns first, his icy blue eyes pinning me in place. “Yeah, we know.”
I glance at Shawn, hoping for some of his usual teasing, but his face is unreadable.
“I—” My voice falters, and the burn of tears threatens again. “I never meant for you to find out like this.”
Hayes leans forward, his brow knotted. “I think I understand why it started. I remember what you told me about the things you overheard.”
“It sounds so stupid now. So childish,” I blurt, hanging my head. “When I started the channel, it was about baking, but the episode where I talked about Jacob and his raging outburst on the ice went viral, and after that, it became… Well, I had a lot of negative feelings about the time we lived together, and it all spilled out, and I didn’t care if it hurt you because it was my way of getting back at you for hurting me.”
“We were kids, Riley,” Jacob says.
“I know.” I chew the side of my thumbnail, trying to stop my hands from trembling. “And my feelings were childish, too, I guess. It’s hard to explain how humiliated I felt. It changed who I was and what I thought about myself for a long time, and I had to do work—hard work—to find my confidence. But it wasn’t just about the way you treated me. I saw what you were like on the university gossip pages. You treated women like they were disposable. Something to use for your entertainment. I thought they haven’t changed, which made continuing right, like I was championing a cause. I’m not making excuses. I know what I did was wrong and could have had, might have had, very real consequences for you. I’m just trying to get you to understand that I wasn’t in a good place.”
The room goes silent, the weight of my confession settling over us.
“And what about the episode you just put out? You dragged us all through the mud. Why?” The hurt in Shawn’s voice and the uncharacteristic blankness in his expression spears me.
“Imani guessed that it was me behind the channel. I was worried other people might put two and two together. I was worried you’d find out.”
“So you made it worse rather than come clean?” Jacob’s eyes narrow the way they did all those weeks ago when I turned him down in The Red Devil, and my heart skitters, realizing how much I’ve destroyed what we’ve built.
Building trust and connection takes time and effort, brick by brick balanced slowly, but it can all so easily be lost.
“I didn’t mean to turn the channel into… whatever it became,” I continue, my voice softer now. “It just… had a life of its own. People loved the snarky content, and it kept growing. And then I realized I could make money from it. Real money. Enough to pay for school. It became bigger than me, and I didn’t know how to stop without losing everything I’d built.”
Hayes rubs a hand over his face, his disappointment cutting deeper than Jacob’s anger. “Why didn’t you just tell us?”
“Because I was scared,” I admit, my voice cracking. “Scared you’d hate me. Scared you’d never forgive me.”
Jacob leans closer, his voice cold but quieter now. “Do you even care about the channel? Or was it just a way to get back at us?”
“I care about it,” I say firmly. “I love it. It’s mine, the first thing I’ve ever built that’s entirely my own. And the merch. I love that the most. But I care about you more. I should’ve told you. I’m sorry.”
“Merch?” Shawn tips his head.
“Yeah. I sell all this related stuff.” I pull out my phone, find my store and hand it to him. He scrolls through the aprons, totes, shirts, prints, and underwear, then hands the phone to Jacob and Hayes. They don’t respond immediately, and the silence stretches so long that I might break.