“What do you mean you had no choice? Of course you did. You know what?” he said ready to hang up on her ass. “I don’t even wanna hear your bullshit reasons. What you did was f**ked up, and I don’t blame her for leaving. I don’t care that you’re feeling like shit right now either. You should be.” Slammed with another realization, he stopped where this thought was going, his mind rewinding back to a few things that infuriated him even further. “Was this why you said you had to do this for Charlee as much as yourself?”

”Yes,” she whispered.

“You selfish little bitch.” The words flew out without thought. “So after you literally helped set up your best friend, the one you claim to care so much about and who deserves to be happy, you watched her fall apart, saw what it did to her, and then you brought her out here and took credit for making everything better. So you could feel better about yourself?”

“I do care for her!” She yelled. “What I did could not be helped. I feel terrible about it, yes, and does it help me feel better to see her happy? Yes! Because she does deserve to be. And you will listen to my reasons, damn it. You are no angel either. You know all about feeling guilty and wanting desperately to make up for it.”

Hector didn’t say anything, but he continued to listen to her, partly because she was right: he wasn’t without his own faults, but mostly because she was hysterical now and he figured he may as well let her finish. But there was no way she’d let her lump them in the same category. He wouldn’t even help set up someone he didn’t know well much less one of his closest friends.

She was just about done with her explanation when his other line clicked and he saw it was Charlee. His heart jumped to his throat with excitement, but at the same time with the dread of hearing her cry. Because if Drew was hysterical about this, he knew Charlee must be too.

“That’s her on the other line,” he said quickly. “I gotta go.”

“Call me back,” was all he heard as he clicked to the other line.

“Charlee!” he said, bracing himself to hear her sob.

The last thing he expected was to hear a dude on the other end and the resounding words he said loudly. “You’re an ass**le. You know that? And I don’t care if you are a badass boxer. If you were in front of me right now, I’d still take a f**king swing at you!”

Chapter 31

“Walter?”

“You suck!” Since the day Walter had thrown his own backpack at the fence after getting his ass kicked in front of Charlee, Hector hadn’t heard him this wound up. “How could you do that to her, man? If I’d known this is what you were up to, getting your jollies by doing two best friends, I would’ve never agreed that I was okay with you asking her out.”

“Whoa, whoa—” Hector tried to interrupt, but Walter kept on.

“Charlee’s not like one of those skanky whores you’re used to dating, okay? She’s a nice girl, and she doesn’t deserve for some ass**le stud like you to come along and trample on her—”

“Dude! What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t trample anything! Everything’s cool with Charlee and me.”

“Oh, you call banging her best friend behind her back cool?”

“What!”

“If everything is so cool with you two, why is your girlfriend passed out on my bed right now after crying herself to sleep?”

Hector spun around, already on his way up his porch steps. “She’s in your bed right now?”

“Yes. She said she didn’t know where else to go, but she did say she’s driving home tomorrow. You know how long that’s gonna take her? All because not even Charlee was enough for you.”

Hector rushed through his house and into his room. Holding his phone between his shoulder and his ear, he pulled off his shorts and pulled on a pair of jeans. “She is enough for me, Walter. I don’t know where she got the idea that I’m doing anything with Drew.”

He sat down and pulled on some socks, wondering if maybe Charlee was too embarrassed to admit to Walter why she was really so upset.

“It’s not an idea. She read the texts between you and Drew. That’s proof, so don’t try to worm your way out of this one, ass**le.”

Read the texts? Hector stood up after slipping on his shoes. “Okay, first of all, you really need to stop calling me that,” he said, more annoyed now than ever. The fact that Charlee was in another guy’s bed right now was already annoying as shit, even if was Walter’s. “Second, I have no clue what texts she’s talking about.”

He sort of did, but he wasn’t going to tell Walter about his and Drew’s combined effort to help set Walter and Natalie up so he’d be free to go after Charlee. He slipped a white t-shirt on that was too damn tight, but he didn’t have time to look for another one.

Walter let out an exasperated breath. “Hector, the jig is up. She read a text where you told Drew it was very tempting to continue doing what you two had been doing but it didn’t feel right anymore.”

Hector froze in place. “Shit!”

“Yeah, shit,” Walter agreed, disgustedly. “I can’t believe you. Is it really that difficult to keep it in your—”

“She didn’t read the whole thing?” Hector grabbed his keys, glad Abel was out taking care of business again tonight and his mom was still in Mexico; otherwise, they might try to stop Hector from leaving.