Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 59092 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59092 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
He cocks his head at me. “Oh, yeah. And how so?”
“We spend a lot of time together. Some would consider this dating with how much we hang out.”
“I don’t think so.” He scratches his jaw, thinking it over. “I’ve never taken you on a date. McDonald’s doesn’t count.”
I chuckle at his comment. “If you took me to McDonald’s for a date, we would not be dating anyway.”
He laughs, and then tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “I’ve never liked being around another girl as much as I do you. You make it so easy, Bex.”
“And you make this very complicated for me.”
“How so?”
“Because you make me want to break the last rule. We’re so close to doing it, too. You know it as much as I do, don’t you?”
He nods. “I thought it would be easier to be friends with benefits. But I like you a lot more than I thought I would.”
“Me, too,” I confess.
“You never told me what happened. What made your dad come up with these rules? Tell me, Bex. Please. I want to know everything there is to know about you.”
I bite my lip, nervous. “Only a handful of people know this story. Will you promise you won’t freak out if I tell you? And you can’t tell your friends.”
His expression darkens. “What happened to you?”
“Please, Preston. Promise me.”
He covers my hand on the table with his and nods. My entire body trembles from the fear taking over.
What will he think of me after I tell him?
Will he be able to look at me the same way?
He glances down at my trembling hand and grips it tighter. “It’s okay, Bex. I got you. It’s just me. You can tell me anything.” His tone indicates he’s telling the truth.
I can trust him which is why I want to tell him. He should know why we can’t be together. Why my dad would kill him for being here with me.
“When I was in high school, my dad coached the ice hockey team. Kellan Lehane was his star player.”
His jaw clenches at the mention of Kellan. He knows him, played against him the first game of the season.
“Kellan was my dad’s favorite… just like you are now. I was shy, kept to myself. I had friends, but I wasn’t popular. Not like Kellan. Everyone loved him.”
Preston grips my hand. His anger shakes through me.
“We dated for a few months. My entire life changed when I met him. All of a sudden, everyone knew my name. I had all these new friends. He made me feel special like I was the most important person in the world.” I hesitate with the next part, choking down the bile rising from my stomach. “Kellan was my first. I was so in love with him. Or at least I thought I was. It was more lust than anything.”
“Please don’t tell me he hurt you,” Preston whispers, his voice deep and serious. “I will fucking kill him if he did.”
A single tear falls from my cheek, and he wipes it away with his thumb. “Just let me finish. This is hard for me to tell you.”
“We all have a past,” he says. “It’s how we take those painful lessons and change our future that defines us.”
“I’m so afraid of how you’ll react and what this will mean for us after you know the truth about my past. I don’t want any of us to go away.”
“It won’t,” he promises.
Sucking in a deep breath, I prepare myself for the rest of the story. I’ve tried to block it all out for years.
“He took my virginity. It was nice. So, don’t get any ideas. He didn’t rape me, but what he did afterward was… horrible.”
Preston hooks his arm around me, still shaking, and pulls me to him. I’m not sure who needs this hug most—him or me. He seems more on edge.
“It’s okay,” Preston says, softly against my ear. “You can tell me. I won’t let him hurt you.”
“He took pictures of me. I was naked in some of them. In my bra and panties in others. He said he would erase them from his phone. But he never did. Instead, he uploaded them to porn sites and social media.”
Preston grinds his teeth together trying to hold it together. He looks like he’s about to Hulk Smash the desk into pieces. His eyes are watery, and I can see the pain in them. He really does care. That’s what makes our situation so complicated.
“My dad was able to get the pictures taken down from Instagram and the other sites because they violated child pornography laws. But some of the pictures are still out there on websites that don’t have to comply.”
“Why the fuck not?” he growls. “They shouldn’t be allowed to post your picture on a website without your consent. And you were a minor.”