Destined, A Lair Novel (Lair Series Book 4) Page 19

  Because one thing I knew for sure, I loved him so damn much.

  Chapter Twenty

  Shane

  The tears rolling down her cheeks served as a dagger to my heart. I kissed her one last time, long and hard, before prying her fingers from the ironclad hold she had on my T-shirt.

  My last words were, “I’m sorry, Liv. I have to go.”

  Turning, I climbed up the bus steps as her pained sobs, echoing behind me, caused the knife to go deeper, twist harder.

  Until my body jolted, throwing my subconscious back into reality. Blinking under a punishing sun, it took me a few seconds to realize I was still on the beach with Alivia lying on her stomach beside me on a blanket.

  Her eyes were closed, and I could faintly hear one of Cannon’s songs through her earbuds. In the distance, my brothers tossed a football. Siarra was on her own towel beside Alivia, bopping to that god-awful music she loved.

  All of it caused a sigh of relief, knowing the day of my departure wasn’t upon us yet. It wasn’t the first time I’d dreamed a similar scene. The reason we were parting was always the same, as was the desperation I could feel even after I woke up. One that left me with an unsettling ache in the pit of my stomach for hours.

  “Hey, the mumbler is up,” Siarra said when she realized I was awake. Her comment caused Alivia’s lids to slide open.

  During a stretch I rolled my eyes. “Like you can hear anything past that noise you claim is music.”

  “Jealous much?” she asked in her snarky way.

  “Definitely not.” I lay an arm across Alivia’s back and pressed closer to her. “Was I saying how much I loved you?”

  Siarra’s gagging caused Alivia to smile, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “A few ‘I’m sorrys’ and my name.” She searched my face. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I glanced at my sister, who began bopping again, having grown bored with our “mushiness,” as Siarra often called it. “I was getting on the bus and saying goodbye.” Instantly, a frown formed around her lips. “Hey… let’s not ruin our day thinking about that.” I knew the request was in vain. We were always thinking about that… at least I was. I suspected she was, too, most of the time. Unfortunately, all the other shit hitting us overshadowed our impending separation.

  Christ, it felt as though I’d aged ten years in the past week. Once that press release went public, my life had been thrown into chaos. You’d think I’d be prepared for it with who my parents were, but I wasn’t. I also wasn’t dumb enough to think it was me who drew all the attention.

  Nope… that was most definitely the by-product of having Jack Lair as a father. His fans were out of control, and now their spawns traveled down the same road with me. There was actually a small army of them who instantly created pages dedicated to my life. With that press release, Lair Lovers II, the next generation, had made me their latest obsession.

  Bam, just like that, I was getting tagged in every one of their posts on every social media account they participated in. Seemingly overnight, my online presence had blown up, and that had Alivia’s accounts doing the same. It had happened so fast we didn’t have a chance to make our accounts private, and because of it we now had thousands and thousands of new “friends” trolling our past posts.

  It got so bad my mom assigned JLL’s PR department to monitor the situation and put out any fires before they spread. Personally, I just wanted to close our accounts and ignore it all.

  Already, there had been way too many nasty comments, and that pissed me the fuck off. Alivia seemed completely unfazed, which was why I suspected she was working hard to keep her distress from me. I didn’t want to push her into opening up, just in case she was better at this than I was. But on the other hand, if she was struggling, then we needed to talk about it before I left.

  My stomach rumbled, creating a nice distraction. “Come get something to eat with me?” I stood before pulling her up and leaving her no choice.

  At seeing us, Siarra tapped her phone and asked, “You’re ditching me?”

  “As much as that tempts me, we’re just getting food.”

  “Do you want anything?” Alivia asked.

  Her nod came quick. “My seaweed chips, please… and a bottle of water.”

  “Sure, sweetie,” Alivia said while I now pretended not to gag. Siarra was a nut when it came to her diet and gave farm to table a whole new meaning.

  While wrapping my arm around my gorgeous girl’s waist, I pointed to the ocean. “Why not just save us the trouble?” That earned me a smack from Alivia. “What? Seaweed is seaweed.”

  The brat rolled her eyes. “You’re a jerk.”

  Before I could get into it with my sister, something we were both damn good at, Alivia dragged me away. “Let’s go, jerk.”

  The moment we were out of view, I ducked behind the pool shed to kiss her long and hard. “I have to have you, Liv,” I murmured against the smooth skin on her neck. “Let’s do it right here, right now.” No one, especially anyone with a dick swinging between their legs, could blame me for asking.

  “No.” Yet, she contradicted her denial by pushing against me, making my dilemma worse. She smelled like my soap, now mixed with coconut suntan lotion, and the combination made me wild with need. And if that weren’t enough, the tiny pink scraps of fabric she wore had me hard as stone in two seconds flat.

  “My parents won’t care.” Her head swung back and forth before I even finished my claim.

  “I’m not having sex behind the pool shed while your family is milling around, Shane.”

  “Okay, let’s do it in the pool shed. We’ve done worse before.”

  “Not in broad daylight. Sneaking around in the middle of the night is very different.”

  “My dick would argue it isn’t.”

  Unamused, she shook her head with a sigh and resumed tugging me along. “Come on.” When we walked into the nicely cooled house, we found my parents sitting at the table, staring at a laptop.

  “Hey,” I said, not loving the looks on their faces. “What now?”

  Mom’s gaze landed on Alivia before saying, “We need to tell you something.” Dread eliminated the hunger pangs as I expected the worst. They waited for us to take a seat and then slowly turned the laptop around.

  On the screen was a photo of Molly in tears and a long post.

  To whom it may concern…

  As the world anxiously waits for Shane Lair to make his debut on Cannon Davis’s tour, I’ve struggled with whether or not I should reveal something that has crushed my inner spirit.

  I literally rolled my eyes at the dramatics just one line in, until I saw Alivia pale as her eyes danced across the screen.

  I’ve known Shane Lair most of my life and was stupid enough to trust he was a kind, sincere, honest person. In fact, everyone in our graduating class thought the same.

  Well, folks, we’ve all been duped.

  Shane allowed his longtime girlfriend, Alivia Taylor, to manipulate him into bribing a boy who I thought loved me. I won’t name him, as I feel he was manipulated into hurting me by agreeing to this disgusting plan.

  “Oh my God, she’s blaming me too,” Alivia said in a harsh whisper. Her eyes welled as they bounced between all of us—waiting, maybe hoping, for us to deny that statement.

  My mom took her hand and squeezed. “She’s a nasty person, sweetheart, who will do anything to seek attention.”

  Unconvinced, Alivia resumed reading, and I followed suit.

  I did some digging on the situation. Apparently, their plan was meant to stop the need to defend myself against the constant bullying I had to endure at Alivia’s hand. Her toxic fixation stemmed from deep insecurities because of history between Shane and me. Alivia has gone to great lengths to embarrass me with no remorse, threatening harm if I so much as spoke to her boyfriend.

  By using the boy that I had feelings for, they dangled a very generous scholarship funded by their parents, all while knowing how much I truly liked this boy. Shan
e Lair and Alivia Taylor convinced him to date me for the summer as a cruel and vicious joke. Once the terms of this little deal had been met, my so-called boyfriend could then end our relationship, having received exactly what he wanted—the chance to attend his first-choice college.

  And now, here I am, left with a broken heart and so many questions no one can answer. So, I’m hoping you all can see my struggle. How can a girl who is guilty of nothing but the desire to love and be loved take on all the resources that Shane and Alivia have in their back pockets because their parents are famous?

  I can’t.

  But… I can ensure everyone knows just the type of people they are.

  To my now ex-boyfriend… I wish you all the luck in your college career. I hope betraying me as you did was worth it down the road. To my friends and family, thank you so much for your endless support. And to the two individuals who think it’s okay to play with people’s lives, I hope karma finds you someday.

  Molly Adler,

  Class President, Valedictorian, and National Honor Society Honoree

  Windsor-Horne Academy

  Every silent tear that rolled down Alivia’s face made me afraid to touch her, and I turned toward my parents, feeling completely lost and defeated.

  “We’ll handle this,” my mother said without hesitation. “She won’t get away with it.”

  “She already has,” Alivia argued, her voice raw and pained.

  “I’m going to kill her—”

  “You will do nothing, Shane!” my father barked.

  “Jack,” Mom snapped, but I knew he wasn’t mad at me.

  “I’m sorry, Son. You can’t engage, respond, interact in any way.”

  “You just expect me to stand here and take it?” I paused but not to wait for a response. “This is all because of me, and I have to do something to make it right.” I got that my parents had no tolerance for it, but this was a direct hit to the girl I loved more than anything in this fucking world.

  “That girl isn’t interested in making it right,” my mother stated as a fact.

  “And meanwhile, to her I look like the pathetic girlfriend who needed her boyfriend to scam a guy into asking her out. To everyone else, I look like the one who’s bullying. I’m the one who needs to comment, say something, and end this once and for all.”

  Mom shook her head. “You can’t engage with her, Liv.” Although her tone was much softer than Dad’s had been, the message was the same. Her amber eyes bounced between Alivia and me. “This kind of thing has happened in our lives plenty of times… hurtful lies that could so easily be spread with a few taps of a keyboard. Stooping to her level won’t work.”

  “The best way to handle this is with damage control,” Dad added. “We have professionals who deal with this shit every day. Trust them… and us… okay?”

  Without looking at me, Alivia quietly agreed, leaving me no choice but to do the same.

  To say that bitch ruined the rest of our day was an understatement. Dad took on the role of calling Trey to let him know what had happened, while Mom spent a good chunk of time discussing the issue with her PR team.

  Unfortunately, because Molly hadn’t violated any terms or policies, the site denied requests to take the post down.

  In the meantime, Alivia and I paused our own accounts to stop the deluge of comments and reactions that kept flooding in. We fielded furious calls from Kim, Chase, and a few others, asking them to refrain from engaging in any way with anyone on our behalf. Many eagerly volunteered to support our statement and reveal the kind of person Molly actually was.

  Who knew if that was enough? For each person who believed us, there would probably be two dozen who believed her.

  It was an hour later when I finally managed to get Alivia to go for a walk, during which I did most of the talking. She listened to all I had to say, and really it was more of the same pathetic regretful apologies.

  What else could I possibly voice that would make it better? The entire time, Alivia had an “it is what it is” kind of attitude that wasn’t fooling me. I knew she was suppressing any normal reactions she should be having to spare spending the last of our days together in a constant state of angst, and that had disaster written all over it.

  While we were on our walk, her parents and brother had arrived to discuss the same damage control that my parents mentioned. That skank had brought Devil’s Lair into the mix, and that made it more than just stupid adolescent game playing.

  Even though Camilla hugged me tight, and Trey offered a supportive pat on my shoulder, I could see the disappointment written all over their faces. I hated that I’d let them all down, and it was something I’d have to live with.

  On my mother’s insistence, we waited until our brothers and my sister were all elsewhere, doing whatever, before the conversation began. Alivia and I sat there the entire time like spectators watching a high school bully drama play out.

  Many phone calls later, our parents decided that we needed to prepare a formal statement explaining exactly what had happened, and it would need to be released in the morning. Lori would release a similar statement on Cannon’s behalf. The goal was complete transparency regarding Molly’s role in the reason behind my motive and my role in enacting it. Most important would be clearing Alivia from any and all wrongdoing.

  With that tentative plan in place, our parents decided to head back to the city in the morning. Even though we were exhausted from the day’s events, it was very late when Alivia had finally fallen asleep. I, on the other hand, couldn’t stop a deep-rooted dread from consuming me whole. Because of it, my skin crawled no differently than if it had been a colony of ants marching over it.

  Grabbing a beer, I headed out on the deck to think, but ten minutes in I heard, “Hey, kid.”

  I knew it was only a matter of time before Trey would corner me, and I was somewhat prepared. “Hey, Unk.” His eyes focusing on the green bottle in my hand forced me to shrug. “Long day.”

  “Yeah, I get it.” He took a seat beside me, stretching his denim-covered legs as I braced myself for what would come. “You don’t look too happy to see me.” His unwaveringly serious expression contradicted the levity in his words.

  “Of course I am.” I plastered on a fake smile. “See?”

  “Perfect. Now just give the idiot in the house a thumbs-up to really sell it.” When I twisted to look through the glass doors, sure enough, my father was standing guard.

  “Is he afraid you’re going to beat the shit out of me?” I was only half kidding.

  “As tempting as that sounds, I can’t risk him suing me.” We both stared at the ocean, avoiding eye contact in some sort of battle of wills.

  “Okay, well… since you don’t seem to be in a rush with your method of torture.” I stood just as he shook his head.

  “Sit your ass down. Maybe I’m waiting for high tide.” The nervous laugh that escaped as I plopped back down had him smirking. “All kidding aside, you know I’m really proud of you, kid. You’re going to fucking kill it out there.”

  “All because of you.” Why not butter him up a bit?

  “Yeah, yeah… having said that, my beautiful girl is my priority.”

  Here it comes. “She’s mine too.”

  “You don’t know what priority means.” The insinuation held my focus.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Look, what that bitch did is inexcusable, but really that’s just a prelude of what’s coming.”

  “Coming how?”

  “Coming with you going out on tour. This is going to be a fuck ton harder on Livi than on you, Shane. I know your heart has been with her since you were kids, and you believe it always will be in one way or another. But shit happens. I won’t blame you for stupid choices that you’ll inevitably make without thought, because you’re just a kid.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt her. I was trying to protect her,” I repeated yet again.

  “How about you leave that up to me.”


  “Like hell I will.”

  He threw me a death stare. “Pulling shit like you did with that scholarship asshole was just the tip of the iceberg, kid,” he went on to say. “And still that’s nothing compared to what can happen once you’re out there, doing your thing while anything in a skirt tempts you. My best friend’s son or not, if you hurt her on purpose… well, then I’ll fuck you up.”

  “I would never cheat on Liv,” I said through clenched teeth. “I can’t believe you would think I could.” I had to remind myself that the doubt he had just revealed in me had to do with the choices he’d made in life. We may have been built from the same cloth when it came to our musical talents, but I would never be the man-whore Trey Taylor had been.

  “In my heart I know you wouldn’t, but things change out there. During it all, people will have one mission, and that’s to make money on your name. Doing that in a truthful way is the last thing they care about. Meanwhile, Livi will be here missing you, trying to focus on school while ignoring what she hears, and missing out on life… her life.”

  Like a punch to the gut, his words hit on the one insecurity I carried. While she was so concerned that I would have regrets down the road, I had the same fucking concerns when it came to her. At least I had my music to give me some purpose. Again, what did it say about me that I had no idea what the love of my life’s purpose was?

  In my defense, neither did she, but that didn’t excuse knowingly stopping her from finding out.

  “You get what I’m trying to say?” he prodded.

  “Yeah… I get it.” Every day I got closer to my dream coming true, one I thought I wanted more than anything, I inadvertently hurt her more.

  And her unwavering love for me served as an enabler.