Releasing 10 (Boys of Tommen, #6)

by Chloe Walsh

“I’m having sex tonight, Hugh,” she said, smacking my hand away. “It’s happening.” “Not with me, it isn’t.” “Fine,” she screamed, stalking toward the door. “If you won’t fuck me, I’ll find someone who will.”

“No, you know what? Fuck you.” I ripped my hand out of his. “Fuck you for making me feel like it’s wrong to be myself.” Hurt flashed in his eyes. “When have I done that?” “You’re doing it right now!” I pushed at his chest. “This is me, Hugh.” I held my hands up and twirled around in circles. “This is all me. I’m happy. I’m me. I’m not taking those fucking pills anymore, so if you can’t love me as I am, then walk the fuck away.”

“Do you hear me? If you betray me, there’s no coming back from it. Not for me. Bipolar or not.”

“No, Liz, I’m afraid to fuck you because I don’t know which version of you I’d be fucking!”

“And who exactly would I be fucking?” Hugh demanded, chest heaving. “Would it be this version of my girlfriend? The one who rubs herself against other fellas when she’s not trying to tear my clothes off. Or would it be the version of her that slits her fucking wrists!” Wincing, I sucked in a sharp breath, but Hugh didn’t stop, clearly on a roll now. “Would it be the version of her that stays in bed for weeks at a time, or would it be the version of her who attacks anyone that looks sideways? Hmm? Can’t tell? Well, neither the fuck can I,” Hugh shouted, losing his cool now. “But when the girl I fell in love with pops back up, you let me know, and I’ll be more than happy to oblige and fuck her.” He narrowed his eyes and hissed, “Because that’s the only version of my girlfriend that I have any interest in being with!”

“Yeah, well, talk to me about it when you’re you again,” he snapped back. “I’m uninviting you to the party tonight,” he added. “Do you hear me? You are uninvited.” “Bullshit,” I snarled, feeling a sudden surge of rage rise up inside of me. “I’m your girlfriend. You can’t uninvite me.” “Watch me,” he snapped, dropping me onto my bed.

Throwing the door open, I stalked inside and flipped the light on, ready to lay into whatever asshole thought it was clever to fuck in my bed. When the light came on, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. Rooted to the spot, while my brain struggled to comprehend what my eyes were seeing, I felt my heart shatter into a million pieces.

My baby!

“Let me go, Gibs.” Never in my life had I seen Hugh so unhinged as he wrestled furiously against Thor’s hold, desperately trying to lunge at the boy pulling on his clothes. “I’m going to kill that prick.”

“Yeah? Well, newsflash, Liz, it’s not all about how you feel,” Hugh shot back, chest heaving. “I was in the relationship, too, and I wasn’t fucking ready for sex, okay? I gave you nine fucking years of my life, and you fuck a randomer in my bed?”

“You’re going to come out of this.” Sniffling, Hugh turned his head away and used his shoulder to wipe his check. “And when you do, you’re going to hate yourself as much as I wish I could hate you.” “Hugh!” “This is over, Liz.”

“This is over,” Hugh repeated, voice cracking as he sucked in a shaky breath. “You can stay in my house tonight, and I’ll stay with Gibs, but you need to be gone in the morning.” He sucked in a trembling breath and roughly wiped his tears away. “And you need to delete my number from your phone.”

“I’ve got ya, brother,” Gibs coaxed, kneeling on his bathroom floor beside me and rubbing my back. “Get it all out.”

“This pain won’t last forever.” “It will,” I cried, trembling violently. “I have loved that girl since I was seven years old.” “I know you have.” “No, you don’t know, lad. You have no fucking clue what I’ve been through with that girl. I have loved with every fucking beat of heart. I’ve spent my life completely devoted to her.”

“No, Liz, you’re the bad guy because you fucked my friend!” he roared, vibrating with tension. “You’re the bad guy because you broke my fucking heart last night!” “Listen, don’t overreact.” I tried to reason with him, repressing the urge to roll my eyes. “It’s fine. It’s okay. You didn’t want to do it, and I did.” I shrugged. “I fixed our problem, so if you think about it, we’re in a better place than we were this morning.”

“You know I can make you feel better than her,” I continued to whisper, tease, and plead, while my hand worked frantically to carry him over the cliff he was clearly avoiding. “Just give in to what you really want and let yourself have this, baby.” I licked and nuzzled at his neck. “Imagine you’re in my bed, exactly where you should be, and you’re between my legs, pushing this deep inside me, filling me up, and making me stretch to fit all of this!” That did the trick. The sexiest male growl of approval tore from his throat when his orgasm crashed through him, causing his hips to buck and body to tremble.

SA...

“Please. I don’t want it getting out, Mam,” I admitted, rubbing my jaw. “And definitely not back to Claire. So, please just…just put it in a box in the back of your mind and forget about it.” Knees bopping restlessly, I added, “Because Liz needs this place.” I inclined my head to where the three of them were nestled up. “She needs you and Claire.” “And you?” Mam watched me carefully. “What do you need, Hugh?”

“No, I mean I didn’t do it on purpose.” “Oh.” He feigned surprise. “You didn’t do it on purpose. Why didn’t you say that sooner? That changes everything.” Retraining his attention to the television, he continued to rant. “That makes the mental image of my teammate fucking you like a dog so much easier to swallow. I can easily forget the image of him fisting your hair while he was pounding his dick into your pussy.” “Hugh, don’t…” I choked out, covering my mouth with my hand. “I’m sorry. Am I not being graphic enough?” He threw the remote at the wall. “Jesus, I’m sorry, Liz. I’d love to tell you more, but I only had a ten-second sneak peak of the party.” “Hugh—” “In my room, Liz!” Chest heaving, he stormed out. “In my fucking bed!”

“I can handle the mood swings. I can handle the depression. Hell, I can even handle the mania. And the crazy fucking eyes. And the way I never know if you’re going to try to fuck me or hurt me. But I can’t handle the cheating.”

I had broken him; this bright, beautiful, brave soul had been reduced to broken pieces. They were scattered all over his bedroom floor. He couldn’t take me back, not even if he wanted to. Because his pride would never allow for it.

He didn’t get to check out on me for a decade and jump back in whenever he felt like it, and I vowed to never do that to the people I loved. My family and friends could always depend on me. I would never check out like he had. I would be a man.

“Liz.” Equally just as pissed, I caught the case midair and quickly recognized it as Fleetwood Mac’s album The Dance. “What are you doing in here?” Without speaking a single word, she placed the disc in my stereo and began to flick through tracks before stopping at number twelve. Then, she held her finger on the fast-forward button, skipping through parts of the song, until releasing it at 3:38. The moment Stevie Nicks’s haunting voice filled the room, my ex-girlfriend turned the volume up to maximum capacity before spinning around to look at me. Again, she never uttered a single word, letting the song do the talking for her.

Gibsie was a lot of things, but disloyal was not one of them. In my whole life, I had never met a more faithful human being. It didn’t matter if we were on the outs or not, he never breathed a word of my personal life to anyone—not even to Johnny and Claire. He had more shit on me than any one of our friends, had lived through the worst of my days with me, and I knew with absolute certainty that he would take all of it to the grave.

Gibs chuckled, instantly falling back into his role of the joker. “Pity about the ball cracking Pierce over the head, though.” Gibs winked before adding, “What were the odds?” “Indeed,” I mused, taking a swig from my bottle.

His whiskey eyes seared holes through my soul, and I wanted to both run into his arms and throw myself off a bridge.

“You know why that is, don’t ya?” I said in an eerily cold tone, fully embracing the masculine superiority I had over this prick. “It’s because she’s mine.” Smirking, I prowled toward him like he was a gazelle and I was a lion. “And it doesn’t matter how many times she lets you in her bed, she’ll never want you more than she wants me.” “Oh yeah? Well, she seemed to want me an awful lot more than you that night.” Pierce took the bait and snapped, all riled up now. “In fact, if I recall right, she was complaining about how you weren’t doing it for her.” “You think because you scratched an itch for her, you’re better than me?” Instead of losing it, like he expected me to, I smirked. “You dumb shit. If I wanted to fuck her, I could do it right now, but the difference between the two of us is that I don’t take advantage of vulnerable girls. Because I’m a man, asshole, and you’re a boy.”

“You’re going to stay out of my face, and I’m going to stay out of yours. You don’t talk to me unless it’s on the pitch or class-assignment related. You keep your hands off her when I’m around, and if I hear a single word of her private business or anything she says or does in your presence getting around school, I will take it as a personal attack on me, ya hear?” “Ye…ah,” he strangled out, turning red. “You keep your goddamn mouth shut about her being vulnerable or any of it,” I threatened. “Because if you ruin her reputation, I will bury you.”

“Oh, relax!” I sneered, full-on raging now. “You didn’t crawl into my bed in the middle of the night and fuck me like he did!” Hugh gaped at me. “What are you talking about?” “The monster!” I screamed, throwing my hands up. “You know he fucks me in my dreams, don’t ya? He’s been doing it for years!” I choked out a maniacal laugh. “Oops. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you I’ve been sleep-cheating on you for years!”

“You’re coming home with me. Where I can look after you.” “Why would you even want that?” I choked out, roughly shoving him away. “You said it yourself: being around me makes you miserable!” “Yeah,” he snarled, closing the space between us. “And not being around you makes me feel even worse!”

“I love you, too,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around her. “I always have, and I always will.” “No, no, no,” she cried, clawing at my back to drag my body closer to hers. “Please don’t say it.” “But I can’t be with you,” I strangled out, holding her up when her legs gave out. “We can’t get back together.”

Gibs was the best dancer in the county, and the fucker knew it. It didn’t matter what music was playing, the snake-hipped flanker had the perfect moves for every beat. “If you were a cake, you’d eat yourself, Gibs.” “Damn straight I would,” he wholeheartedly agreed, whipping off his shirt to flex his pecs. “Have you seen me?” Grinning, he kissed his bicep and rolled his hips like a damn porn star. “I’m fucking delicious.” And then he pulled out all the stops, dropping to the floor to perform the sluttiest worm move I’d ever seen.

And then, for the first time in my life, I kissed a girl who wasn’t named Lizzie Young. The kiss wasn’t mind-blowing. It wasn’t fireworks. It wasn’t Liz. But it was nice.

“Asshole?” My father’s face turned purple. “Who do you think you’re talking to?” He glanced over his shoulder and started screaming for my mother to hurry up. “Catherine, you better get in here now before I smack some common sense in that girl!” “Have at it, Daddy,” I laughed, poking his chest with my finger. “Slap some sense into your prodigal daughter.”

“Your mother fights so hard to be here,” Dad said, nuzzling her hand with more affection than I’d ever seen him express. Tears trickled down his cheeks as he spoke. “And every day you don’t get better, you push her closer to the grave.”

“Well, I can’t say I blame the lad.” Dad sighed. “You’ve certainly broken my heart and soul—and your mother’s, too.”

A few minutes later, when they were gone and I was left alone with Catherine, I heard her say, “You lied to her, didn’t you?” Tears filled her eyes. “You won’t be there when she comes home.” Shaking my head, I roughly wiped my tears away. “I’m sorry.”

Maybe it was a good thing that I didn’t feel nervous. Maybe I didn’t have to endure heart palpitations around every girl I hung out with.

Everyone and everything I came into contact with ended up ruined, and I didn’t need to bring any babies into the world and ruin them, too.

attention riveted to her tiny wrist. Instead of jagged scars donning her flesh, her porcelain skin was littered with freckles. It was a relief. It was different.

“So, I heard the fifth-year girls plotting a scheme called ‘operation binding thirteen,’”

“Oh shit,” he muttered when his body collided with mine and the stack of books I was holding went flying. “Sorry about that,” he was quick to reel off, as he gathered up my books that were scattered on the ground. “I didn’t see you there.” It wasn’t until he stood back up, books in hand, that he looked at me. The moment he did, his sheepish expression quickly morphed into one of surprise, and my books fell to the ground once more. “Liz.”

Liz drew in a deep, quivering breath before saying, “I’m truly sorry for the hell I’ve put you through. For repeatedly breaking your trust and ruining our relationship.” Tears continued to fill her eyes, but she blinked them away and kept going. “Coming off my meds was horribly selfish and unfair to you. You’ve always been there for me, supporting me through everything, and it was incredibly self-centered and unreasonable of me.” Another shiver rolled through her as she continued, “I’m really sorry for not taking accountability sooner, but knowing that I hurt you is the hardest pill I’ve ever had to swallow.” “Liz.” My heart cracked clean open. “I don’t hold any of it against you.” “Because you’re a selfless person,” she strangled out. “Because you’re you.” The tears filling her eyes started to trickle down her cheeks. “I know what I did now. Not everything, but the parts I can remember make it clear that I have no right to ask you for a second chance.”

“I know you need to stay away from me,” she breathed, body racking with tremors. “And I know why you can’t be my friend anymore, but I just want you to know that I am so grateful to have had you in my life.” A pained sob escaped her when she said, “I’ll never have a greater friend, Hugh Biggs, or a greater love.”

“It’ll be okay,” I strangled out, reaching over and snatching one of her hands up. “We can still be friends.” “No, Hugh, we can’t,” she replied sadly, entwining her fingers with mine. “You can’t be friends with the person you’re in love with.” Tears trickled down her cheeks. “And I’m always going to be in love with you, Hugh.”

“And I want you to move on from me,” she said, choking on the words like they physically pained her. “I don’t want you to feel guilty about it or think you’re doing something wrong, because you aren’t. Because you are too amazing of a person to spend your life stuck on a fuckup like me.”

“I’ll always love you, Hugh Biggs,” Liz said when she rounded the table and stopped in front of me. Inhaling a quivering breath, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to my cheek before whispering, “No matter what.” And then she was gone.