"Can we talk?"
I dropped my gaze from her because I didn’t want to see that triumphant smile on her face when Beck pulled his arm away from me and went to her.
"Not right now." He lifted the fork in his hand. "I’m eating lunch with Josie."
She leaned forward with her hands on the table, and I knew that she was trying to avoid everyone hearing her. "Then do you think you can do it without making a fool out of me. Get your arm off of her."
I stiffened at her words. There was no way in hell he thought we were going to become anything more than what we were when he was still doing his bullshit game with her.
I started to scoot my chair back to get as far away from the two of them as I could, but he held firmly against my chair and refused to let me move away from him.
"Beck," I whispered his name because I simply wanted to be done with this, but he wasn’t listening.
"I’m not making a fool out of you, Cami. I told you that I am done with this shit." He motioned his fork back and forth between them, and even though he wasn’t being loud, I knew that everyone around us was listening to their conversation.
Cami’s face was tinged with pink, and I knew that she was embarrassed by his words. She stood to her full height, and she looked around her before quickly looking back at him.
"I thought you were done with your little game." She motioned toward me. "You proved that she was the whore you said she was. What else do you need?"
I felt like she had slapped me in the face. Right here where everyone
could see.
"Don’t fucking say that again, Cami." Beck’s hand felt like it was going to break the back of my chair.
"Why not? It’s the truth." She looked around the table and finally her gaze hit mine. "You used her to get back at her brother. You did the same shit to her that Lucas did to Frankie, and now the two of you are sitting here like none of it ever happened."
I could feel Beck’s fury rising to an uncontrollable level as so many people looked in Frankie’s direction, and I couldn’t keep my mouth shut for another moment.
"Beck is nothing like Lucas. Don’t you dare compare them."
"Isn’t he, though?" She cocked her head to the side and studied me. "You can’t tell me that you don’t see how fucking sick it is that he wanted to hurt your brother more than he ever cared about you. Yet, here you sit at his side like the little tramp that you are."
"You know that I didn’t post that damn video," Beck practically growled.
"No." She pushed her finger into her chest. "I had to do it for you because you were too big of a pussy. You didn’t even have the guts to carry out your plan after everything."
"What?" I couldn’t believe what I had just heard her say.
"That’s enough, Cami." This came from Frankie, but Cami didn’t even look her way.
"You just sat back and let Lucas do what he did to your sister, and you were just going to let him get away with it because you were too pussy-whipped by his sister."
I turned in my chair to face her fully. "That doesn’t make sense. How did you have the video?"
I was so damn confused. So confused and so frustrated, and I just wanted to walk away from all of it. I wanted to leave every one of them behind even though I knew I couldn’t.
"Aww, Josie." She looked at me with so much sympathy, and I wanted to slap it from her face. "Beck isn’t the only man in your life who prefers me over you. I was with your stepbrother when he got the video."
She was with Lucas? Did he give her the video?
I didn’t know which was worse. The fact that I had thought he was the one to post it this entire time or the fact that he had handed it over to her.
Every possible scenario raced through my head as I stared at her.
"What the hell are you talking about?" I shook my head because I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I hadn’t ever seen her with Lucas. I didn’t believe what she was saying for a second, but in the back of my mind, I knew that he was capable of it. I knew that what she said could be true.
"Cami, you didn’t post that video," Beck said exactly what I was thinking. He looked so angry as he stared up at her, so betrayed.
"I did." There wasn’t an ounce of regret on her face. "You couldn’t do the one thing you needed to do so I took care of it for you. Because I care about you."
Despite Beck’s grip on my chair, I forced it back and stood to my feet.
Cami was taller than me but I didn’t care. I was so fucking over her. "You have the nerve to call me a whore? What do you think your other lover calls you? He already has a wife so you have to be nothing but a whore to him as well."
Cami went so damn still that I knew she had lost every bit of gall she had just stormed to this table with.
"You’re lucky my father doesn’t put your ass in jail for sharing that video of me. If I were you, I wouldn’t say my fucking name again."
Cami looked back and forth between me and Beck, but Beck could do nothing to help her here. I would shut that shit down if he even tried.
"Fuck you, Josie." She was as angry as I was, but I didn’t care. "You don’t know shit about me."
"Don’t I?" I leaned forward, not worrying about Beck sitting between us.
"I think I know far more about you than you realize."
Her gaze snapped down to Beck, and I knew that she was waiting on him to defend her. That was what she had been used to. She and Beck against everyone else, but he wasn’t going to defend her now. Not with what she had just said. That fact was perfectly visible on his face.
When he didn’t answer, Cami motioned in his direction. "You know that he’ll be back, right?" She let her gaze slide back to me. "He always comes back to me. Even when you think it’s just you and him, I’m always in the back of his mind."
Beck opened his mouth to say something, but I didn’t let him. I let Cami watch every single move I made as I leaned further into him and slid my hand along his jaw. He quickly turned in my direction, his face so damn handsome, and I didn’t let my gaze fall from hers until my mouth met his.
Then I kissed him.
I kissed him in a way that let Cami and every other person in this damn school who was watching us know that Beck was mine.
He was mine. That was the only thought that kept running through my mind as my tongue slid over his.
He was mine and that was all that mattered at that moment.
It seemed to be the only thing that mattered to him too. He buried one hand in my hair while the other pressed firmly against my jaw. His kiss felt as desperate for me as mine was for him. It felt so damn frantic to prove to everyone and ourselves that this was all that mattered.
When I pulled away and let my lips fall from his, he was staring up at me with so much lust. He pulled me back to him and pressed a gentle kiss to my lips before letting me go.
I looked up at Cami, who looked so damn disgusted, and I made a show of running my thumb over my bottom lip gently. "You don’t have to worry, Cami. I think he’ll forget about you soon enough."
She didn’t say another word. She looked down at Beck as if she expected something from him, and she wasn’t the only one who was shocked by what he said next.
"Cami, go the fuck on with your bullshit. I’m with Josie. I want Josie."
I fell back into my seat just before Beck tugged it impossibly closer to his. I knew that people were still watching us but I didn’t care. My heart was racing and my hands were trembling, and I had no idea what was going through Beck’s head.
"Josie is my girlfriend, and nothing you say or do is going to change that.
I don’t know what this bullshit is about Lucas, but I don’t believe you.