I nod, even though he’s not looking at me.
“So, he didn’t—”
“No,” I answer. I don’t want to talk about Kevin Leonard anymore. “Did anybody else see?” I ask.
“I don’t think so. Tierney did, but she was looking for us so—” he cuts himself off. “I don’t think anyone else was paying attention.”
We sit there, pretending to be mesmerized by the flashing lottery sign.
“I shouldn’t have left you.”
“You and Tierney?” I ask, ignoring the unspoken apology.
“I don’t know.” He shakes his head and turns the key in the ignition. “We need to get ice on your face.”
Drew doesn’t tell me where we’re going. He doesn’t ask where I want to go. He takes me where I need to go and maybe where he needs to go, too. He takes me to Josh’s house.
The garage is closed when we get there, but Drew and I both have a key to the house. He turns his in the lock and pushes the door back for me. I walk inside and Drew follows. When we step into the dark of the foyer, it takes us a minute to process what we’re hearing. And then I wish on a thousand pennies that we didn’t have that key.
CHAPTER 49
Josh
“What the hell, Drew? It’s two in the morning.” I look at his car in the driveway and it’s empty. At first, I suspected he was bringing Sunshine back here because she was drunk, but there’s no one in the car. “You already drop Nastya off?” I ask while he follows me into the family room. Calling her Nastya sounds wrong, but I don’t feel right saying Sunshine out loud anymore.
“She’s at home.”
“So what’s going on? Weren’t you supposed to be home an hour ago?” I still don’t get why he’s here.
“Sarah’s covering for me.” Drew looks away like he doesn’t want to tell me something and it pisses me off because I’m sure it has something to do with Nastya getting shit-faced again at one of the parties he’s always making her go to and I’m getting sick of it. When he turns back to me, though, I’m pretty sure I’m mistaken.
Everything I see in his face is wrong. The look he has now is so empty of everything I associate with Drew that it wakes me up all at once.
“Why? What happened?” He doesn’t answer and I have to ask him again. “What happened, Drew?” I demand.
“I don’t really know.” His eyes are red and he looks like shit.
“In a second, I’m getting in the car and driving over there if you don’t start giving me some answers that make sense.”
“None of it makes sense, Josh.” He shifts from defeated to pissed and when he glares at me, I think he’s talking about more than Sunshine.
“You sound like her with the cryptic bullshit. Is she okay?”
“She said she was. Her face is messed up, but she seems all right.”
“What happened to her face?” My words are slow and my voice comes out lower than I expect it to.
“Kevin Leonard.”
“Kevin Leonard?” I feel like smashing Drew’s face into the wall, at least until I can get to Kevin Leonard, and I don’t even know what happened yet. “What did he do to her?” The words are forced. I’m struggling to control my anger long enough to find out what this is about, but I don’t know how long I can do it.
“I don’t know. Hit her. I think he was taking her clothes off. She really didn’t tell me anything.” Drew runs his hand through his hair again and I notice that his knuckles are bleeding and there’s blood on his shirt.
“How did she end up with him in the first place? Weren’t you with her the whole time? Isn’t that why you talked her into going with you?”
Drew studies the torn knuckles on his right hand but doesn’t answer.
“Where the hell were you? You drag her to these parties, you get her drunk and then you leave her alone?” I make sure the accusation is clear.
His head whips up and everything about him goes on the defensive.
“She’s not helpless, Josh. In case you haven’t noticed, she kind of does whatever she wants. I didn’t drag her anywhere and I haven’t gotten her drunk since the first night. She gets drunk all on her own now.” He’s trying to justify it to himself but I can tell it isn’t working.
“She hates being alone at those things. She wouldn’t have walked away from you.”
“She didn’t.” Guilt. He did ditch her. “She texted me, but I didn’t hear it. She went upstairs where it was quiet so she could call you to get a ride. When I got up there, she was on the floor and he was on top of her.” He tells me her face was bruised and bleeding, and when he gets to the part about her underwear around her ankles, he can’t keep talking because he’s trying not to cry, and if I weren’t so disgusted with everyone in the world, I might actually be crying, too.
“You left her alone.” I want to kill him. I want to blame him so I don’t have to blame myself. I can’t even think about the phone call.
“Yes, Josh! That’s exactly what I did! I guilt-tripped her into coming with me and then I left her alone because I’m selfish and that’s what I do. You don’t think I know? Trust me, I know. I don’t need you to remind me that I’m a prick. I’ve been reminded all f**king night, by her face and the blood and—” he runs his hand back through his hair as his voice cracks again and I really hope he doesn’t lose his shit because I can’t see that. Not on top of everything else. Because, right now, I’m seeing her face and the blood, too, and I don’t want to lose mine, either. “Just trust me,” he says, “I know. Okay? I know.”
His back is leaning against my kitchen counter and I’m leaning against the wall across from him. Neither of us says anything for what seems like an hour even though it’s probably less than a minute.
“She didn’t tell you anything?”
“Not really.” He shakes his head wearily. “The f**ked up part is that she didn’t even seem surprised. It was like she just expected it.”
“Why didn’t you bring her here?” I ask.
“I did.” He levels his eyes at me and pauses to let this sink in, because in the shock of absorbing what happened to Sunshine, I’ve all but forgotten what I was doing while she was alone in a bedroom with Kevin Leonard. “Think real hard, Josh. We drove straight to your house about two hours ago. The garage was closed and the lights were off so I thought you were asleep and I used my key. We walked into the house and guess what we heard?”