But the pure hatred shining from those deep brown eyes of hers was definitely different.
“You calm?” Pax asked from behind the bar, using it as a shield, no doubt. Even the bar wouldn’t save him from me. He was more built than I was, but I had a good four inches and twenty pounds on him.
“Barely. Explain. Now.”
He nodded and took a swig of his beer. “Okay. Remember when we started this idea…”
“A year ago?” I clarified.
“Yeah, once the ship was purchased and UCLA agreed to sign on for the academics, and we knew it was going to work, we were sending out invites to apply, right?”
“Sure,” I answered. “That time period was a blur. We were contemplating dropping out of UCLA, prepping for the Winter X Games, so I guess I don’t really remember.”
He nodded. “Exactly. We needed to fill the ship, so I sent out thousands of flyers to colleges as well as individual invites to apply. I may have sent that invite to Rachel and her roommate…Leah.”
My head snapped up from where I’d been peeling the label on the bottle. “You targeted Rachel?”
He didn’t flinch. “I did.”
“How could you? Why would you? How did you even know where she was?” The questions fired out of me faster than he could answer. Did he want her back after all this time? Now that he was with Leah?
“She went to Dartmouth.”
I shook my head. “She declined the acceptance.” Because of me.
“Her father has a friend in the admissions office. He figured you’d leave her—”
“Be careful what you say here, brother.” The warning was more of a growl. “There is a line, and you’re about two seconds away from crossing it.”
He didn’t back down, probably because he knew I’d wronged him way worse than he’d wronged me. “So they left her spot open for an additional month. During that month…”
“I left her.” You proved her father right.
He nodded, his mouth tightening into a grimace.
We both knew why I had—the ultimatum Pax had thrown down: I could have Rachel or I could have the Renegades, but I couldn’t have both. I’d chosen my brain over my heart, and the latter hadn’t worked since.
We walked a tightrope, knowing that if we wanted to remain friends, there were things we could never talk about. After all, Rachel had been his girlfriend, but she’d been the love of my life. What I couldn’t wrap my head around was that while I’d been blocking every thought of her in my head, he’d been tracking her down.
“And you know this how?”
“Leah. They met at the orthopedist’s office the week after you showed up in Vegas. Then they roomed together at Dartmouth and have been best friends ever since.”
“How did you know how to send the invite to her?” I asked. “I couldn’t find her.”
“You didn’t look,” he said quietly.
“Because of you!” I shouted, slamming my fists into the bar. The sting radiated up my arms, and I welcomed the pain. “I fucked you over. I stole your girl. I know that. You gave the ultimatum, and I came back to the Renegades.”
“But you left your heart with her,” he said.
“This isn’t up for discussion. We agreed on that a long time ago.” Emotions were too tangled when it came to Rachel, to what we’d done to Paxton, to what I’d done to Rachel to return to the Renegades. He was prying open the door I’d been leaning against for over two years, and the shit escaping from the blackened area that used to be my heart was ugly. Oh, who the fuck was I kidding? Rachel had blown the roof off that lockbox the moment I looked into those endless brown eyes.
“We have to talk about it. I know you don’t want to, but you are my best friend, and I’ve watched little pieces of you die off since you came back. You’ve fucked every girl you could get your hands on, and it’s not for fun—don’t give me that bullshit. And that’s not even the worst—the risks you take…you’re going to get yourself killed.”
“You should be one to talk,” I accused.
“Right, only because we haven’t been near the slopes for you to kill yourself on that board. I agreed to the Nepal excursion because I know it’s what you need for this documentary.”
“It’s for Nick,” I argued. Boarding that ridgeline we’d mapped out would put the documentary over the top and he’d be able to write his own ticket as a consultant in our industry. Since it was a stunt for our team that put him in a wheelchair, it was our team that would make sure his future was whatever he wanted it to be. That’s what family did for each other.
“Bullshit, it’s for you. That level of danger…it’s like you don’t care if you live through it. You’re numb, detached, and I’m sick of watching you take recklessness to another level.”
“And you thought getting Rachel here would fix that?”
“Yes, since she’s what you’re looking for, right? I didn’t understand it years ago, when you two were sneaking around behind my back, but now that I love Leah, I get it. There’s nothing and no one that could have stopped me from going after her. You loved Rachel, and I realize now what it must have cost you to walk away from her.”
I braced my hands on the counter, my fingers digging into the wood. “So Leah’s scholarship, and all that shit about keeping her close when we first got on board…”