Push

21. He Confronted the Friend

TOBY

I needed to think.

The drive to Mosman hadn't helped. Ten minutes wasn't long enough to dull the red roar of rage that started pounding in my ears when Gwen told me the truth.

Well... Part of the truth. She'd only been told half the story. Ian knew the rest. The real story.

And he was a dead man walking.

I'd warned him. Not just the day when I was only seconds away from knocking his lights out in the staff room. Before. That summer.

My break-up with Gwen hadn't exactly come out of nowhere. The warning signs had been there. After we'd finished university and the pressures of grown-up life started taking over, Gwen and I had started drifting apart. Our careers took over. Something had been missing.

I tilted my head and mindlessly looked out the car window at the busy street. The memories were confusing. I'd never been able to line everything up clearly. And sometimes, honestly, it was easier to pretend problems didn't exist than face them head on.

Gwen's confidence had soared when she became a prosecutor, but her smile had still wavered during my parent's awful dinner parties. I remembered the distant look in her eyes when my mother had rambled about proper etiquette and the importance of using the right fork. Small moments on their own didn't add up to much. But all lumped together, maybe I'd underestimated how much it'd impacted Gwen.

And then there was Ian.

He'd always been in the background. Hovering. Gwen had barely whispered that she wanted to spend time apart before he came swooping in. One day, I'd been planning to ask her to marry me, and then suddenly, I wasn't, and Ian was asking me if he could take her out for a drink. I'd said no the first time. And the second.

How could he even ask me that? She was my girlfriend. Even if she'd broken up with me, she'd still been my girlfriend. Wasn't there a bro code or something that said he wasn't even allowed to ask?

In the end, Ian had gotten what he wanted—he always did—but that didn't mean I didn't warn him. The memories were hazy, but I'd promised him an eternal sleep in the dirt if he did anything to hurt her.

What did happen between them?

Six years later, I still had no answers. Gwen never talked. I never asked. The most I'd heard from Marnie's tipsy ramblings was that Ian had tried to kiss Gwen, and she'd kneed him in the balls. Those memories were a road simply too painful for either of us to go down, and I thought we'd moved on. Had we, though? Why did Ian make up so many lies? Why was he still lying to her now?

So many questions.

My fingers flexed on the steering wheel. The pressure coiled in my hands eased, and a bit of color filtered back. I killed the car engine, closed my eyes, and leaned my head back against the seat. Took another breath.

I needed to think.

Even if Ian's building was across the road, I couldn't just barge my way in, arms swinging. There were a few things higher on my list of priorities. Gwen. Noah. If I made the wrong move now, I'd need more than a team of cowboy lawyers to fix the damage I wanted to do.

The bitter sting of betrayal burned my chest. Ian was my friend. He was supposed to be on my side. He was supposed to help me do the right thing and not set me up to fail. We'd known each other since we were kids. He was the best man at my wedding. The godfather to my son.

What in the utter fuck was he playing at? 

My phone vibrated in the center console. Someone was calling. I glanced down and threw my head back against the seat when I saw the name.