Read Online What Lies Beneath (Count on Me Series #7) by Melyssa Winchester - Free Book Online

we were kids taking its place.
    “Yep, and this,” she pauses, pointing toward me with the brightest smile. “This is Kayden.”
    There it is.
    The reaction I was expecting.
    It’s so subtle and quick that I don’t think Belle caught it, but the friendliness he may have had toward her is now replaced with something far different. Anger. Upset.
    Fear.
    Even after all these years and him moving away, my name still sparks a sliver of fear.
    This sucks.
    “What are you doing here?” He asks, but before either of us can answer, he asks another question and this one is even more expected than the first. “What are you doing here together?”
    Seems little Sammy remembers exactly the way things were when he left town and Belle, god love her, is completely oblivious as her cheeks are again changing colors.
    “We’re together.” I finally force out and pulling his attention away from Belle, he meets me head on. His stance hardening at the sound of my voice, but not cowering the way he used to so damn long ago.
    Good for him. If anyone should cower, it should be me.
    “What are you doing here?” he repeats.
    “Making shit right. That is, if you’re willing to hear me out.”
    “Why now?”
    “Because my head was jammed too far up my ass back then to do it?” I admit honestly. 
    If he thinks for a second that I’m going to make excuses for my behavior, he’s got another thing coming. Those days are over.
    I can’t say I had a clue how this was going to go down when I decided I wanted to do it, but him laughing was definitely not part of the equation. Yet standing here now on his front lawn, the moment as tense as ever, that’s exactly what’s happening.
    “Why are you laughing?” Belle asks, pulling the question straight out of my head.
    “Well, I had to figure if the two of you were here together, it meant that the shit he said and did to you when we were kids was long since forgiven. Even more so if the two of you are actually dating, which by the way, I called when we were eight. Though, he was too pigheaded to believe me at the time.” He laughs again. “But the real reason I laughed is because of all the things I expected him to say to me when we came face to face again, that wasn’t it.”
    Pigheaded. Check.
    Asshole. Check.
    Never apologizing for my actions.
    What do you know, I’m three for three. He’s nailed me—at least the old me—spot on.
    “There’s no excuse for the shit I did to you, Sam. There’s no excuse for the shit I did to anyone back then. I came here figuring I would explain to you what was going on at the time, how fucked up I was and that maybe, you’d see the honesty for yourself and believe me. But on the way over here, I realized that my shitty home life, my anger issues, and the crap I was going through, means absolute shit. I was a dick to you and I was an even bigger one for not owning up to that fact years ago. I’m sorry.”
    “You were a dick. You were even worse with her, as I recall.” He shifts his attention away from me and back to Belle. “The thing is, the world is full of dicks, Kayden. And as much as I feared you then, as much as I still may fear you now because of what went down with us, I gotta say, you were good practice.”
    “Excuse me?”
    He can’t possibly mean what I think he means.
    “I’m saying,” he pauses, running his hand down over his face and sighing. “I’m saying I forgive you. I mean, that is what you came here for, isn’t it? You want to make things right? Move on from the past?”
    There’s no way it can be this easy. No way that after the hell I put him through, that he can stand here now and just be over it.
    There has got to be a catch.
    “Is this where you throw me off by saying that, and kick the shit out of me or something?” I ask and again he laughs, but this time, Belle seems to find it funny too because she joins him.
    “No, Kayden. It’s the part where I say that we’re not kids anymore, and that what you