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26 | Chapter Twenty Six

B O N N I E

I don't answer him, and that only angers him more. "Bonnie," he snarls, and Josh steps in front of me. "Come on, Axel; it's not her fault Liv dumped you." Axel lunges forward, shoving Josh so hard he falls back into me, but I step back in time so we both don't topple over.

"You," he points at me, "are welcome here, but she isn't. Get her out."

We both watch as Axel storms away, pushing his way through the crowded party. I knew coming here was a bad idea, and I am so annoyed with Liv right now. Clearly, Axel isn't okay with her dumping him. Why would she lie to me about something so small like that?

"Are you okay?" Josh asks, peering down at me with concern. He grabs my face in both his hands and looks into my eyes. I fight the urge to meet his stare; I don't want him to think I'm angry with him because I'm not. "Bon," he whispers, "I'm fine." I snap. I shouldn't yell at him like that, but I'm annoyed right now.

I lightly push him away from me, and he releases his hold on my face. "I need to go find Olivia." I walk away before he can stop me, and I don't look back. I know he is watching me because I can feel him. No doubt he is confused, but I can't deal with him right now. I need to deal with Olivia first.

I wander around the party for ten minutes before I find Olivia and Scott backed up into a corner. Olivia is sitting in his lap, and they are laughing at something some random guy just said. I grimace and stop to take in a much-needed breath before I walk over and confront her. If Liv wasn't my best friend, I wouldn't care so much, but I don't like that she's keeping such stupid things from me.

I know I'm a hypocrite, but my lies seem like something I need to hide—Olivia's, not so much.

"Liv, can I talk to you for a minute?" I force my way into their conversation, and all eyes turn to me except for Olivias. It takes a few seconds before her widened, surprised eyes slowly drift to me. She frowns when she takes in my stern expression. "Sure," she pushes up from Scott's lap and walks over to me hesitantly. Scott watches us with concern, but I ignore the questions dancing in his eyes.

I take her hand in mine and lead her upstairs. I need to find somewhere quiet for us to hash this out. People are lining the staircase, making it extremely hard to get up there, but we push our way through and find a bedroom. Hesitantly, I push it open, peeking inside to make sure we aren't about to interrupt anything. Thankfully, it's empty. We walk inside, and I gently close the door behind us.

"Bonnie, what's going on?" Liv questions, I can feel the anxious energy emanating off of her. She sits down on the bed, and I walk over to sit beside her. "Why did you lie to me about Axel?" I question, and she sighs. She doesn't say anything for a few minutes, and we sit in the silence filling the darkroom. In my mind, a thousand thoughts are running around, all fueled by my current anger. I can't stop thinking that she is taking the time to try to compile her lies together.

"What did I lie about?" she retorts, and I scoff at her. So this is the road she's choosing to take? Fine, let's go there then.

"You told me that Axel was okay with you two breaking up," I state matter-of-factly, and she grimaces. Her defensive attitude from seconds ago melting away. "Bonnie," she starts, but I hold up a hand stopping her. "If you're going to lie to me, at least make it for a good reason." Her eyes fall, and I momentarily feel bad for upsetting her.

"I was just so excited for you to come here and see Josh, that I didn't want to tell you Axel was upset."

Her reasoning makes total sense, at least in Olivia's world it does. I get why she would want to come here and push me towards Josh, but at the expense of Axel's feelings? I'm not okay with that.

"Liv," I grab her hands and give her a soft smile, "I love you for wanting me to be happy with Josh," I sigh. "But, I don't want to upset anyone else for that to happen, even Axel." Her smile falls, and she closes her eyes. She knows I'm right.

"I know, I just wanted everything to work out with you and Josh, so I didn't think about how Axel would feel."

"Did you at least tell Scott the truth? Because if he's down there with an angry ex-boyfriend, who knows what could happen."

Just as the words leave my mouth, we hear a loud crash downstairs, followed by shouting. Liv and I jump up from the bed; our conversation forgotten as we rush out into the hallway to see what was going on.

"You knew!" an angry voice shouts from the floor below. I don't recognize it, but Liv does. "Shit, Axel," before I can say anything, shes rushing downstairs, pushing people out of the way to get to the fight faster. I follow her, struggling to get through the crowd who is now gathering at the edge of the room watching whatever was going on.

"You knew how I felt about her, and you still did it!" Axel screams again. I force my way to the front of the circle forming around the lounge room, and I see Axel with Scott shoved up against a wall. Scott's hands are thrown up either side of his face, palms up in a show of defeat.

Axel's word stick in my mind. You knew how I felt about her, and you still did it.

What does that mean? Obviously, he's talking about Olivia, but I didn't know Scott and axel had spoken more than two words to each other the entire time Liv and him were dating. The anguish in Axel's words hurt, and I know they hurt Olivia from the way she was pleading with him to let Scott go. I know she would never intentionally hurt Axel, but somehow she broke him.

"Axel, let him go!" I faintly hear Olivia screaming, but it's hard to hear anything she's saying over the crowds cheering. I frantically look around, desperate to find Josh. Scott needs help, or he will be lucky to make it out of this house without a broken bone. He's nowhere to be found.

"Josh!" I scream, hoping he will find me first, but I am winked at by a bunch of random guys who apparently their names are also Josh. Screw him for having such a common name. Grabbing my phone from my pocket, I find his name and hit dial.

It rings and rings and rings until the line goes dead.

"Shit!" I mumble under my breath before I glance up just in time to see Axel's fist colliding with Scott's nose. I wince at the sound it makes when they make contact and shudder. Olivia is screaming, begging for Axel to stop it, but he isn't letting up.

Fueled by alcohol and anger, all he sees is red, and he wants Scott dead.

"What's going on?" a familiar drunken voice whispers in my ear. Seriously? How did he manage to get hammered that quickly?

"You need to go help, Scott!" I blurt out, pointing at the scene before us. Without a second thought, he pushes forward and grabs onto the back of Axel's shirt. Even though he is drunk, he still has enough strength in him to pull Axel back and throw him to the floor. Scott slides down the wall, blood pouring from his face, and Olivia rushes to him, looking at his face all over for injuries besides the obviously broken nose.

Josh steps over Axel and helps Olivia get Scott to his feet. They walk over to me, severe looks on all their faces, and the crowd parts creating a pathway for them straight to the front door.

***

"Thank you for helping Scott tonight. I honestly think Axel would've killed him if no one stopped him." I sigh, laying back into my bed. Josh is leaning against my bedroom window with a frown stuck on his face. He has barely said two words since we left the party. I thought it might be because he was drunk, but now I'm starting to think something else is going on.

"Come here," I hold out my arms and motion for him to come join me in bed, he does. He lays down and rests his head on my chest. I stroke his head, moving all hair from his forehead so I can look down at him. Something is going on in that mind of his, and I want to know what.

"Are you okay?" I ask, but still, he doesn't speak. We sit there in silence for a few minutes; I keep playing with his hair to distract myself, but then he lets out a heavy sigh, and his eyes peer up to meet mine.

"I fucked up, BonBon."