Chapter 3

three

HENDRIX

I stormed out of the restroom and stopped when I caught sight of Kyle waiting around the corner. If I had to guess, for Lola. He ducked back on a gasp before he took off in the direction of Principal Brown's office.

"Yeah, you better run, Chewbacca." I swiped a hand over my face, trying to rein in the irrational anger eating away at my insides like battery acid. But damn, did I hate that Lola was back in Dayton—back in my school. I didn't need her anywhere near me.

Her shit excuse played over and over in my head as I shouldered through students. It was complicated. She had to be kidding. She had ripped my heart clean out of my chest and couldn't even manage, "I'm sorry." No, I just got, It was complicated . Two years after she had screwed some other guy, gotten knocked up, and told me I wasn't the father.

Well, fuck you, Lola Stevens.

She made it complicated. She made my entire life complicated… I slammed a palm against a locker, leaving a dent in the metal.

"Hey, Hendrix." Jessica's annoying, make-my-dick-shrivel-into-my-body banshee of a voice came from behind me. I was not in the mood for simpering bitches today, not after that encounter with my soul-sucking ex. The soul-sucking ex she'd ratted out.

"Fuck off." I kept going, but of course, she followed me.

I'd slept with her once, months after Lola had left, hoping it would serve as a distraction, possibly serve as some kind of sick revenge, but it hadn't. That maybe she'd tell me who Lola had cheated on me with. All it had done was make me feel like a complete piece of shit and take a little bit of Lola away. So had every girl since then. Then again, getting over her was the whole point...

"There's a party at Rabbit Hill this weekend," she said, still right behind me.

I stopped outside of Smith's classroom, glaring over my shoulder at her overdone face. "I don't care."

"We're going skinny-dipping."

"Jesus Christ. What do you not understand about fuck off?" I ducked into the room full of students.

Miss Smith looked up from her desk, swatting away a blond strand of hair. "Why, Lord Jesus, why have you put the second Mr. Hunt in my class?" Her annoyed expression deepened into a scowl. "I go to church every Sunday, and I tithe ten percent of my crappy pay check to keep your place spik and span."

"Come on, Miss Smith. Wolf told me you wanted a piece of this, too."

An "oooooh" bounced around the room.

Smith glared at me, snatching the Thermos everyone knew was filled with vodka from the desk. By the end of the day, she reeked of it. "Mr. Wolf ain't nobody you need to be listening to."

Of course, he wasn't. He had let her suck his dick.

I went down the aisle, swatting Isaac Isacc's ballcap off his stupid head before I sank into an empty seat at the back of the class.

The last of the reprobates filed in just as the tardy bell rang.

Smith cleared her throat, rising from her rolling chair with a creak of hinges. "First, I ain't got no time for excuses today, or any day for that matter. And I sure as diddley ain't got no time for humping and bumping in the back of my class. Don't ask me questions. You got questions this semester, you ask Mr. Google-dot-com." She snatched the roster from underneath a stack of books. "I'm gonna call your name. You say here. Don't be tagging on with none of that ‘has gotta big dick' or ‘is a nasty hoe' on the end of people's names today. It's not nice, and Jesus is watching every one of you."

She went down the roll, stopping after calling on Tanya Haney to take a hefty swig from her Thermos. There wasn't enough vodka in the world to get her through my last year in this shithole.

"Hendrix Hunt."

"Has a big, pierced cock." I couldn't help myself.

The class erupted in laughter, and Smith glared, digging a fist into one of her hips. "Boy. You and your big, pierced dick wanna go pay a visit to Principal Brown?"

"Depends. Is he gonna suck it?"

"You know what… I think you just want outta my room. So, you and your big ole' dick just sit right there." She continued calling names, most everyone giving her shit. "Kyle Jones? Kyle Jones, where you and your inhaler at?"

Probably still whining like a little bitch in Brown's office because the big, bad bully had scared him.

Just then, the door flew open, and Kyle's bitch-ass barreled through the entrance, Lola right behind him. "Sorry, Miss Smith," Kyle panted. "We were just—"

"I don't need your life story, Mr. Obi-wan Kenobi. Just sit your butt down. You and Princess Leia there."

The moment Lola turned to come down the aisle, her puffy gaze landed on me, and her steps faltered. A microscopic fleck of guilt rose in me at the thought of her crying in the restroom after I had left, and I squashed it like a blood-filled mosquito. Splat! All over my dying conscience. Smiling, I lifted a middle finger. "Hey, Lola Cola."

I felt the attention of the class swing toward us.

A random girl mumbled, "Oh Shit."

One thing Lola and I had never been was a secret. Everyone in this school knew we'd been a thing. We were both jealous and territorial and had been suspended on numerous occasions for fucking in the bathroom. And when we had ended, what she had done spread like a bad case of crabs.

With a smirk, I leaned back in my seat. "Looks like you're about to pay your dues."

And fuck me, was she overdue for that shit.