Chapter 8

eight

LOLA

Kyle and I walked from the restroom in silence.

It wasn't until we rounded a wall of lockers that I glanced at him, noticing he still looked a little pale. "Are you okay?"

He nodded. "Passing out is my defense mechanism." Like a possum playing dead. "Are you and Hendrix…?"

"What? No!"

"But it sounded like—"

"It sounded like a moment of weakness, Kyle. That's all." A stupid, blissful, horrible moment of weakness.

The second Hendrix had kissed me, everything had gone to shit. One kiss led to me coming on his fingers and him coming on my favorite shirt in a dirty men's restroom. The same way he'd probably done with half the girls in this school since I'd left.

Hendrix and I had screwed in the theater, the locker rooms, and even in detention that we got for screwing in the restroom. But never, not once, until now, had I felt degraded or ashamed.

I followed Kyle back to the cafeteria, ignoring the whispers and stares of everyone who undoubtedly knew I had just become the latest notch on Hendrix Hunt's belt.

Never again. This could never happen again, even if I wanted it to. Even when every fiber of me craved him. And if the rumors were to be believed, he wouldn't be back for seconds, anyway.

My encounter in the restroom with Hendrix haunted me throughout my entire evening shift at The Squealing Hog—not that I didn't enjoy it. It had been literal years since I'd had anything other than a self-induced orgasm, and nothing could compare to Hendrix. Nothing. But that didn't justify my monumental error in judgment. I'd had every intention of staying far, far away from him when I came back here, and that was for a reason. I couldn't give in to him, and it was very hard not to give in, as proven today.

I was halfway through cutting the pan of lemons I'd been assigned as closing work when Chad slid into the booth across from me. His golden-blond hair, blue eyes, and tanned skin were all very shiny, Barrington. If Hendrix could have a polar opposite, it was Chad Lancaster.

He passed a brown envelope across the surface, exchanging it for my chopping board and knife.

"What's this?" I asked.

He took a lemon and quartered it. "Gracie's school picture."

Emotion welled up my throat. I didn't dare look because I knew I'd cry. "Thanks," I whispered. I didn't want to like Chad or trust him, but he made it kind of hard.

"I didn't mean to be an insensitive ass the other day. I can't imagine how hard it must be for you and Gracie." He let out a sigh when I remained silent. "My mom asked if you want to come to dinner Friday. I know you probably don't—"

"Your mom wants me to come to dinner?" I struggled to believe it.

Sure, they fostered Gracie. Whether it was out of the goodness of their hearts, to keep up appearances, or just pure charity, I wasn't sure, but I knew such charity only extended to cute little kids. Not Dayton-trash teenagers.

His gaze softened as it met mine. "You're Gracie's sister. Of course, she wants you to come."

I was shady as hell, but I would do anything to spend time with Gracie. Anything. "Okay."

"Great. I'll tell her." He grinned that rich boy, megawatt smile, and I was already dreading it.

After Chad finished the lemons, I placed them in the cooler, then checked out with the manager, Pete.

During my shift, I'd missed a text from Kyle warning me that his crazy, drunk Grandma Ida-Mae was over, which meant he couldn't pick me up.

I wasn't in the mood for her to try to pay me to take Kyle's virginity tonight. Every single time she came over, she tried to bribe me into it. I texted back, asking him to tell me when she was gone, then made my way toward the bus stop across the street.

I stepped over the curb just as a shiny, black truck rumbled to a stop beside me.

Chad leaned out the window. "You catching the bus?"

"Yeah."

His blond brows furrowed. "I'll give you a ride."

"You know I live in Dayton, right?"

"Yeah. Get in."

Well, I'd rather ride with him than sit on the bus next to Cookie, the local crackhead in his assless chaps, while he took his nightly nap.

Leaning across the console, he shoved the passenger side door open for me. The interior lights flickered on, revealing the immaculate interior. I climbed in and dumped my tattered backpack in the footwell before settling on the pristine leather. I was probably soiling it with my presence.

The drive out of Barrington was silent, and as soon as we got into Dayton, I wanted to sink down in the seat. I wasn't ashamed of being poor, but Dayton… It was definitely something to be ashamed of.

Chad stopped at a red light in front of a pawnshop, an obvious prostitute waving at him from the corner of the street. "Which way do I go?" he asked.

"Right." I directed him to the abandoned house a few blocks over from Kyle's, and he pulled over at the curb. "You want me to leave you here ?"

"I'll be fine."

The frown on his face told me he was not convinced. "Lola—"

"I grew up in Dayton, Chad. Trust me, it's fine." I grabbed my backpack from the footwell and hopped out. "Go back to Barrington." To his golden, blessed life, where no one would try to steal his car at gunpoint. I shut the door, and I cut through the overgrown yard.

I made it to the side of the house before his truck rumbled away. He probably thought I was insane.

The scent of burned wood hit me when I reached the edge of the dark treeline, and I came to a halt. My heart sank, then broke when my gaze landed on the burned oak tree. A single, charred board was all that remained of the treehouse.

It must have been Hendrix. This was what he did when he was hurt; he destroyed the source. He'd burned the treehouse down, destroyed the memory of us .

Tears stung my eyes, and I bit the inside of my lip to stop them from falling. It was only wooden pallets, but it felt like losing a piece of myself. He might as well have burned me .

Lost and grief-stricken, I turned away and wandered aimlessly through the dimly lit streets of Dayton until I found myself in the park we used to come to as kids when our moms were "working."

It was past ten at night, which meant crackheads and creeps would be lurking in the shadows. I could throw a punch just about as good as any guy, but I had to admit coming here in the middle of the night wasn't the smartest idea. The whole burned tree house thing had me emotional and reckless.

Dry grass crunched beneath my shoes, silencing the crickets as I made my way to the play area Hendrix and I used to bring Gracie to.

Everywhere in this damn town was tainted with him, attached to a memory I couldn't escape. I couldn't escape him , and the problem was I didn't really want to. By choice, I never would have left his side.

I climbed the ladder, absorbing a moment of rare silence as I pulled myself into the wooden fort attached to the monkey bars and slide. No sirens. No distant gunfire. Just me and my thoughts—none of which were good.

Soon enough, the pad of footsteps broke the peaceful lull. A thud echoed up the slide when someone evidently took a seat at the bottom. Great. Just what I needed.

"Hey, man," a deep voice came from the dark park. "Can I get a dime bag?"

Oh, now there were two of them, and they were making a drug deal. I sank a little deeper into the corner of the fort. The night just got better and better.

"You dragged me all the way out here for a dime bag? You said you wanted an ounce…"

I wanted to bash my head against the wooden wall when I heard Hendrix's voice. Of all the damn people, of course, he would be in this exact park making a drug deal while I hid in a kid's play fort. And so, the curse continued…

There was a brief exchange of "fuck yous," mostly from Hendrix, followed by footsteps trailing away. Then a metallic bang rang out, followed by, "Shit." I knew Hendrix, and if I had to guess, he'd just punched the slide.

Silence descended, broken only by the chirp of crickets.

I was about to crawl across the wooden fort and check if he'd left when my stupid phone pinged from my backpack. Shit. Then it dinged again.

The scuff of a shoe over gravel sounded. "What in the…"

I tried to unzip the pocket and silence it, but it chimed again and again like an alarm ringing out. Might as well have started waving a flashing sign above my head...

By the time I pulled my device out of my bag, I was ready to launch it in a bush just to throw him off the trail.

SATAN: You know, you could at least have the decency to say no thanks.

SATAN: I offered you ten bucks off!!!

SATAN: That's like ten grand in Dayton!!!

SATAN: Manners, you sack of shit.

Jesus Christ. I jabbed the screen, trying to mute the stupid thing as a string of random emojis came through, one after the other.

"You've gotta be kidding me?" Hendrix's head popped over the edge of the wooden platform. He brandished his phone like a weapon, then jabbed the screen again.

Another ping, and I flinched.

" You're looking for a room. In Dayton?"

"Obviously." I grabbed my backpack and moved to the edge of the wooden fort.

That should be enough to appease him. After all, he knew what a piece of crap my mom was.

Heavy footfalls rounded the structure, and by the time I made it to the exit, he'd blocked the ladder. "What? Did me nutting on your shirt screw up your little sleepovers at Chewyfuckface's?"

Did he know I was living with Kyle? Is that why he had this absurd idea that we were dating?

"No," I said. "You messed up any sleepovers in the treehouse, though."

The smug grin on his face fell. "You were sleeping there?"

I didn't want him to know how bad things were now. "Sometimes."

On a huff, I crossed the fort again and took a seat at the top of the slide. The friction burned the backs of my thighs as I went down.

My Converse hit the dirt, sending a cloud of dust into the moonlit air before I pushed to my feet. I made it two steps from that slide before Hendrix barreled around the fort.

"What do you mean, sometimes ?"

Like he cared. I swallowed the jagged ball of emotions, trying to work up my throat."How could you destroy the treehouse, Hendrix?" I hated the little hitch in my voice, hated that he'd gotten to me so much with that one act.

"Like you're one to ask ‘how could I' anything…"

He was right, but I was not in the mood for him and our hate games tonight, so I walked off. Heavy footfalls followed behind me as I crossed the park and stormed through the gate.

"Why are you following me, Hendrix?"

"I live in the same direction as you, genius."

I chose to ignore him as I made my way through the dilapidated streets.

Right up until we passed his road, and his footsteps still remained right behind me.

I stopped beneath the amber glow of street light and whirled to face him. "Okay, now you're following me."

"I had a change of plans." He held his phone up, the glow illuminating his tense face. "After all, a player's work is never done." Then he grinned like the arrogant asshole he was.

It took every grain of control I possessed not to react, to pretend I didn't care who he went and stuck his dick in. "Try not to blow your load on her shirt like a thirteen-year-old." I turned away and walked off.

The lull of deep voices drifted through the humid night air moments before a group of men moved out from behind an abandoned van. Their conversation silenced, their attention homing in on me as my steps slowed.

A lone, shady-looking guy was one thing, but a group…

I slipped my hand into my shorts' pocket, gripping my keys between my fingers as a makeshift weapon as they shifted past the van, leery smiles aimed my way.

If any of them tried to lay a finger on me, I'd gouge out their eyes.

"Those motherfuckers have guns." Hendrix's strong arm slipped around my waist, tugging me close to his side.

Safe. Despite the guns, I instantly felt safe, and I hadn't truly felt that since the last time I was in his arms.

His stronghold remained around me as they passed by. We turned a dark corner, and my shoulders slowly relaxed. "Come on, Lola Cola…"

He'd always called me that. Six-year-old me hated it. For a while, I'd called him Hendrix Appendix, but it hadn't stuck.

"You know better than to walk around here by yourself at night."

"Not like I have much choice." I could have called Kyle, but he was with his grandma. And he was the only person I had.

Hendrix's muscles tensed. He stared down at me through the dark like he wanted to say something, but instead, he pulled in a heavy breath and kept walking me through the rundown neighborhood, past Kyle's one-story house. I didn't want to feed into whatever obsession Hendrix had managed to concoct in his head about Kyle, so I let him keep walking me toward my mom's.

Tension gripped my muscles when the tiny, rundown house came into view. I hadn't been back there since social services had taken Gracie and me away.

The pack of dogs next door kicked off when we went by, and someone inside the house shouted for them to shut up. With each step I made, my chest tightened, and when we stopped in front of the rusted, chain-link gate, I felt physically sick.

I turned to face Hendrix, and although the pain in his eyes was new, the scene felt agonizingly familiar. "I am sorry, Hendrix," I whispered. I'd said it in the lake last night, but I needed him to know. "You're the last person I ever wanted to hurt."

Sirens wailed in the background as silent seconds passed by. His chin dropped to his chest with a sigh, hiding his face in the shadows. "I'd give any-fucking-thing in the world to go back, but trusting you was the worst thing I ever did."

I wasn't prepared for the pain that lanced through me.

Closing my eyes, I fought back the sting of tears, fought the urge to scream that I didn't betray him, that I could never sleep with anyone else. I hated that he had believed my lies so easily.

Then he pressed a kiss to the top of my head and turned away, walking off into the shadows of the night.

Hendrix Hunt was my first friend, my first kiss, my first everything… There was barely a moment in my life he hadn't been there for, and that was what made it all so tragic.

When I left him, I gave up the kind of love people wrote love stories about—to protect him—and I knew, no matter how long I lived, I would never, never find what we'd had again.