Chapter 17

seventeen

HENDRIX

Fate.

Fucking Medusa-laden fate.

I watched Lola disappear into the house before I pushed off the stairs and cranked the mower again.

That blond sack-of-ball-droppings Barrington dickface in his shiny, shitass car. I saw the way he had looked at Lola, the way she had looked at him when he had called Gracie monkey. She hated Barrington almost as much as I did, but one thing that would get Lola more than anything else was a guy having a soft spot for her sister.

He brought her home!

In his truck. All cozied up like a happy little family.

Chadwick Needs-His-Ass-Beat was on the top of my shit list. Blond, all clean-cut and pristine. Not a tattoo on his gold-plated ass. I was night. He was day. And he could go fuck himself for all I cared.

I felt my eye twitch as I started across the lawn.

As much as I wanted to find his address and show up at his house, smash the windows on his car, then pop him in his stupid, Colgate-smile teeth, I couldn't.

He was Gracie's foster brother, and the only female I cared about outside of Lola was that little girl. She'd had my heart since the day she was born. So, I would have to be a little sad panda bitch and sit here while Daddy Warbucks tried to take away both my girls. Evidently, Kyle wasn't the one I should have been worried about. It was Mr. Small Dick, Big Bank Account.

I let out a heavy breath, dust and grass clippings spraying into the air as I whipped the mower around.

I had one strip of weeds left to cut when Bellamy's demolition Honda pulled into the drive.Arlo had his face plastered to the back window, and the second Bell came to a complete stop, the kid kicked open the door and shot out like a Slushie-fueled bullet.

I cut the mower just before he skidded to a stop. "Uncle Hendrix, do you have any water balloons?"

They weren't water balloons. They were expired condoms. But we made do with what we could around here. "All out, kid."

"Man." He kicked the dirt. "All out of rubbers?" Probably shouldn't have taught him that that was what they were called. "That stinks big dookie balls," he said, then launched himself at me like a spider monkey.

Bell's car door closed. I glanced around Arlo's flailing arms as I flipped the kid over my shoulder and dangled him upside down by his ankles.

"Just wanted to come by before I headed out." Bell stopped a few feet in front of me and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets.

"You heading out tonight?"

"Yeah. Just taking him to get a Slushie. Then grabbing the last of my stuff and following Drew up to Piketown."

Arlo asked if he could play the PlayStation. I nodded, then dropped him to the freshly cut dirt. He took off up the steps. As soon as the front door banged closed behind him, Bellamy's stressed gaze met mine.

After everything that had happened over the past year between his mom and his abusive dick of a dad, I could understand why.

I clapped him on the shoulder, jutting my chin toward the porch. "Don't worry, man. I'll check on your mom. And Arlo."

Bell scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck on his way up the sidewalk. "It's gonna be weird as hell not being here."

"You should be glad to get out of this hellhole."

"I am." He took a seat on one of the worn stairs. "But this hellhole is still home."

We'd always had to pretend to be grown, had responsibilities, but there was something really sad about actually growing up. Because people left. Lives split apart. Things changed, and I hated change.

I took a seat beside him, waving a hand around the crappy neighborhood we'd terrorized as kids. "This place isn't home, man. The people maybe, but not the place."

He glanced back toward the house. "So, how're things going with Lodemort?"

Things with "Lodemort" shouldn't be going anywhere, but fate was a sick bitch, and she was riding my balls hard. "We're just roommates."

"I want to give you so much crap for this…" He rubbed his hands over his thighs. "But we've been best friends since we were kids. I know you haven't gotten over her."

I hadn't. I wasn't sure I ever would, and it pissed me off. "Man…"

"People mess up." His gaze met mine. "She messed up, but—"

"You know I don't talk about feelings and shit."

"Just saying. Yeah, she hurt you, but from watching you self-destruct over the past two years, I think you've hurt yourself more." He clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Sometimes denying yourself of a good thing is a lot worse than accepting that even people who love you can screw up."

Damn Plato bullshit. This was one hundred percent the doings of his annoying girlfriend. Scowling, I shoved him. "Drewbers's rich-girl ass has gotten you all up in your feels." I pushed up from the wooden step. "Stop talking crap, and let's go play Call of Duty ."

Bellamy's dumbass was right. Lola had broken my heart, but what hurt worse was not being with her.

Every day I didn't wake up next to that girl, it felt like I lost a little more of myself. We were young—still were young. She was the one person I could forgive almost anything, at least once.

Bellamy stayed for three games, then left when Arlo hurled in my kitchen sink from eating the box of my Pop-Tarts Lola evidently had snuck him before we'd come in.

The chime of the doorbell rang just as I started a new game alone.Footsteps pounded down the stairs.

"I know you gave him those Pop-Tarts, Medusa!" I shouted when she passed by the living room doorway.

"I needed help eating your stash."

"You need to leave my stash alone."

A guy's voice came from the entrance, but before I could get annoyed, the greasy scent of pizza floated past.

The door shut, then she strutted into the living room and dropped two Pizza Palace boxes onto the coffee table like a trophy. "Didn't pay for that," she said. Proud as hell.

"How?"

She plopped down on the couch, opened the top box, and pulled a wad of melted cheese from the lid. "Stole a coupon book from Smith's desk the other day."

"Is that you saying I don't owe you?"

"It's apology pizza." She licked grease from her finger. "I'm sorry I lost my shit yesterday. It's none of my business what you do."

She meant who I did. And I didn't like that. Still, I felt like I was being baited somehow.

I took a slice of pizza, suspicion crawling all over me as I stared across the couch at her. Lola was stubborn. She hardly ever offered up an "I'm sorry" that easily.

"If we're going to live together, I think we need clear lines." Her gaze met mine. "We can't have sex again."

Bullshit.

Lola knew more than anyone that telling me "no" only made me want something more. Back in eighth grade, I had told her I wanted to shave my head.

She had told me it would look like crap. I did it on pure principle.

Come to find out, she wanted me to shave it. She'd actually used "no" as reverse psychology to get what she wanted. She'd done it with sex, too. "No, Hendrix. You definitely can't fuck me in the parking lot stairwell without getting caught."

I did it three times. Never got busted.

With our history, it stood to reason she was baiting me. And this was a wriggling worm I'd swallow, hook and all.

"Yep. No more fucking." I did the Boy Scout salute, fighting a smirk. "On my honor…"

"I'm serious, Hendrix."

There was no playfulness to that statement. She looked genuinely distressed.I felt the slight smile on my face drop. She was serious about this?

A million scenarios as to why she didn't want to fuck me again swopped through my mind like screeching bats, and with each one that involved another guy, specifically, Gold Finger Chadwick Suck-My-Dick. My jealousy and annoyance rose like the rotting dead out of graves.

"It's not like it's adding to your body count…" I hated the idea of her sleeping with anyone else. The idea that any other guy had touched her, fucked her, kissed her… those lips were mine.

"You think that's what I'm worried about?" She shook her head. "Look, you can go and screw any girl. You have screwed any girl…"Her disappointed gaze lifted to me, and a sick feeling washed through me.

No matter how much either of us might have wanted to pretend that nothing had changed, everything had. I couldn't blame her for hating what I'd done.I wished like hell I could erase every girl I had put between us, trying to forget how much she had meant to me, how much she had hurt me.

"I don't want to fuck any girl. I just want to fuck you." It wasn't the most romantic line, but it was the truth. She was all I'd ever wanted.

The hurt on her face softened. "We can't just fuck, Hendrix. It's us. We're all or nothing. And we can't be all."

Which left an option I didn't like. "We can't be nothing, either," I said.

"But we can be friends."

And that stung like a jagged blade right in the gut. Lola Stevens wanted to be my friend...

We stared at each other across the couch. Two people who were once everything to each other, who didn't know how to be nothing.

Friends.

I snagged another piece of pizza and grabbed the remote, turning on the TV. "Sounds like a real clear line…." I said.

The hell it was.

"Whipah!" Wolf slammed my locker door, dragging my attention from Lola and Kyle to his gimpy-looking face.

"Fuck off, man." I fell in line with the crowd of students headed to the cafeteria.

"Dude, what kind of rat crawled up your ass?"

A rat wearing a souvenir T-shirt that said Lola wanted to be friends.

I glared over my shoulder at him. "Tony's in jail, asshole." It was a legitimate concern and probably should have been my top priority. But. Fucking friends…

"We just have to sell more weed."

Because weed was the answer to all our "friendly" problems… I half huffed on the way to the cafeteria.

I shouldered to the front of the lunch line and grabbed a plate of taco salad, ignoring Lola-My-Friend-Stevens on my way to the table.

Wolf complained about his ex-girlfriend, and I pretended to listen.I'd finished my lunch, then took his leftovers when the cafeteria fell silent.

I glanced up from the tortilla chips as Officer Jacobs stepped into the lunchroom with Principal Brown.He could have been in here for most of the students, but something uneasy took root in my gut.

Wolf's knee bounced underneath the table. "Shit." He swiped a hand over his jaw. "Tony…"

Panic crept through my veins.

What good would it do to snitch on a couple of eighteen-year-olds he'd hired?

"Man, come on," I said. "Why the hell would—"

Jacob's beady gaze swept over the tables, landing on ours.A smug grin pulled at his lips as he started toward us.

"Fuck…" I gripped the edge of the table, panic now buzzing through my veins. "Man…" Every bit of Dayton instinct told me to run but running would definitely make us look guilty. "I think we're in some deep, snatchy shit, Wolf."

For the first time in my life, I watched the color drain from Wolf's face.

Grand theft auto.

That was what my brother was in jail for. And I was scared as hell that we were about to get arrested for it, too.

A year minimum in prison.

The house would be gone.

We'd come out with absolutely nothing.

Jacobs stopped at the end of the table, hooking his thumbs through the belt loops of his uniform. "Mr. Hunt. I'm gonna need you to come with me."

Oh, fuck my life.