Chapter 30

thirty

HENDRIX

"God, I've missed Pizza Palace." Zepp opened the box of pizza just as I came into the living room. He took a slice, jutting his chin toward the stairwell as he grabbed the remote. "Is she gonna eat with us?"

I figured he asked that because she used to always eat with us. "No."

I took my piece, ignoring how weird it felt to have Zepp back and Lola upstairs, in the spare room. The spare room she'd been fucking another guy in. My guts turned, my stupid heart breaking a little more. Good. I needed it to. Until it couldn't muster another beat for her Medusa ass.

My brother changed the channel, his attention homed in on me.

He had always been way too good at picking up on when I was pissed or annoyed, and from the way his left eyebrow slightly lifted, I knew what was coming.

"Who was the Barrington shithead?" he asked.

A soon-to-be corpse. "Chad or Chip or some dumb, rich-person crap like that." I took a bite of greasy pizza, not even able to enjoy it.

"She's fucking him?"

Swallowing my food, I glared across the couch at my idiot brother I had missed until that very comment. "No, they were having a tea party in the room, cocksucker." I took another angry bite, almost choking on it.

"Thought you were over her?"

"I am." Maybe not over her. I didn't think "over" would ever be the right word, but I'd accepted that we didn't belong together. Over the past three weeks, I'd finally come to terms with it. Told myself we weren't the same people. That whatever idea I'd had about that girl had been wrong.

He half-rolled his eyes, half-smirked before shoving crust in his mouth. "You've had a hard-on for that girl since the second you got pubes."

That was the sad truth. Save face, dickhead. Save face! I swiped Zepp's can of Coke from the coffee table. "And I've had a hard-on for a lot of girls since." Just not since she'd moved back to Dayton.

I hadn't banged a single girl since I'd seen Lola again, hadn't touched one. Couldn't even stomach the thought of it… All those parties I'd had over the past three weeks ended one of two ways—with me depressed as hell or beating one off to the image of Lola straddling my face while that blond Barrington dick cried in the corner of the room.

Okay. So maybe "accepted" wasn't the right word, either. I was still a jealous little shit when it came to her.

"You mean to tell me," he said, swiping his drink back, "you haven't fucked her since she moved in?"

Like sex meant anything at this point in life. I'd gone through more girls than I wanted to admit just in the hopes I could move on, and she was evidently screwing guys in the room next door while my pussy ass choked on emotions and strummed out notes to "Glycerine." "Man, I don't fuck and tell."

"Oh, you fuck and tell. You don't cry and tell." Grinning, he grabbed another piece of pizza. "Wolf wanted us to meet him at Velma's at ten. You still going? Or are you gonna sit here and sulk like a little girl?"

"I'm not the one who got arrested over an evil redhead."

On a glare, he reached across the couch and popped the side of my head. "I feel like I owe you at least twenty of those."

Velma's was the hole-in-the-wall shitstain of Dayton. They didn't check IDs, and if Velma really liked you, she'd offer you moonshine.

The twang of country music assaulted my eardrums when we stepped into the dimly lit bar. Zepp stopped in the doorway and glanced around at the small crowd of people, mostly in T-shirts and jeans. A few cowboy hats. "This is weird."

"Welcome to life on the outside." I clapped him on the shoulder. "It's just as shit as it was before."

Wolf and Bellamy stood by the bar, grinning like idiots. One by one, they pulled him into a hug and slapped his back.

"Tell me you got a prison tat, dude?" Wolf said, taking a beer from the bartender and passing it to my brother.

"Hell no."

"He got a prison bitch, though." I cackled before Zepp whacked the back of my head.

Glaring at me, he lifted the bottle to his lips. "I forgot how annoying your ass is."

"Don't get all pissy because Billy Bob broke your jailbait heart."

Three drinks down, people crowded the tiny bar, and the conversation at our table had shifted from prison and Billy Bob to my upcoming nineteenth birthday. I didn't give a crap about birthdays, but parties… that was another story.

Zepp slammed his empty beer bottle onto the worn table. "We should get strippers."

"Wolf is not in charge of that crap," I shouted over the noise. "He has terrible taste."

"I do not."

"Bullshit." Bellamy flipped a beer cap at Wolf and missed. "You screwed around with Smith."

"And her musty, dusty muff buffet," I cackled.

"It was just a blowjob," Wolf groaned, sliding back in his bar chair. "And I was high. Give me a break."

"She knows what your orgasm face looks like. I bet she flicks her cougar clit to that every night." I growled before chugging my drink.

The guys howled in laughter, and Wolf frowned, pointing around the table. "Any of you bang a woman over forty, then come talk to me."

"Oh, so now you piped her down?" I said. "A blowjob is one thing, but sinking your dick in Smith?"

"Like you can say a damn thing. You fucked Voldemort in the restroom."

I felt Zepp and Bellamy's attention shift to me.

"I did not fuck her in the restroom," I said. "And you can't compare Lola to Smith. Lola's hot."

"Y ou think so."

She was. Lola was the hottest, most gorgeous girl I'd ever laid eyes on. Perfect. She was perfect.

"She's a five point five at best."

I had the urge to punch Wolf in his gimpy-ass face but stopped myself.

"Speaking of Lola—" He flinched, ducking behind Bellamy because he expected me to punch him.

"Holy shit!" Zepp leaned away from the table, shocked. He knew the rule… "He didn't hit you."

Wolf nodded. "Yeah. Because he's fucking her."

"I am not fucking her."

"Oh, speaking of the ex-girlfriend you're not banging." Wolf snatched his drink from the table, smirking like a bastard. "Daniel Baites gave me ten bucks to find out if you would eat his face off if he asked her to homecoming."

I wanted to say I would rip his limp-noodle dick off his body and shove it up his prolapsing, corpse asshole, but I bit back every Tourette's-laden insult my brain wanted to speak into existence. Because I wasn't supposed to f-u-c-k-i-n-g care. I bounced my leg under the table, imagining that football jersey-wearing dickhead asking her out and her actually saying yes.

"I don't give a shit what anyone does with her," I said, forcing myself to look at some blonde in a short dress. Because that was acceptance.