Chapter 35

thirty-five

LOLA

Morning sunlight danced over the card on my dresser as I drew little black stitches on the sloth's neck. I put it into the envelope, followed by the shit-brown bracelet I'd made yesterday.

I still wasn't sure whether or not I should give it to him, whether it meant too much for our current situation. Not that I really understood what that was.

Hendrix had broken Daniel's hand, gotten expelled, eaten my pussy—four times—like it was his damn life goal, then offered to be friends with benefits. I was more confused than I had ever been when it came to him and completely unsure of where the hell we stood. Where I even wanted to stand anymore.

Friends with benefits… Also known as a come dumpster with emotional attachment. That would never work in a million years with us, but I couldn't deny I was tempted. If only for the orgasms. I couldn't imagine anyone would ever be able to make me come the way Hendrix did.

When I went downstairs to make my morning coffee, Hendrix was exactly where I had left him—passed out on the couch. His soft snores and the scent of beer filled the living room.

Happy birthday to Hendrix. I guessed I'd give him his card later.

I'd barely taken two sips of coffee when Kyle's horn honked from the drive. I dumped it into the sink and grabbed my backpack.

The entire drive, Kyle rambled about the new Star Wars mini-series that came out next week. When I got to my locker, he spotted Robert, who I guessed made for a more enthusiastic Star Wars conversation. He darted off as I turned the combination and grabbed my biology book.

When I shut the door and turned around, Jessica and a couple of her cheerleader friends were looking at me from the other side of the crowded hall.

"I hear Hendrix got expelled for your whore ass." My former friend approached with a swing of her hips. "How many more times are you going to fuck up his life, Lola?"

I hated that she'd managed to stoke the flames of guilt within me. I had fucked up his life, but Daniel…that was all on him. And the only reason Jessica even pretended to give a shit was that Hendrix would never beat up or even threaten a guy for her. I almost pitied her desperation. Almost...

"Get over him already, Jessica. He fucked you. One time. Along with half the girls in this school."

Her face contorted in rage right before she spat in my face. The warm glob slid down my cheek, and I snapped.

My palm collided with her face hard enough to leave a bright-red mark on her traitorous skin.

"You bitch!" She fisted my hair, but this wasn't my first catfight, and I was far more Dayton than she ever would be.

I elbowed her in the gut, then grabbed the back of her head and smashed her face into the lockers. "I fucking warned you, you cunt."

She let out a pathetic scream when I rammed her head against the locker again, leaving a bloodied dent in the metal.

Arms wrapped around my waist, picking me up. "I knew this shit would happen…" Wolf huffed, carting me away as Jessica crumpled to the floor with a bloodied nose. "You are just as psychotic as Hendrix's ass."

"Fuck you, Wolf."

"No thanks."

"Ladies! What on Earth?" Brown clapped as he came down the hall. "Of all the unladylike things…"

What was unladylike was that bitch's spit on my cheek…

His stern gaze pinged from me to Jessica, then back. "Miss Stevens, my office. Now."

On a sigh, I reluctantly followed Brown. If I got suspended over Jessica's bitch-ass…

"Suspension goes on your permanent record!" Kyle said later that evening, eyes wide and cheeks stuffed with popcorn like a hamster.

"So? I'm not going to college. What does it matter?" Definitely not as much as rearranging Jessica Master's face. That had been a long time coming, and I regretted nothing.

My attention drifted to my phone and my other problem this evening: Wolf's InstaPic story. Posted ten minutes ago. Jealousy ate away at me as I glared at the photo of him, Hendrix, Zepp, and Bellamy in our living room, surrounded by most of our school and half-naked women in the background. Literally. They looked like strippers.

Wolf had texted me right after I had gotten suspended and told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was not invited to Hendrix's birthday party tonight. Evidently, because of my "temper."

I could just imagine the redhead in the back of that image straddling Hendrix's lap, grinding her tits in his face. It wouldn't surprise me if she offered to screw him afterward. And I would have told myself to get a grip, that we'd agreed to be friends—if it weren't for yesterday.

Friends with benefits. That was a toxic pile of shit waiting to catch fire and poison us all with its fumes. As proven by my current stalker tendencies and feral rage.

Part one of whatever trilogy Kyle and I were watching ended. "Intermission," he said, jumping up to refill the popcorn bowl.

The microwave had just started when my phone beeped.

SATAN: I DOnrty hae E Birthdsy. Cocksucker huhuyt nem.

Why was he drunk texting me?

I couldn't even attempt to decipher that. Except for birthday. And cocksucker—of course, that one autocorrected. I started to text him back, but if he couldn't type, he probably couldn't see. So, I called him, bracing for loud music. Maybe even a girl moaning his name.

When he picked up, the music was as loud as I expected, permeated by female screams that felt like a lit match to a stick of dynamite.

"Lola-Canola-Samola! You called me!" And holy crap, did he slur that.

"Yeah. Because I can't read bullshit gibberish."

"Bicka-Bicka. Hen Shady…"

I dragged my palm down my face. "What do you want, Hendrix?"

"You used to love Eminem. Who are you, Lola Canola?" Something rustled over the line before there was a thud. "Wait. I dropped you. God, I'm so drunk… Hello? It's Hendrix." And yes, he sang that to the tune of Adele's "Hello."

I covered my laugh with my hand. "Why are you texting me? You're supposed to be partying." With strippers. Not that I was hung up on that or anything. The thought threatened to burn me to ash.

"I'm partying like a sad panda with a broken nose from his dickhead, jailbait brother." At least, that was what I thought he had said. He slurred so bad I wasn't exactly sure.

"What?"

"Zepp punched me." He sniffed. "Right in my pretty face. I think it's broken." He hiccuped. "Just like us…"

I straightened on the couch, ignoring what he said about us. "Did you let him hit you?" Hendrix never got hit, and Zepp was his brother.

"No. I was already drunk. And he's been in prison. His reflexes are all prison-like."

That flicker of anger over strippers turned into an entirely different kind of rage.

A heavy, rattling breath came over the line. "Put Kyle on the phone." He cackled. "He'll think I'm Darth Vader. Kyle—" he made a gurgling, breathy noise—"I am your daddy..."

"Wow." That was disturbing. "I'm not putting Kyle on. Put ice on your nose."

"All the ice is gone. Why you gotta be so mean?" He sounded so emotional. About ice.

The music in the background faded until I could barely hear it. "I've just called… to say… I'm shitfaced," he sang. "I just called… to say… how much I've drunk. I just called to say…I'm shitfaced. And I mean it from the bottom of my sad, broken-nosed panda heart…"

I pushed to my feet on a sigh and headed into the kitchen, covering the microphone while Hendrix continued to slur his obscure lyrics in my ear. It was what he always did when he was hammered.

"I have to go," I said.

Kyle closed the fridge and looked at me.

"Hendrix had his nose broken."

"Who would punch Hendrix?" His brows tugged together. "Are they dead?"

"Zepp. And I don't think he's dead."

He nodded as though all was right with the world again. Balance restored.

I left his house. Two blocks over, music from the party could be heard. Screams. The closer I got, the louder it grew.

A mass of people covered the porch. I could just picture the carnage inside the party I wasn't invited to.

I brushed past a guy pissing off the steps and walked into a complete disaster. Beer cans were everywhere, and some guy had passed out on the stairs already. Before I made it all the way into the crowded living room, I saw two naked girls lap dancing Wolf, one with her shaved pussy in his face.

"Where's Hendrix?" I asked.

"Outside," he said without tearing his eyes from her crotch.

I stormed through the kitchen, onto the porch, and past a guy hurling into a concrete planter.

A few feet across the dark yard, lo and behold, I found Hendrix starfished in the middle of the pine straw-covered trampoline.

"Hendrix?"

His arm shot straight up. "Yes?"

"Oh good, you're not dead."

"My heart is dead. My dick is drunk. Zepp hit me, and you went to see Chadwick Beaverlichtenstein on my exit-of-a-womb day."

"Wow, you're dramatic. I was at Kyle's." I crossed the yard and stopped beside the trampoline. "What did you do to piss off Zepp?"

"I called his Medusa a bitch."

So, I'd set a precedent for all backstabbing girls to be "Medusas." I swallowed down that ball of shit. Without admitting the truth, I deserved it. "You can't call Zepp's girlfriend a bitch."

"She's not his girlfriend anymore, and she is." He sat up and nearly toppled right back over.

Under the moonlight, I could make out the blood crusting his upper lip and shirt.I wanted to punch Zepp in the dick for hurting him. With a sigh, I hopped onto the covered springs, crawled across the trampoline, and then flopped down beside him. "You stink of vodka."

He swatted something beside him. Then a plastic, nearly empty vodka bottle landed in front of me. "You left me on my birthday."

"I'm not really into strippers."

"I had a stripper crotch thrust at me earlier. All cooter bush and—" he hiccuped— "I told her, ‘Aw, hell to the fuck no,' and then I shoved her and that cooter bush right off me. I shoved her off because of you." He swatted at me and missed. "Then Zepp hit me."

He'd pushed off a stripper …because of me.

The wind kicked up, sending pine straw across the trampoline and a chill across my skin. "I don't think you pushed off a stripper because of me, Hendrix. You've let plenty of girls' cooters near you." I tried not to sound bitter about that.

He attempted to twirl a piece of my hair around his finger. "Only because I was trying to forget you."

As sick as it made me, I could almost understand it. I'd known the truth, and I wanted to be able to forget him, just to stop the pain. If he'd hurt me the way I'd hurt him, maybe I would have been able to screw a string of random guys.

I sucked in a shaky breath and glanced at him. "Did it work?"

"No." He took my hand and slapped it over his hard chest. "Because you're right there."

I stared at my palm clasped beneath his. "I hated it every single time you sent me that text telling me you were having a party."

"I did it to piss you off." He hiccupped. "But you wanna know a secret?" He rolled over, swept my hair away from my neck, and placed his lips by my ear. "I lied. There were no parties. But there was a Chadwick Beaverlichtenstein."

To piss me off…I was so tired of the lies, the pretending and games, the tit-for-tat. Secrets when we never used to have any. "Chad and I played Go Fish. I haven't slept with anyone since I left Dayton, Hendrix. Not since you."

"Then why don't you love me anymore, Lola?" His hand cupped my face, pulling me toward him. "I still love you."

I closed my eyes, swallowing around the jagged lump in my throat.

Maybe I should have bitten my tongue, walked away, but I couldn't do this anymore. Keeping him at arm's length when he was so close was impossible. He was everything I would ever want. And I'd live a lie to have him. I'd even take his resentment if I had to. "I do love you, Hendrix," I whispered. "More than anything."

His lips slammed against mine in a drunken kiss. He probably wouldn't remember this in the morning, but I couldn't forget. I couldn't go back.