“Just making sure,” he told me before heading back into the crowd. I headed over to the guys.
“Hey.” I set my bag down, took a drink of my water, and then lay on the grass and enjoyed the shade. The ground sucked the heat from me, cooling me off.
“So, what’s happening?” I asked as I closed my eyes.
“I was thinking about going and looking at some of the non-food related stalls.” Miles turned to me. “Lexie, would you like to go?”
I smiled. “That’s Miles for ‘I want to check and make sure you’re alright.’” I announced.
His cheeks tinged pink. “Maybe.”
“Hey, sweetness!” Jake’s voice had me half sitting up.
“Hey!” I smiled. Jake was smiling down at me. Derrick was next to him with his usual grin plastered to his face.
“I heard you caught Dylan with his pants down at the party the other night,” Jake announced as they sat down.
“Literally.” I snorted. “But yeah, you should have seen his face,” I told him. “He looked like a kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar.” Derrick and Jake chuckled.
“What happened?” Miles asked.
I lay back down and tilted my head back so I could see Miles. “When I took that walk with Isaac, Dylan came out of the bushes zipping his zipper.”
“So? He was taking a leak,” Zeke pointed out.
I chuckled as I turned my head to look at him with a smile. “I thought that too, until some chick told him to wait because she couldn’t find her underwear.” Jake, Derrick and I burst out laughing. Zeke shook his head while Miles stayed silent.
“Yeah, you’ll never believe who the chick was,” Derrick told me.
I snorted. “I don’t care—”
“It was Cece,” Jake announced.
My jaw dropped. “Cece? Isaac’s ex-girlfriend Cece?” I asked, just to be clear.
They both nodded as they chuckled.
I shook my head. “Wow. I did not see that happening. No wonder he turned white.” I shook my head and changed the subject. “Miles was about to take me around the non-food stalls, wanna go?”
“Sure,” Derrick said as he got to his feet and reached down with both hands. I smiled as he pulled me to my feet.
I picked up my water bottle. “Zeke, can I leave my bags here?”
He lay down in the shade and covered his eyes with his forearm. “Yeah. It’s too fucking hot to move.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be wearing head to toe black in the summer,” I countered.
He lifted his arm and shot me a look. I smiled before walking off with Miles and the others.
We walked from stall to stall, checking out everything from sun hats to jewelry. I made sure to pick up a fancy dog treat for Hades. Derrick was asking a salesgirl questions while I checked out another rack of sunglasses.
Derrick picked up a pair of glasses and put them on.
The salesgirl giggled. "I call those the Terminator glasses."
Derrick grinned. "I'll be back,” he said in his best Schwarzenegger impression. I snickered at the corny joke. Jake turned away from the rack of hats and eyed Derrick.
“Are you upset about Dylan?” Miles asked quietly.
I smiled and looked up at him. His ears were pink, his blank face in place. “Not really. I was surprised. You don’t exactly expect to turn a corner and see your ex zipping their pants up.”
“No, I don’t suppose you do,” he said as we followed Jake and Derrick through the crowd. “But you’re alright?”
“I’m more upset about Isaac,” I admitted, watching as Derrick shot Jake a frustrated look.
“I thought you would be,” he said. “When did he promise to stop pulling stunts like today?” Jake shot Derrick an angry look.
“In April,” I said. “I told him that his stunts scared me.”
“And he agreed,” he said, as if it made sense to him.
“Yeah, he promised.” Derrick and Jake were talking; it didn’t look like it was going well. What was going on with them?
“It’s not like him to break a promise,” Miles said.
“I know. I just kind of lost it,” I admitted. “I’ll talk to him about it.”
“That’s a good idea,” Miles said. Derrick stopped walking and turned to Jake, gesturing angrily at him. “Oh, perhaps we should—”
“Let’s stay back a bit.” I stepped up to a jewelry stall. Miles moved to my side as I looked at necklaces. There were a few I liked. Then my eyes found a rose gold angel wing necklace.
“Did you find something?” he asked softly.
I shrugged. “I gave my angel wing necklace to Riley. It worked better with her complexion.”
He started tapping a staccato rhythm on the table. “The one Dylan gave you?”
I nodded. “I realized how the silver washed me out.” I looked up at him. “So, I’m keeping my eyes out for a replacement.”
“Did you find one?” he asked.
I glanced to make sure the saleswoman was out of earshot. “Nah, these are too big and bulky. I’d be getting them caught on everything.” I smiled up at him. “Your birthday is coming up, are we still having dinner at the twins’?”
His ears turned pink. “Um, yeah, but there’s no reason to make a big deal—”
“It’s your eighteenth birthday,” I told him. “We’re gonna make it a big deal.”
He grinned as his ears turned red.
There was shouting in the crowd. I looked down the way. Derrick held his hands up, his face frustrated he turned and walked away. Jake looked down at the ground. “Miles, I think I need to talk to Jake.”
Miles looked the same direction I was. “I’ll head back to the others.”
I gave him a warm smile. “Thanks.”
“Of course.” He turned and moved into the crowd while I made my way to Jake.
“Hey, are you okay?” I asked when I reached him. Jake shook his head, his jaw locked. I took his hand and started moving him through the crowd, out of the market and across the street. When we had some privacy, I looked up at him. “What just happened?”
Jake shook his head. “Derrick fucking did it again."
"Huh?" What did I miss?
He ran his hand through his hair. “He’s fucking flirting with everything that moves!”
My eyebrows shot up. “What? When?”
Jake shot me an angry look. “He was flirting with that salesgirl!” He leaned back against the wall and tilted his head back to rest against it.
I thought back over Derrick’s conversation with the salesgirl at the last stall. There had been no flirting. “Um, Jake?”
“What?” he asked, his eyes closed.
“He wasn’t flirting,” I told him gently.
He lifted his head and looked down at me. “Yeah, he was. They were all giggly.”
“Jake, honey, I was standing right there,” I reminded him. “She made a joke about the sunglasses he was looking at, and he made a Terminator impression. That was it.”
His brow drew down as he frowned. “Really?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Why do you think he’s flirting?”
He sighed. “He’s… he’s bi, Lexie.”
“And?”
He turned back to me. “What if… what if I can’t keep him?”
“Keep him? Is he an animal?” I asked. He snorted. “Jake, Derrick is crazy for you.”
“For now,” he countered. “That doesn’t mean some bimbo with big knockers isn’t going to come along and steal him.”
“Let me get this straight… He might break up with you one day, so you’re sabotaging your relationship now,” I said bluntly.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?” he snapped.
"I am," I told him, "but I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass."
His eyes narrowed on mine as he scowled at me. "What? So, I'm the bad guy?"
“No, you're not. But he wasn't flirting,” I countered.
"Yeah, he was!" he all but shouted as he clenched his fists.
"He made a joke,” I shot back. "Don't you think you might be overreacting?"
He walked up and down the sidewalk taking deep breaths.
“I’m going to tell you the truth. That’s why you love me,” I reminded him. “And kinda hate me right now."
“Maybe," he said through gritted teeth as he turned and paced back towards me. "You might have a point."
“Have you talked to him about this?” I tried to calm him down.
“We’ve been talking about it for a month.” He sighed as he came to stand next to me again.
“Talking, or fighting?” I asked.