CHAPTER 7
K.C.
“Hey, K.C.” Simon, one of the other tutors, came up to me after the sessions ended on Friday. “Doing anything fun this weekend?”
“Probably not,” I said, without looking at him as I loaded up my bag—or Tate’s bag.
“Well, we’re all going out for coffee. Wanna join us?”
I stopped what I was doing and looked up. Peering around him, I saw the other tutors gathering their materials and some waiting by the door.
Smiling softly, I apologized, “Sorry. It’s kind of hot for coffee.”
“Iced coffee, then?” he shot back, grinning playfully. “They have smoothies, too.”
I swung the bag over my head, legs tensing with the urge to walk.
Simon seemed like a nice guy. And good-looking, too. I wasn’t sure if he was feeling me out or just being friendly, but I clutched the strap over my chest, wishing he had just left me alone.
Not that he’d done anything wrong. I should spend time with people. With a potentially nice guy, too. But last night—and nearly every night this week, actually—I’d opted to ignore Shane and texts from Nik and Tate and either take long, long walks or sit on a lawn chair in the backyard and zone out listening to the iPod. Alone but not really lonely.
How was that even possible?
Throughout high school and college, I was always lonely.
At parties. Lonely.
With Liam. Lonely.
Around my family. Lonely.
Standing in the middle of a group of friends. Completely lonely.
But it was weird. Now that I was alone more than I’d ever been in my life, the doubt and the anxiety were replaced with something else.
Time to think. Time to unwind. It unnerved me, but it also felt kind of good. I started putting my feet on the coffee table, drinking from the carton, and playing music every morning when I woke up. It was as though I was starting to meet myself.
I put my head down, feeling bad as I walked around him toward the door, but I just wasn’t up for being social. “Thanks. Maybe another time, Simon.”
As I walked into the hallway, turning right to head out the front doors, my phone rang from inside the bag.
Picking it out, I looked, only hoping to avoid calls from my mother, but I didn’t recognize this number.
I held it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Hey, Trouble,” a deep voice greeted me with humor.
Jared.
“Great,” I mumbled. “You’re teasing me, too? I seem to remember you getting arrested once.”
I heard his quiet laugh on the other end. Jax’s brother—also Tate’s boyfriend—and I were friendly but not particularly close. I hadn’t seen him in forever.
“It’s Tate’s fault, you know?” I explained. “She’s a bad influence.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
Tate was a ballbuster, and the whole town knew it. While she and Jared used to be childhood friends, he’d begun bullying her in high school for reasons I still didn’t know. When Tate started fighting back, she literally started fighting back. There was a broken nose, a knee in the balls, some slaps, and a whole lot of damage to Jared’s car.
Tate was awesome.
“So, how does everyone know?” I asked, remembering the principal’s now useless advice of keeping my trouble a secret. “Was there a press release or something?”
“Tate doesn’t keep things from me. You know that. And, yes,” he continued, “there was a sort of press release. Liam, your asswipe ex, posted it on Facebook.”
I halted in the middle of the parking lot.
“What?” I burst out, every muscle in my body tightening.
“Let it go.” He tried to calm me. “Damage is done, and he got what was coming to him. Jax put a nice, fat fist in his gut.”
Dropping my head back, I closed my eyes to the sky and felt my chest flood with emotions so strong my nerve endings felt like sparklers. Burning, sizzling, searing sparklers.
“Unbelievable.” I sighed. So that was why Jax had jumped Liam last week. It wasn’t about the incident between him and me at the party but about Liam humiliating me publicly on social media.
“Don’t get mad at Jax,” he scolded. “It would’ve been worse for Liam if Madoc and I had been there, too. Fuck,” he continued, “if Tate had been there? Yeah.”
Yeah. Tate would’ve done even worse to him.
I shook my head. People—hundreds of old classmates and Liam’s family members—were now laughing at me.
Now I wanted to put a fat fist in his gut. Was this how Tate felt when she’d finally had enough? I suddenly felt as if I were five and wanted to push people.
I heaved out sigh after sigh, remembering that Jared was still sitting on the phone. Jared. Tate’s boyfriend. A guy I’d kissed before they were together. Tate’s boyfriend. Yeah.
“Why are you calling me?” I asked finally, getting to the point.
He was silent for a few moments, and my other hand started tapping my leg. Jared never called me.
I heard him suck in a long breath. “Relax. Tate knows I’m calling. I just want to know”—he trailed off, hesitating—“how my brother is doing,” he finally finished.
Jax? Why would Jared be asking me that? And then I remembered Jared and Jax’s fight when Jax was in the nurse’s office.
“Um … ,” I drawled out, trying to find an innocent reply but thinking about the weight room and the Loop. “I’m not sure how to answer that, actually.”
“Does he look healthy?”