She continued to hold me, but I could feel her fingers ease up underneath the hem of my short-sleeved T-shirt.
“Madoc, you’re not a joke.” Her eyes were serious again but softer this time.
You don’t know what I am.
I held her eyes, wanting to tell her everything. Wanting my friend—someone—to see the real me. Jared and Jax were good friends, but guys didn’t want to hear that shit, and we weren’t that observant. Tate knew something was wrong, and I didn’t know how to tell her. I just wanted her to know that underneath it all, I wasn’t a good guy.
“I do stupid things, Tate. That’s what I do. I’m good at it.” I reached up slowly and tucked the few stray hairs from her ponytail behind her ear, lowering my voice to a near whisper. “My father knows it. She knows it.” I dropped my eyes and then looked back up. “You know it, too, don’t you?”
She didn’t answer. Only studied me, the wheels in her head turning.
My hand fell to her cheek, and I remembered all the times that she had reminded me of Fallon. I stroked Tate’s cheek with my thumb, wishing she’d yell at me. Wishing she didn’t care about me. How much easier it would be to know that I didn’t have anything real in my life.
I held her sweet, unknowing face and leaned in closer, smelling her barely-there perfume as I brought my lips closer.
“Madoc?” she asked, her voice confused as she watched me.
Tilting my head down, I planted a soft kiss on her forehead and then leaned back slowly.
Her eyebrows were pinched together in worry as she stared at me. “Are you okay?”
No.
Well, sometimes.
Okay, yes. Most of the time, I guess.
Just not at night.
“Wow.” I took a deep breath and smiled. “I hope you know that that didn’t mean anything,” I joked. “I mean, I love you. Just not like that. More like a sister.” I burst into laughter and hunched over, barely finishing the sentence as I closed my eyes and held onto my stomach.
“I don’t get the joke,” Tate scolded.
A high-pitched whistle pierced the air, and Tate and I looked up.
“What the hell’s going on?” Jared’s big and angry daddy voice ripped through the bowling alley, making my ears ache.
But as I turned around to face him, I accidentally stepped back onto the slippery lane.
“Oh, shit!” My breath caught as I slid, and I stupidly kept my weight on Tate, which was too much for her. Backward I fell and into my lap she stumbled. We slammed to the floor, hitting the wood hard. I’d probably bruised every damn inch of my ass, but Tate was cool. She landed on me. That was cool for me, too.
But when I looked over at my best friend standing at the start of the lane, looking at us with murder in his eyes, I pushed Tate off me in disgust.
“Dude, she slipped me whiskey and tried to date-rape me!” I pointed at Tate. “She keeps it under the counter. Go look!”
Tate growled and crawled back up to the median, her messy ponytail hanging by a prayer.
“Jax!” Jared yelled to the lane at my right where Jax was crawling back up the lane. “And you.” Jared’s eyes shot bullets at me. “Get in my car now.”
“Ooooh, I think he wants to give you a spanking,” I singsonged to Tate as she stomped down the median to her boyfriend.
“Shut up, doofus,” she spat back.