Nekesa had dragged me to a football party. She’d just started talking to Aaron, and she was head-over-heels obsessed. Half the people there had been floor-licking drunk, and since I knew no one, I found a nice spot on the sofa in the corner and I literally read The Handmaid’s Tale on my phone—all by myself—while Nekesa made out with her new boyfriend somewhere upstairs.
I’d been totally invisible until Callie Booth—Kristy’s best friend—had plopped down onto the floor beside me. She was hammered and mumbling incoherently, and then she laid her head on my calf.
I’d pretended not to notice—still very intent on remaining invisible—until I felt moisture on my skin.
I’d glanced down, and it was clear the girl had just vomited.
And her mouth was resting on my bare leg.
Without thinking, I moved my leg. I just jerked it out of the way of the vomit, not giving any thought to the fact that once I moved my leg, her forehead might slam into the glass coffee table in front of her.
But worse than Callie’s terribly loud head-bang and resultant groan was Kristy walking into the room the instant it happened. One minute I’d been minding my own business, and the next Kristy Hall had been screaming at me in the middle of the party, “Did you just kick her in the head?”
Even just remembering that moment made my blood pressure spike and my cheeks get hot, because it had been straight out of a bad dream. I had been terrified. If Nekesa hadn’t come downstairs that very minute, I’m fairly certain I would’ve been clawed to death by screaming banshees in letter jackets.
God. Kristy Hall.
I was going to have to find a way to ensure my mother ended things with Scott before Kristy calling me a bitch over morning bagels became a distinct possibility.
God. Kristy Hall.
CHAPTER TWELVE Charlie
As soon as I pulled into the parking lot, my phone buzzed.
I almost ignored it for multiple reasons. First, I knew it would be my mom, and I was too tired to deal with her. Clark was in her ear all the time with parental advice, so it’d become commonplace for her to text me about ways I could be a better son, a more thoughtful brother, and a fucking productive tenant.
Thanks but no thanks.
Second, my shift started in two minutes, so just answering the text was guaranteed to make me late, and I didn’t feel like being late on day two.
Still, I took out my phone and checked the display.
Becca: Can I call you?
“Fuck,” I said under my breath, leaning my head back on the driver’s seat and trying to figure out how to answer that question when my pulse was out of control. It was idiocy, but just seeing Bec’s name pop up on my phone sent my vitals spiraling every time.
No. What do you need? That would be the intelligent response, the way to avoid getting sucked back into the Becca vortex, but I wasn’t intelligent.
No, when it came to Bec, I was the world’s biggest dumbass.
I hit the call button and waited for her to answer, wondering what she wanted to talk about. We’d broken up a few months ago, but she still randomly texted me when I was “on her mind” or something reminded her of me. So even though we weren’t anything anymore, and last I’d heard she was talking to Kyle Hart, I found myself having hours-long random text exchanges with her every couple weeks.
“Hey, you,” she answered, her voice quiet. She wasn’t allowed to do anything on Sundays because her parents called it a family day, so I imagined she was still in bed. “I was dying to talk to you. I’m so glad you called.”
I looked through the windshield and watched a group of Red Dwarfs walking into the building together. “Yeah?”
“Yes.” She cleared her throat and said, “I don’t want this to sound weird because it’s obviously no big deal at all, but you haven’t told anyone that we still talk sometimes, right?”
Fuck. I dragged a hand through my hair and said, “Right.”
“Good,” she said, relief in her voice. “Kyle said something last night that made me realize that people might get the wrong idea. You know, if they knew we still text.”
“Ah,” I said, unable to come up with anything else.
“No one understands that a guy and a girl can be friends and that’s it—just friends,” she said, sounding entirely happy as she rambled in that way I’d always found adorable. “Why can’t we normalize guys and girls having platonic friendships with each other?”
Because they don’t exist.
“Listen, Bec, my shift starts in a minute so I have to go,” I said, taking the keys out of my ignition and feeling like a fool. I knew—I fucking knew—that relationships and love were sinking ships of bullshit, but for some reason, that knowledge went out the goddamn window every time I engaged with Becca.
“Oh, okay,” she said. “Well, have fun at work.”
“Sure,” I said, opening my door.
“And please don’t tell anyone about—”
“Bec.” I said it through gritted teeth, less upset than just… done. Just fucking done and exhausted with motherfucking emotions. “Got it.”
I shook my head as I disconnected the call, because it sucked being right all the time. Bailey thought I was a cynical asshole, but the truth was that she was just further behind me in line. Eventually she’d get to the front and see it all, and I kind of envied that she wasn’t there yet.
I kind of wished she could stay back there forever, blinking fast and clinging to her blissful notions.
I popped a TUM as I headed for the building, counting on the sheer idiocy of my new job to make me forget about life.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Bailey
“Well, if you’re not going to kill him, you could make the guy’s life so miserable that he never wants to return to your apartment.”
“How so?” I looked at Charlie, then at Nekesa and Theo. We were on our first break, sitting at a cafeteria table in Planet Funnn’s Supermassive Fun Hole, and since Nekesa had no filter, the boys were now totally up to speed on the embarrassing thing I’d done at my first booze party, how much I was hated by the popular girls at our school, and the crushing reality that my nemesis could potentially move in with me in the not-so-distant future.
“The possibilities are endless.” Charlie’s voice was quiet and kind of gruff, like he was bored. Or surly. He took a long drink of his Rockstar and said, “You can sit between him and your mom on the couch every single time he comes over. You can find out what he hates and do that like all the time. Conversely, you can find out what he loves and ruin it.”
“Example, please,” I said, intrigued by this notion of subterfuge.
Nekesa grinned and said, “Oh my God—he’s right! If you know he loves football, and he’s coming over on a Monday night, you make sure you’re already watching a documentary on, like, Hurricane Katrina when he gets there. Bonus points if you get your mom super into it so when he shows up, there’s nothing else for him to do but watch the depressing documentary.”
“Ooh,” I said, thinking that didn’t sound too difficult.