- -
- 100%
- +
Abbi snorted. “I seriously doubt there is any juicy or dirty details.”
“I don’t know if I should be offended by that statement or not,” I said.
“I just can’t see that happening,” Abbi replied with a lopsided shrug.
“I don’t know how you spend so much time with him and not want to jump on him like a rabid mountain lion in heat,” Megan mused. “I wouldn’t be able to control myself.”
I leaned my head back. “Wow.” My friends were kind of weird. Specifically Megan. “Aren’t you back with Phillip?”
“Kind of? Not sure. We’re talking.” Megan giggled. “Even if I were back with him, it doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate that fine specimen of a guy living next door to you.”
“Have at it,” I muttered.
“Have you noticed how hot people flock together? Like all of Sebastian’s friends—Keith, Cody, Phillip. All of them are hot. It’s the same with Skylar and her friends. Kind of like birds migrating south for the winter,” Megan continued.
Abbi murmured under her breath, “What the hell?”
“Anyway, I’m not ashamed of my not-so-friendly thoughts toward Sebastian. Everyone has a crush on him,” Megan said. “I have a crush on him. Abbi has a crush on him—”
“What?” shouted Abbi. “I don’t have a crush on him.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. You have the hots for Keith. My bad.”
I twisted halfway to see Abbi’s reaction to that and I was not let down.
Abbi lifted up onto her elbows, turning her head toward Megan. If looks could kill, Megan’s entire family would’ve just died.
“I might seriously hit you, and since you weigh, like, eighty pounds wet and I have about a hundred on you, I’m going to snap you like a KitKat bar.”
I grinned as I turned back to my closet and dropped to my knees, rummaging through the books and jeans on the bottom of the narrow closet. “Keith’s cute, Abbi.”
“Yeah, he’s hot, but he’s also the school bike and everyone has had a ride,” she commented.
“I haven’t,” Megan said.
“Me neither.” Finding the cutoffs, I snagged them off the floor and rose. “Keith has been trying to get with you since you developed breasts.”
“Which was, like, the fifth grade.” Megan laughed as Abbi threw my poor pillow at her. “What? It’s the truth.”
Abbi shook her head. “Y’all are crazy. I don’t think Keith is into girls darker than your lily-white asses.”
I snorted as I dropped into the desk chair. The back bumped into the edge of the desk, rattling the stack of books. “I’m pretty sure Keith is into girls of all skin tones, shapes and sizes and then some,” I said, bending over and grabbing the pens and highlighters that had fallen from the desktop.
Abbi huffed. “Whatever. We are not talking about my nonexistent attraction to Keith.”
I turned to Abbi. “You know, Skylar stopped into Joanna’s last night and asked if Sebastian knew I was in love with him.” I forced out a casual-sounding laugh. “That’s crazy, right?”
Megan’s blue eyes widened to the size of planets. Not Pluto...more like Jupiter. “What?”
Abbi was also paying attention. “Details, Lena.”
I filled them in on what Skylar had to say last night. “It was just really weird.”
“Well, obviously she wants to get back with him.” Abbi looked thoughtful. “But why would she ask you that? Even if it was true, why would you admit that to her, his ex-girlfriend?”
“Right? I was thinking about that earlier.” I toed myself around in a slow circle on the chair. “I’ve been around her a lot because of her dating Sebastian, but it’s not like we’re friends. I wouldn’t admit my deepest secrets to her.”
Abbi tilted her head to the side and looked like she wanted to say something but kept quiet.
“Oh! I almost forgot,” Megan exclaimed as she dropped her feet to the floor, clearly on to the next topic. Pink flooded her heart-shaped face. “I heard that Cody and Jessica are seeing each other again.”
“Not surprised.” Cody Reece was the star quarterback. Sebastian was the star running back. Friendship made in football heaven right there. And Jessica was, well... She wasn’t particularly the nicest person I’d ever met.
“Didn’t Cody try to get with you at Keith’s party back in July?” Abbi asked, rolling onto her back.
I shot her a death glare more powerful than the Death Star’s laser. “I had forgotten all about that, so thanks for bringing that back up.”
“You’re welcome,” she quipped.
“I remember that party. Cody was super drunk.” Megan started twisting her hair in a rope, which she’d loved doing since we were kids. “He probably doesn’t even remember hitting on you, but you better hope Jessica doesn’t find out. That girl is territorial. She will make your senior year a living hell.”
I wasn’t really worried about Jessica, because, logically, how could she be that upset over Cody hitting on me at a party when they weren’t even together? That didn’t even make sense.
Megan cursed, jumping to her feet. “I was supposed to meet my mom ten minutes ago. She’s taking me back-to-school shopping, which really means she’s going to try to dress me like I’m still five.” She picked up her purse and then her gym bag. “By the way, it’s Friday, and don’t think I’ve forgotten my weekly reminder.”
I sighed heavily. Here we go...
“It’s time for you to get a boyfriend. Anyone really, at this point. And a real one, too. Not a book boyfriend.” She walked to my bedroom door.
I threw up my hands. “Why are you so obsessed with the idea of me having a boyfriend?”
“Why are you so obsessed with me?” mimicked Abbi.
I ignored it. “You do remember that I had one, right?”
“Yes.” She raised her chin. “Had. As in past tense.”
“Abbi doesn’t have a boyfriend!” I pointed out.
“We’re not talking about her. But I know why you aren’t interested in anyone.” She tapped the side of her head. “I know.”
“Oh my God.” I shook my head.
“Heed my words. Live a little. If you don’t, when you’re thirty and living alone with a ton of cats and eating tuna fish for dinner, you’ll regret it. Not even the good tuna fish. The generic kind steeped in oil. All because you spend every waking minute reading books while you could be out there, meeting the future daddy to your babies.”
“That’s a little excessive,” I murmured, side-eyeing her. “And what’s wrong with generic tuna fish in oil?” I looked over at Abbi. “It tastes better than when it’s soaked in water.”
“Agreed,” she replied.
“And I’m really not interested in meeting my future baby daddy,” I added. “I don’t even think I want kids. I’m seventeen. And kids weird me out.”
“You disappoint me,” Megan stated. “But I still love you, because I’m that good of a friend.”
“What would I do without you?” I gave myself a twirl in the chair.
“You’d be a basic bitch.” Megan gave me a cheeky grin.
I pressed my hand to my heart. “Ouch.”
“I’ve got to go.” She wiggled her fingers. “Text ya later.”
Then she flounced out of the room. Literally. Head back, arms flailing and prancing like a show horse.
* * *
“Talk about basic.” Abbi shook her head as she stared at the empty doorway.
“I will never understand her fascination with my singleness.” I looked at Abbi. “Like, at all.”
“Who knows with her.” Abbi paused. “So... I think my mom is screwing around on my dad.”
My jaw dropped. “Wait, what?”
Abbi stood and planted her hands on her hips. “Yeah. You heard me right.”
For a moment I didn’t know what to say and it took a couple of seconds to get my tongue to work. “Why do you think that?”
“Remember how I was telling you that her and Dad had been arguing more lately?” She walked over to the window that overlooked the backyard. “They try to keep it quiet so my brother and I don’t hear it, but it’s been getting pretty heated and Kobe is having nightmares now.”
Abbi’s brother was only five or six years old. Rough.
“I think they’ve been fighting over her working so late at the hospital and, you know, why she’s working so late. And I mean late, Lena. Like, how often are there call-ins that make other nurses stay? Is my dad that stupid?” She turned from the window, came back over to the bed and plopped down on the edge. “I was still up when she came home Wednesday night, four hours after her shift would’ve ended, and she looked a hot mess. Her hair was sticking up in every direction, clothes all wrinkled like she rolled out of someone’s bed and came home.”
My chest squeezed. “Maybe it was just a rough night at work for her.”
She shot me a bland look. “She smelled like cologne, and not the kind my dad wears.”
“That’s not...good.” I leaned forward in the chair. “Did she say anything to you when you saw her?”
“See, that’s the thing. She looked guilty. Wouldn’t look me in the eye. Couldn’t get out of the kitchen quick enough, and the first thing she did when she got upstairs was shower. And the whole showering thing might not be abnormal, but when you add all of that together...”
“Damn. I don’t know what to say,” I admitted, twisting my shorts in my hands. “Are you going to say anything?”
“What would I say? ‘Oh, hey, Dad, I think Mom is slutting around on you, so you might want to check on that’? I don’t see that ending well. And what if, by a snowball’s chance in hell, I’m wrong?”
I cringed. “Good point.”
She rubbed her hands over her thighs. “I don’t know what happened between them. They were happy up until about a year ago and it’s just all gone to shit.” Pushing her curls out of her face, she shook her head. “I just needed to tell someone.”
I toed my chair closer to her. “Understandable.”
A brief smile appeared. “Can we change the subject? I really don’t want to deal with this longer than five minutes at a time.”
“Sure.” I got that more than anyone else. “Whatever you want.”
She drew in a deep breath and then seemed to shake out all those thoughts. “So... Sebastian came home early.”
That wasn’t necessarily the conversation I wanted to go back to, but if Abbi wanted to use me as a distraction, I could be that for her. I shrugged and let my head fall back at the same moment my stupid heart did a giddy little flip.
“Were you happy to see him?” she asked.
“Sure,” I replied, going for my usual bored tone when talking about Sebastian.
“Where’s he at now?”
“At the school. They’ve got a scrimmage game tonight. He’s not playing, but they’ve probably got him practicing.”
“You’re working this weekend?” she asked.
“Yeah, but this is my last weekend for a while, since school starts. Why? You want to do something?”
“Of course. Better than being stuck on babysitting duty at home and listening to my parents bitching at one another.” Abbi nudged my leg with her sandaled foot. “You know, I hate to even point this out, but do you think Skylar might’ve had a point asking—”
“About me and Sebastian? No. What? That’s stupid.”
A doubtful look crossed her face. “You don’t love Sebastian at all?”
My heart started pounding in my chest. “Of course I love him. I love you and Dary, too. I even love Megan.”
“But you didn’t love Andre—”
“No. I didn’t.” Closing my eyes, I thought about my ex even though I really didn’t want to. We’d dated almost all last year, and Abbi was right: Andre was awesome and nice, and I felt like a jerk for ending things with him. But I tried, really tried, even by taking it to the next level—the level—but my interest just wasn’t there. “It wasn’t working out.”
She was quiet for a moment. “You know what I think?”
I let my arms fall to my sides. “Something wise and sage?”
“Those two words mean the same thing, idiot.” She kicked my leg again. “If you’re not being entirely honest with yourself about Sebastian, then applying to UVA is a smart idea.”
“What does he have to do with UVA?”
She tilted her head to the side. “Are you saying it’s a coincidence that the one school that’s not high on his list is the one school you’re gunning for?”
Stunned into silence, I wasn’t sure what to say. Abbi had never insinuated that I was interested in Sebastian beyond being friends before. I was confident I’d kept that embarrassing yearning desire well hidden, but obviously not as well as I believed. First Skylar, who really didn’t know me, and now Abbi, who did?
“UVA is an awesome school and has an amazing anthropology department.” I opened my eyes and my gaze fixed on the cracked plaster of the ceiling.
Abbi’s voice softened. “You’re not...hiding again, are you?”
The back of my throat burned as I pressed my lips together. I knew what she was talking about, and it had nothing to do with Sebastian. It had everything to do with the missed call earlier. “No,” I told her. “I’m not.”
She was quiet for a moment and then said, “Are you really going to wear those shorts to work? You look like a low-rent Daisy Duke in them.”
* * *
At Keith’s. You coming out?
The text from Sebastian came just as I was pulling into my driveway after my Friday shift. While I normally didn’t pass up an opportunity to hang with Sebastian, I was feeling a little weird after the whole conversation with Abbi. Plus I was exhausted, so I was ready to climb under the covers and lose myself for a little while in a book.
Staying in tonight, I texted back.
He promptly replied with the smiling poop emoticon.
Grinning, I replied with Turd.
The triple dots appeared and then, You going to be up later?
Maybe. I climbed out of the car and headed toward the front door.
Then maybe I’ll swing by.
My stomach dipped as it twisted. I knew what that meant. Sometimes Sebastian snuck over really late, usually when something was going down at home he didn’t want to deal with...that something usually being his dad.
And I knew, I knew deep down, that even with all the years he’d been dating Skylar, he’d never done that with her. When something was troubling him, he sought me out, and I knew I shouldn’t have been thrilled about that, but I was. And I held that knowledge close to my heart.
I followed the low hum of the TV, passing through the small entry room that was overflowing with umbrellas and sneakers and the small table piled with unopened mail.
The glow of the TV cast soft, flickering light over the couch. Mom was curled up on her side, one hand shoved under a throw pillow. She was out cold.
Stepping around the love seat, I grabbed the afghan off the back of the couch and carefully draped it over Mom. As I straightened, I thought about what Abbi had told me earlier. I had no idea if her mom was cheating on her dad, but I thought about my mom and how she would’ve never cheated on Dad. The mere thought almost made me laugh, because she loved him like the sea loved the sand. He’d been her universe, her sun that rose in the morning and the moon that took over the night sky. She loved Lori and me, but she had loved Dad more.
But Mom’s love wasn’t enough. My and my sister’s love was never enough. In the end, Dad still left us. All of us.
And, God help me, I was a lot like my father.
I looked like him, except I was more of an...average version. Same mouth. Same strong nose that was almost too big for my face. Same hazel-colored eyes, more brown than any other interesting shade. My hair matched his, a brown that sometimes turned auburn in the sunlight, and it was on the long side, falling past my breasts. My body was neither thin nor overweight. I was somewhere stuck in the middle. I wasn’t tall or short. I was just...
Average.
Not like my mom, though. She was stunning, all blond hair and flawless skin. Even though life had gotten way harder in the last five years, she persevered and that made her all the more beautiful. Mom was strong. She never gave up, no matter what, even if there were moments where she looked like she just might want to pack it all in.
For Mom, our love was enough to keep going.
Lori got the blessed side of our genetics, taking after Mom. Blonde bombshell to the max, with all the curves and pouty lips to back it up.
But the similarities ran deeper than the physical for me.
I was a runner, too, and not the healthy kind. When things got too rough, I checked out, just like Dad had. I made an art form of looking toward tomorrow instead of focusing on today.
But I was also like my mother. She was a chaser. Always running after someone who didn’t even realize you were there. Always waiting for someone who was never going to come back.
It was like I ended up with the worst qualities of my parents.
Heaviness settled in my chest as I went upstairs and got ready for bed. This November would be four years since Dad left. I couldn’t believe it had already been that long. Still felt like yesterday in a lot of ways.
Throwing back the covers on my bed, I started to climb in but stopped when my gaze fell on the doors leading out to the balcony. I should lock the doors. Sebastian probably wouldn’t stop by, and besides, even if he did, that...that wasn’t good.
Maybe that was why no one else interested me.
Why Andre hadn’t kept my interest.
Scrubbing my hands down my face, I sighed. Maybe I was just being dumb. How I felt about Sebastian couldn’t change our relationship. It shouldn’t. Putting a little distance between us, setting up some boundaries, wouldn’t be a bad idea. It was probably the smartest and healthiest thing to do, because I didn’t want to be a runner or a chaser.
I was moving off the bed before I realized what I was doing.
I walked over to the doors and unlocked them with a soft click.
CHAPTER FOUR
I half awoke to the feeling of my bed shifting and the soft whispering of my name.
I rolled onto my side and winced as I blinked open my eyes. I’d fallen asleep with the lamp on and I could feel the hard edges of the book now pressing into my back. I wasn’t really thinking about the book, though.
Sebastian was sitting on the edge of my bed, his head tilted to the side and a small grin on his lips.
“Hey,” I murmured, staring up at him with sleepy eyes. “What...what time is it?”
“A little after three.”
“Are you just getting home?” Sebastian didn’t really have a curfew. I did during the school year, but as long as he was scoring touchdowns, his parents pretty much let him come and go as he pleased.
“Yeah. We got into a mad game of badminton. Loser out of five games has to wash the cars.”
I laughed. “Seriously?”
“Hell yeah.” The grin kicked up a notch. “Keith and his brother versus me and Phillip.”
“Who won?”
“Do you really need to ask that?” He reached out, gently shoving my arm. “Phillip and I did, of course. We made that birdie our bitch.”
I rolled my eyes. “Wow.”
“Anyway, our win involves you.”
“Huh?” I squinted at him.
“Yep.” Lifting his hand, he knocked a hank of hair off his forehead. “I plan on getting the Jeep as dirty as humanly possible, and I mean I want it to look like one of those abandoned cars on The Walking Dead. So how about we ride out to the lake this week and mess my baby up.”
Grinning, I pressed my face into the pillow. Sebastian wanting me to go to the lake with him shouldn’t mean anything, but it did. It meant too much. “You’re terrible.”
“Terribly adorable, right?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I murmured, sticking my arm under the blanket.
Sebastian leaned onto his side, stretching his legs out on top of the covers. “What did you do with your night? Read?”
“Yeah.”
“Such a nerd.”
“Such a jerk.”
He chuckled. “How was practice today?”
Wrinkling my nose, I groaned.
“That bad?”
“Coach thinks I shouldn’t work,” I told him. “Not like it’s the first time he’d brought it up, but he brought up Dad, and that just...well, you know.”
“Yeah,” he replied quietly. “I know.”
“He did say he thought I had a chance at landing a scholarship if I focused more on playing.”
Sebastian flicked my arm. “I’ve told you a million times you’ve got skill out on the court.”
I rolled my eyes. “You have to say that because you’re my friend.”
“Because I’m your friend, I’d tell you if you sucked.”
I laughed softly. “I know I’m not terrible, but I’m nowhere near as good as Megan or half the team. There’s no way a scout is going to pay attention to me. And that’s okay,” I quickly added. “I’m not banking on that kind of scholarship anyway.”
“I feel you.” His grin started to slip away. His expression turned pensive, and as I watched him, the last of the sleepiness faded away.
I gripped the edges of the blanket, tugging it to my chin. A heartbeat passed. “What’s going on?”
Scrubbing a hand down his face, he exhaled heavily. “Dad...he really has his heart set on Chapel Hill.”
From previous experience, I knew to proceed with caution with this conversation. He wouldn’t talk about his dad a lot, and when he did, he quickly reached the point where he would just shut down about the whole thing. I always thought he needed to talk about it. I totally got the irony of that, since I wouldn’t talk about my dad, but whatever.
“Chapel Hill is a really good school,” I started. “And it’s really expensive, right? If you get in on a scholarship, that would be pretty amazing. You’d also be close to your cousins.”
“Yeah. I know that, but...”
“But what?”
He rolled onto his back and thrust his hands under his head. “I don’t want to go there. I don’t really have a good reason. The campus is freaking cool as hell, but just not into it.”
Knowing that Sebastian was as close to Keith and Phillip as he was to Cody, I figured maybe it had something to do with them. “Where do the guys want to go?”
“Keith and Phillip are hoping to get on at West Virginia University. Phillip really wants to play ball for them. Thinking Keith wants to go there because of the parties.” He paused. “I think Cody is set for Penn State.”
For years, WVU had been the number one party school in the United States, and I was sure it was still up in the top five, so it would be a great fit for Keith. “Do you want to go there?”
“Not really.”
I wiggled down, getting comfortable. “Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sebastian.” I sighed. “You have to know. This is our senior year. You don’t have much time left. Scouts are going to be coming to the games and—”
“And maybe I don’t care about the scouts.”
I snapped my mouth shut, because there it was, the thing I’d been sensing about Sebastian for the last year.
He turned his head toward me. “You don’t have anything to say to that?”
“I was waiting for you to elaborate.”
A muscle worked in his jaw as he stared back. “I... God, even in the middle of the night, in your room, I still don’t even want to say it. It’s like my father is going to pop out of the damn closet and lose his mind. Instead of Bloody Mary, he’d be Bloody Marty.”
I drew in a deep breath. “You don’t... You don’t want to play college ball, do you?”
His eyes closed and several moments stretched out between us. “It’s crazy, isn’t it? I mean, I’ve always played ball. I don’t even remember a time when I wasn’t being carted off to practice or seeing my mom cleaning grass stains out of my pants. And I like playing it. I’m good at it.” He said it without an ounce of arrogance. It was just the truth. Sebastian had a God-given talent for playing football. “But when I think about another four years of getting up at dawn, running and catching...another four years of Dad basing his entire existence on how the game goes...I want to turn to drinking. Hell, maybe even crack and meth. Something.”