Wicked Restless (Harper Boys #2)(39)

“Andrew,” he says, leveling me with the kind of look I should only get from my father. If I had one. I have Dwayne. Fuck Dwayne. And f*ck Owen.

I push his chest so hard he stumbles backward, knocking over one of the high-top tables. The bar isn’t crowded, but the dozen or so people around us get quiet, and one of the security guys walks over.

“It’s fine,” I say, raising my hand up. “Go on, get back to the front door with your stupid tight black T-shirt and flashlight, like that really helps you spot fake IDs.”

Trent’s face falls into a look of disgust, and he sighs, shaking his head and tossing both of our sticks on the pool table before walking away.

“Come on,” the bouncer says, his arms folded in front of his body as he steps into my personal space. “You’re done for the night, kid.”

I hate being called kid. I haven’t been a kid in years, since I ran after an ice cream truck with a crumpled dollar bill. I spit on the floor, and for a brief second, I consider taking a swing at him. Luckily, I’m not drunk enough for that yet. This place—it’s my favorite bar. Trent and I come here after games and tough practices. I’d hate myself more than I already do if I f*cked that up, too.

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, pulling my beanie from my back pocket and sliding it on my head. I toss two twenties on the pool table, then shove my hands into my jacket pockets when I leave, stopping a few steps from the bar’s front door. Trent didn’t wait for me; he’s already a block away. I let him go, because if I caught up with him I’d only keep being an *, and he didn’t do anything wrong.

He’s right. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m lost. I was barely with it before, but then I saw her. Now I’m done.

I lean to the side and spit again before looking up into the eyes of the dickhead who kicked me out. I thrust my chest toward him, juking him with my arms out wide. He doesn’t flinch.

“Fuck this place,” I say…to no one.

I walk the long way home, circling through campus, by the lake. A few students are out running, and others are walking quickly from the library in the center of campus out to cars or to their dorms. I bet they’re walking fast because they’re afraid of me. I pause at a bench that’s shadowed by the only tree around that seems to still have its leaves. I sit down and pull my phone out to check the time. I notice a few texts from Owen.

Are you making it to mom’s and Dwayne’s for dinner Sunday?

He sent it only a few minutes ago, so I respond.

Yeah. I’ll be there.

I don’t want to go. But I don’t want to hear the mountain of shit I’ll get for not going more. He writes back a minute later.

Good. Mom’s really freaking out because Kens and I are going to Germany. Try not to be an *, K?

Yep.

I lean my head forward into my hand, my arm rested on my knee. Owen and his girlfriend are spending a year in Germany thanks to some offer my brother got to play basketball there. His girlfriend Kensi plays…like…a dozen instruments or something. She got into some master’s program over there to study with the national symphony. They’ve lived together in the city since graduation—Owen coaches at some prep school and Kens plays in an orchestra. I think they’ll probably end up getting married, which is good because I like Kensi; she’s good to my brother and my mom. Better than I am.

Kensi visited me at Lake Crest. I can’t even count how many times she came to see me—sometimes with Owen, sometimes on her own. When I got in my first fight there, she was the one I called. I was beaten by a guy twice my size and two years older than me. He was in Lake Crest for committing armed robbery; he drove the getaway car. When he asked me to write his term paper for recent American history, I said no. So he f*cked me up when I rounded the corner after my shower in gym. My eye was swollen shut, and he cut me on my cheek and arm with a knife he wasn’t supposed to have, but no one dared take away from him. I called Kensi so she’d come up with an excuse to keep my mom away for an extra week. She did.

Kensi made a lot of excuses for me.

That right there—that small thing that the girl, who will probably marry my brother, did for me, no questions asked—is the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. Kensi wrote to me, too. She sent me clips from the college paper on Owen’s games, and she took pictures and printed them out to make collages of things I missed—my car, my old house, the rink.

I gave up a year and a future, and Emma Burke couldn’t be bothered to stamp a goddamned envelope.

Pulling my phone from my pocket, I scroll to the string of texts between Lindsey and me, and I send her one more.

Can’t wait for Friday. Can I see you tomorrow? I’ll come over. Oh, and don’t tell your roommate, but her cookies made me sick. Had to throw them out.

Standing from the bench, I push my phone back into my pocket and stuff my hands into my jacket, walking back to my apartment feeling entitled to lots of things. First on that list is Emma Burke’s roommate.

And I intend to have her.



* * *





Emma


I didn’t sleep.

Lindsey did.

She slept right through the sound of her phone buzzing on the bed between us. She’d brought it in with her, never stopping in her happiness to leave things in the kitchen or her room. She came to take care of me, then left her phone there as she fell asleep. I know she didn’t do it on purpose; she doesn’t have a clue about any of it at all, about who Drew really is. But it still all feels so carefully played, as if she’s working with him to make sure just the right everything finds my ears and eyes and insides.