Every Other Weekend(72)
Adam:
You’ll get there.
Jolene:
I’m not sure I like it.
I bit my lip waiting for his response. Guys were so sensitive. If I shut down his flirting, I could end up shutting down a lot more than that.
Adam:
Fine. I’ll stop, but as long as you
keep sending me texts like this, it’s game on.
He pasted in a text I’d sent him the previous weekend: I’m here. Why don’t you back that thing up and come over?
Jolene:
I was quoting a song.
Adam:
Is that the rule?
Jolene:
I was being funny. It’s different.
Adam:
So I’ll be funny.
Jolene:
You weren’t being funny at the dance.
Adam:
Nothing about holding you felt funny.
Jolene:
That’s what I’m talking about.
Adam:
Fine. Next time I have you in my arms, I tickle you instead.
I started to type Instead? but that would have invited all sorts of other responses. I deleted it.
Jolene:
Dream on.
Adam:
We’ll see. Night, Jolene.
Jolene:
Night.
A door slammed, and a moment later a car peeled out of the driveway.
I unclasped my mother’s pearl necklace and set it on my dresser.
ADAM
Jeremy had been smiling all weekend since the dance, and I’d avoided confronting him over springing his date on me, because my night with Jolene had still been amazing. But when he started whistling as we drove to school on Monday, I’d had enough.
My hand lashed out and I turned the radio on. Loud.
Beside me, Jeremy laughed and flicked it off. “All right. Say it.”
I kept my mouth shut as I let my gaze travel over the cars we passed.
“I can’t believe what a pissy little brat you are sometimes.” Jeremy gritted his teeth. “Fine, I should have told you about Erica, okay?”
“Hell yes, you should have told me about Erica.”
My brother’s jaw relaxed since I’d decided to yell at him instead of stay silent. “Hey, I told you you’d regret letting Erica go. You can’t be mad that she’s into me now, especially since you told me to ask her out.”
“I don’t regret breaking up with Erica.” I shook my head at how dense he was. “And I don’t care that you’re going out with her, if that’s what she wants.”
“Oh, it’s definitely what she wants.” Jeremy grinned.
I locked my jaw. “I swear, if you think about whistling again...”
Jeremy started laughing. “Well, then what? You got the girl you want and I got the girl you were too stupid to want.” The back of his hand slapped my chest. “Cheer up.”
I glanced down at where he’d slapped me before turning to face him. “You’re a tool,” I told him in a calm voice.
“Whatever, man.”
“No, not whatever.” I twisted and the seat belt pulled against me. “I don’t care that you’re with Erica. In fact, great. Good for you.” I felt a weird twinge that she could be into him after being into me, but my feelings for Erica had been nothing like my feelings for Jolene, so that was my pride bugging me more than anything else. “I care that you set out to screw me over, and you didn’t care that you were hurting Jolene and Erica in the process.”
Jeremy pulled his mouth to the side and quickly frowned. “So now you care about hurting Erica? I was the one who was with her every day at rehearsal. You don’t even know the number you pulled on her.”
My neck heated. “Yeah, I was a jerk, but I didn’t mean to hurt her. You didn’t tell me who your date was, and I’m betting Erica had no idea she was about to be trapped in a car with me and the girl she thought I cheated on her with.”
“Oh, she knew.” When I stayed silent, Jeremy actually looked offended. “You really thought I’d do that? To a girl I liked?”
Yeah, actually, I had. My brother’s emotional range was pretty stunted, in my experience. “Erica knew?”
“Fair’s fair. You didn’t exactly prepare her before you let half the school catch you making out with Jolene in the parking lot.”
“We weren’t—” I ground my teeth. What people thought they’d seen me doing with Jolene wasn’t the point anymore. “Erica isn’t vindictive. She wouldn’t have done that.”
“Maybe you don’t know her as well as you think.”
I frowned at that, and Jeremy shook his head.
“You were at her house all the time. What’d you guys do if you weren’t talk—” His jaw twisted and he closed his mouth with an audible click. I watched his fingers clench around the steering wheel, and I let him squirm for a good minute, imagining all the many non-talking things we might have done. When his face started to turn purple, I figured he’d had enough.
“I only kissed her a few times, and never for long because her dad kept coming to check on us.” That and my thoughts had kept straying to Jolene, and I hadn’t wanted to use Erica like that, but I wasn’t about to confess that to Jeremy.
Jeremy shot me a sideways glance as though he was trying to ascertain if I was lying, before his head jerked in a quick nod. He still seemed a little skeptical, and if our situations were reversed and he’d gone out with Jolene before me—the thought alone made me want rip his throat out—I’d have had a hard time believing he’d been able to resist her.