Kiss and Break Up (Magnolia Cove, #1)(55)

For once, I chose to keep my thoughts to myself.

“I put it on knowing it was too small but not giving a shit. I’d done it before.”

We all mumbled our agreement. “Happens.”

“But I didn’t think it’d fucking break.”

Again, more silence.

I’d been at home all week with nothing but silence. I wanted noise. I needed mayhem. “When and where is the next party?”

They all looked at me like I was nuts, but Lars tipped his head back, thinking. “There’s a couple tomorrow night. One down by the bay and another at Rosetta Carmichael’s for her eighteenth.”

“You wanna go?” I asked him. “We can get fucked up.”

Lars nodded. “Hell yeah, I do.”

The other two nodded too, and then Lars moved the topic to me.

“Talked to Peggy?”

I flicked ash from my cigarette, laughing through a cloud of smoke. “Fuck no.”

Jackson scratched at his stubble. “She handed Byron his ass at school.”

I didn’t want to know. I didn’t need to know. “How?”

Mother of shit.

As if he could read the ongoing torment between my brain and heart, Lars smirked.

Rave kicked at his pedal, bending over to check it. “Marched over to the team’s table and made him follow her to one of their own.”

She’d let him touch and kiss her, then invited him to lunch? My fists clenched, and nerve-endings zinged as the cigarette crumpled, burning me. I dropped it.

“Pretty sure they broke up,” Lars said.

Jackson belched. “Yup. In front of the entire cafeteria.” He chuckled. “I’ve never seen Miss Peggy Sue look so mad. Not even that time you put ants in her lunch box.”

I scowled. “I didn’t do that.”

Jackson’s face scrunched as he prepared to launch into the bowl. “Ah, yes you did. And a million other fucked-up things.”

“I was her best friend,” I defended.

“And her biggest tormentor.” He took off, leaving me stupefied.

“Damn,” Raven said. “Ants? I reckon you should consider yourself lucky that girl even put up with you.”

I growled, getting up and swinging my leg over my bike. “Fuck all of you, you don’t know shit.” They didn’t. They didn’t know how close we’d come to venturing into something life changing. Instead, we’d ventured into something neither of us could recover from.

And it was all her fault.

Lars heaved out a sigh as he stood and picked up his piece of shit bike. It wasn’t shit, it was actually awesome, but it was old as hell. “I need a fucking drink.”

“I fucking hear that.”

Rave clucked his tongue. “So which one are we going to tomorrow night?”

“Any. Both,” I said. “Don’t even care.”

I might have been grounded, considering I’d been suspended from school, but I’d been grounded over a hundred times in my life and never once had I actually abided by it.

Dad was too busy screwing his secretary when he wasn’t doing actual work, and Mom was too busy floundering over Emanuel and her dumbass problems that weren’t even problems to realize I’d left the house.

When Dad had asked me why I’d beat the hell out of Byron Woods, all I’d done was shrug. Mom told him it was about Peggy, and then Dad had given me a look that said he understood. He wasn’t happy, but he knew she’d been dating the asshole.

It didn’t matter that she’d been dating him. That had never mattered when I’d woken up to the idea that she was only ever supposed to be mine.

Nothing much really mattered now. If life wanted to keep throwing shit at me, I was going to move, dodge the spray, and no longer take it lying down.

It was time to throw shit back.





Peggy



I flicked through Facebook, realizing with a jolt that Dash had blocked me.

He hardly used it, and neither did I, but he’d gone and blocked me anyway.

I jumped over to Instagram, and sure enough, I was unable to pull up his profile there too.

“Talk about extreme measures,” I said, heading back over to Facebook.

People were posting about the parties tonight. Selfies had been locked and loaded, locations marked, and I had to wonder if any parents in the cove who cared where their kids were bothered to check their Facebook posts. Unless, of course, they’d blocked them from seeing certain things.

“Smart,” I said, shoving more potato chips into my mouth, uncaring that I was doing a lot of talking to myself.

“Pegs.” Mom stopped at my door with her hair done in a loose updo. Phil must have been taking her out. “I’ll be home around eleven. You’ll be okay?”

I eyed the potato chip bag next to me and the jar of dip beside it, then my pink fluffy socks. “Yeah, I’m all set.”

She smiled, about to leave, then walked into the room to sit by my feet. “Listen, I know you’ve been having a hard time, and I know Dash hasn’t been here in an unusually long time.”

“It’s been a week,” I said, a tad defensively.

“Like I said, a long time.” She had me there. “And it’s killing me to try to give you space, but I need to know. What happened?”