Sempre (Forever Series #1)(7)

“Whatever.”

“Whatever,” Vincent mimicked him, shaking his head. “It’s nice to see the money I paid to send you to Benton Academy made you more articulate.”

Carmine shuddered at the mention of that place.

He’d landed in trouble the year before—trouble that could have ruined his life—but his father had pulled some strings to get him out of it. He hadn’t exactly been forgiving, though, and had shipped him to a boarding school across the country for a semester. Carmine swore the moment he was on the plane heading home that nothing like it would happen again, but it was a lot easier said than done. He never went looking for it, but trouble found him every time he turned a corner.

And Carmine turned a lot of motherf**king corners.

“Yeah, well, you should’ve saved your pennies. Your life would be easier if you would’ve let me rot.”

“I bet you truly believe that,” Vincent said, glancing at his watch. “I have to get cleaned up for work. Just remember to ask Dia—”

“I already said I heard you. How many times are you going to remind me?”

“Until I know you won’t forget.”

“Well, I won’t.”

“Good,” he said, “because if you do, we’re going to have a problem.”

* * *

Dia Harper drove an old Toyota, slate gray and missing two hubcaps. She’d bought it with money she earned freelancing, which meant she’d do nearly anything for a few bucks. Shopping, cleaning, passing messages . . . She’d even written a term paper for Carmine for fifty dollars once. A leak in the exhaust system made the car emit strong gas fumes that she tried to cover with a dozen tree-shaped air fresheners. Carmine wouldn’t be caught dead riding in it, but to Dia, the car was the Holy Grail.

She was perched on the hood of it in the parking lot that morning when Carmine arrived at school. “I still don’t get it,” she said, shaking her head as soon as he stepped out. “Explain it again.”

Carmine leaned against his black Mazda in the spot beside her. “There’s nothing to get. It is what it is.”

“What is it?”

“Sex,” he said, laughing at the bewildered expression on Dia’s face. Her blue eyes were hidden beneath layers of dark makeup, and she’d added some pink and purple streaks to her short blonde hair since yesterday. She defined eccentric in her mismatched clothes, her new bulky camera hanging by a strap around her neck. Nothing about Dia conformed, which was what had drawn Carmine to her in the first place. Although he was popular, there weren’t many people he considered friends. He felt there were two types of people in the small town of Durante, North Carolina, where they lived—those who wanted him, and those who wished they could be him. Dia was different, though. She was honest and, living in a world surrounded by nothing but lies, Carmine appreciated that.

“But why Lisa?” Dia asked, refusing to drop the subject.

Carmine looked across the parking lot at where a group of girls had gathered and shrugged when he spotted Lisa Donovan. She had long blonde hair, her body slim and skin darkly tanned. She looked like every other girl in school—nothing to write home about.

Not that there was anyone at his home who gave a shit about his life . . .

“She’s quick to get nak*d. Less work for me.”

“Gross.” Dia wrinkled her nose. “You need a decent girl to straighten you out.”

“I don’t need straightened out,” Carmine said. “Why drown in love when you can have so much fun swimming around in lust?”

“But her?” Dia pressed. “Out of everyone in this school, you pick Moanin’ Lisa.”

Carmine chuckled, tugging on a chunk of Dia’s colorful hair. “Looks like you’re the painting today, Warhol.”

“Hey, I’ll take it,” she said. “Andy Warhol was one of the best.”

“He was crazy.”

“Maybe, but he was still a genius.” She nodded toward the group of girls. “Which Moanin’ Lisa, clearly, is not. I don’t think she can even string together a sentence. Have you tried to have an intelligent conversation with her? It’s like talking to a brick wall.”

“No, we don’t do a lot of talking,” he said. “She’s not so bad from behind with her face shoved into a mattress, though.”

Dia shook her head as Carmine laughed again. He had no real interest in Lisa, or any other girl for that matter. But while a relationship was the furthest thing from his mind, he’d realized there were benefits to keeping female company. They might not have been intellectually stimulating, but they did stimulate another part of him . . . often.

A silver Audi whipped into the parking lot then, coming to a stop beside them. Dominic hopped out from behind the wheel and Tess, his girlfriend, climbed from the passenger seat. Tess was Dia’s twin sister, but the two couldn’t have been more opposite.

They’d all known one another since they moved to the area in elementary school, but the relationship between Dominic and Tess was new. It was strange—the life Carmine had left wasn’t the same one he’d returned to, and he had a hard time adjusting to the change.

“What are y’all up to?” Dominic asked.

“Trying to get Carmine to see the error of his ways when it comes to Lisa,” Dia said. “It’s not working.”