The Girl in the Love Song (Lost Boys #1)(48)

Holden nudged my arm with his elbow. “What’s that all about?”

“I asked Vi if we could hang out tonight.”

“And that’s cause for dramatic smolder because…?”

“Because he’s in love with her but won’t tell her,” Ronan said.

“I’m not in love with her.”

“My ass.”

Ronan stopped at the Ball Toss game, his favorite; he liked to smash things.

He hadn’t been at school or the Shack for a few days and had finally returned in a darker mood than usual with a bruise over one eye and another peeking out of his T-shirt. I wondered how many more were hiding under his clothes and who gave them to him. But when we’d asked that afternoon, he’d barked at us that it was none of our fucking business.

I worried about him too.

Ronan hurled the ball with tremendous force, and the plastic bottles went tumbling down in a heap.

The carny running the game flinched. “Jesus, take it easy.”

Holden grinned. “This game is supposed to be rigged, isn’t it?”

“Not when Ronan plays it.”

“You can take a small prize now or try your luck again to upgrade,” the carny said. “You lose, you get nothing.”

Ronan held out his hand. “Ball.”

The carny sighed and handed it over.

“Well?” Holden asked me. “Which is it? Are you in love with her or not?”

“He is,” Ronan said, taking aim. “He’s just trying to talk himself out of it.”

He let the ball fly, and another stack of bottles was demolished. One more and he’d take home one of the ginormous teddy bears affixed to the booth’s ceiling.

“I’m trying to talk myself out of it because she wants to stay friends.”

Holden put his flask to his lips. “Unrequited love is the first circle of hell.”

“Tell me about it.”

Ronan hurled the final ball. It flew so fast and hit so hard, the bottles went flying and tore a hole in the cheap linen tarp behind it.

“Dude.” The carny fixed Ronan with a dark look. He spoke into the mic taped to his cheek in a desultory tone, “Winner, winner. See folks? It can be done.” He pulled down a huge, cheap, yellow and white teddy bear. “Now, beat it.”

“There’s something you don’t see every day,” Holden muttered to me, and I had to laugh at our huge tatted friend in torn jeans and a Tool T-shirt, carrying that stuffed bear down the Boardwalk.

A little girl was standing with her parents, eating ice cream. Ronan handed her the teddy bear without a word—it was nearly as big as she was—and kept walking. He didn’t see how her face lit up with joy and surprise, while her parents smiled in begrudging thanks, no doubt wondering just where in the hell they were supposed to put the thing when they got home.

Holden sighed. “He’s a teddy bear himself, isn’t he?”

“Shut up,” Ronan tossed over his shoulder. I guessed he wasn’t done breaking stuff, since he stopped at the balloon dart game.

My best friends are a vampire and a criminal, I thought as we fished out a few bucks to play. What does that make me?

Violet’s text swam in my mind, warming my skin like a shot from Holden’s flask. I miss you.

Oh, that’s right. I’m the pathetic loser.

“Back to the subject at hand,” Holden said. “At Chance’s party, you were absorbed with that blonde girl. The way you sang to her—”

“I wasn’t singing to Amber, I was singing to Violet. But it doesn’t matter. She’s not interested, and I’m too fucking late, anyway.”

“Why?”

“She kissed River in the closet.”

Her first kiss. She gave it to someone else…

Holden looked thoughtful. “You sure about that?”

“Isn’t that the point of the game?”

He hunched into his coat and didn’t answer.

“So you’re giving up?” Ronan asked.

“I can’t be that pathetic asshole anymore. She’s had a crush on River before I came along, and now she’s got him. I need to man up and be happy that she’s happy. That’s all I want. For her to be happy.” I tossed a dart and missed. “That’s what I’m going to tell her tonight.”

“Honorable to a fault,” Holden said. “You’re the best of us, Miller.”

“If that’s true, you need to set the bar higher,” I muttered. “I just…miss her, you know? I miss hanging out with her. Talking to her. She was my best friend before you guys, and I don’t want to lose her.”

“And Amber?”

I shrugged. “Something could happen there, but I won’t know if I don’t cut Violet loose.” I swallowed a jagged lump of pain and forced myself to say the words out loud. “She doesn’t love me. Not like the way I do. Time to get over it.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Holden said. “Except for one tiny detail.”

“And that is?”

“You look fucking miserable,” Ronan said.

Holden grinned in wide-eyed surprise. “So astute! Our Ronan truly is a big softy under all that brutish muscle and glower.”