The Hardest Fall(99)

Her fingers stopped moving in my hair. “I get paid?”

“Well, you’re my hairstylist, so I think I should pay, don’t you? I mean, you’ve been working at it for how long now? Half an hour?”

“Yes. Yes, you pay me, okay?”

“Okay, I pay, but you have to make me look pretty, okay?”

“I’m trying. How much are you paying?”

“Ouch,” I mouthed to Jared, but he wasn’t even paying us any attention. “How much do you want?”

She turned to Jared. “Jar, I’m getting paid today. How much money do I want?”

I grinned a toothless grin and managed to hold my snicker back. Becky always called her big brother Jar or Jer.

After a long negotiation process, we settled on three dollars because she envisioned me with three braids like her toy horsey had and it was gonna be beautiful because she was the best at braids—Jar had said so—and she was gonna buy all the chocolates with her money.

Letting Becky continue to play with my hair, I glanced at Jared’s bent head.

“Her parents are coming tomorrow. It’ll be good for her to see them,” I said quietly.

Agitated, he rubbed his neck and exploded up to his feet. In the three years I’d known him, never once had I seen him as angry as he was that day. He couldn’t sit in one place longer than a few minutes.

“Fuck! I could kill him! We should’ve said something sooner, should—”

Abruptly, chubby little arms wrapped around my neck and Becky hid her face against my hair. I reached up to stroke her arm reassuringly.

“Jared, sit down,” I hissed at him. “Oh, it’s okay, Becky. He just got upset.”

Hearing my tone, his eyes snapped to me then lowered as he finally remembered that his sister was in the room and sat back down.

“I’m sorry, princess,” he murmured, kissing her cheek and coaxing her out of her hiding spot behind my hair. “You’re not gonna tell on me for using a bad word, are you?” A few more kisses later, Becky was giggling and all was well in her world again.

I put my hand on his knee until it stopped bouncing and stilled. “She knew we didn’t like him, Jared,” I started quietly. “This wasn’t our fault, and it wasn’t Kayla’s fault either. She loved him. There is only one person responsible here, and he’s gonna get what’s coming to him.”

“You think his parents won’t get that”—he shot a quick look at his sister—“b-a-s-t-a-r-d off faster than you can say his name?”

“It won’t be that easy.”

He got up and started pacing the room again. “And he hurt you too, for fu—God’s sake! Why didn’t she call me? Why didn’t you call me, for that matter? If I had been at the library with you two—”

“Okay, you’re gonna give me whiplash. Please sit down.” After the look he gave me, I changed my mind. “Or don’t, fine, but be quiet,” I grumbled. “She’s been like a ghost the entire day, and just when she finally closes her eyes for more than ten minutes, you’re gonna wake her up again.”

“Talk to me about something else then. I’m gonna lose my mind if I can’t smash his face into a pulp.”

“Hulk. Smash!” Becky popped in. “What’s pulp?”

“Is my hair done, Miss Bluebird? Can I look?”

“I get mirror, you see it. You sit here. Okay, Zoe? You sit and you wait, kay?”

As I helped her off the couch, I nodded. “Sit and wait—got it.”

Before she could run away, Jared stopped her with a hand on her arm. “KayKay is sleeping in my room and the door is open, so be quiet when you’re looking for that mirror, okay?”

“Is KayKay sick?”

“No, sweetheart. She just has a little headache so she needs her sleep. She’ll be fine. After you finish showing Zoe her new hair, you’re going straight to bed yourself. It’s way past your bedtime.”

“Okay Jar. First hair, then bed.” Satisfied with her answers, she ran away to her room.

“I should get going, too. It’s past nine and I need to get back.” As soon as Becky was out of earshot, I blurted it out because I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Also, just in case you want to know, I slept with Dylan, and even if you didn’t want to know, now you know. In his bed, with him, last night—well, more like morning, but let’s go with last night…and then a little bit in the—”

“Wait, wait, wait—hold up,” he sputtered. He was holding his hand up, his eyes blinking and blinking. “You did what?”

“I slept with—”

“Clarify, please. You slept with him in the same bed, or you slept with him, meaning you fucked his brains out? Which one?”

“Well…” I pulled my legs up and hugged them to my chest, lips already curved into a smile. “If we’re talking about fucking brains out, it was probably mine that got fucked out.”

Still with that shocked expression on his face, he dropped down on the couch next to me.

“I guess that means I can’t try to seduce him anymore.”

I burst out laughing and had to put my hand over my mouth to keep quiet. Then I sobered and my grin disappeared. “I feel so bad for feeling this happy when Kayla is going through this. I didn’t plan for it to…”