The Not-Outcast(14)
The back had been converted into a small bed, so some mornings, it was the miracle van and not a minivan. Which was amazing if Sasha was picking us up on hangover-mornings.
I climbed up, strapped in, and turned.
She had my coffee waiting for me in hand. I took it, and there was a breakfast sandwich perched on top.
I so loved my girl.
“Thank you,” I moaned from how good the coffee smelled.
She gave me a cocky grin before pulling forward and turning at the next street. “So, you ran, huh?”
I groaned, closing my eyes. “I hid.”
“You hid?”
“Behind a tree.”
She choked. “A tree?” She groaned. “Girl.”
“I know.” I groaned again.
“And your reason being?”
I was already shaking my head, knowing she was going to ask. “I have no idea.”
Bleak. I was so bleak.
She let out a sigh, hitting the turn signal and pulling over. “I should take you back.”
“No!”
Christ. My heart stopped just at the thought of that.
“You don’t think I don’t know how you felt about him in college?”
Oh. Crap. Where was Melanie with the toilet jokes when I needed her?
“College?”
I was still so bleak here.
I knew this was a serious talk because Sasha was not sticking to her one-word commentary. She was being real. And her voice was gentle as she said, “And since college. He’s best friends with your brother—”
“Stepbrother, and he’s not family anymore. Deek and Natalie divorced.”
“Still. You guys share a brother. That connects you, and he’s connected to your hockey hottie in a big way. Why do you think I was hitting on him last night?”
Blood rushed to my face. I was hot, like red in the face hot.
I didn’t think she knew, so I thought it’d been a ‘miss’ kind of thing.
I eyed her, biting my lip. “You knew?”
She laughed. “You go to every home game. I know you work a lot, but gurl, I am not stupid.”
“You’re at the strip club.”
She snorted. “Like I don’t keep tabs on my girls. You included.”
See. Total secret agent.
Pressure was building in my head. I knew I should have her take me back, but there’d been dreams and delusions. All that got steamed over when my own stepbrother took one look at me in college, in my own living room, and gave me such a look of disdain and condemnation that was burned in my head to this day.
Sasha and Chad had had a night, and that’s how he ran into me for the first time at Silvard. He knew I was there. I knew he was there, but we’d successfully avoided each other up until then. I came into their lives for a brief stint before going away again, but his mom and my dad had been married during that time. They had still been married when the college plans were put in motion, meaning that Deek wanted me to get to know my stepbrother. That’d been the entire reason I went to Silvard.
Funny how everything turned out, and not in a good way.
Deek and Natalie divorced that first year we were at college.
Cut got drafted the next year. He left, and Chad followed him.
I was the only one who stayed at Silvard, but it worked in my favor.
I hadn’t seen Chad since that day in the dorm.
“I’m not ready.” I was talking about talking to Cut.
It was weak. I knew it, and so not like my usual awesome badassness confidence, but he had the power to shatter me. A girl like me, we took that seriously. He could send me right back to who I’d been when I had an entire delusional relationship with him in my head.
I felt safer gawking from a distance than being live and in person in his presence.
“Okay. Well, I have something to distract you with.”
I looked over.
She cringed, before pulling back to the road. “I slept with your stepbrother last night.”
“No way!”
She grunted. “Way.”
We were back to the one-word responses.
*
From: Koala Boy
To: Cheychey
Subject: That doesn’t sound good.
From: Cheychey
To: Koala Boy
Subject: Crisis averted. How are you? MISS YOU SO MUCH
From: Koala Boy
To: Cheychey
Subject: settle, jeez.
5
Cut
I woke up to an empty bed, and I was in a fuck mood ever since.
She ran.
It wasn’t that she left. It was that she ran. The girl freaking sprinted from this house, because when that alarm goes off, you shit your pants and she wasn’t anywhere near the door shitting her pants. That means she took off.
So, yeah.
Fuck day.
Saturday was supposed to be my rest day, but then Chad showed up.
He stalked inside, slamming his door shut on his end of the house we owned.
We technically owned two houses, one on each lot, but since it was the two of us, we merged them together. The bigger house was mine. The smaller one was his. The pool was behind my side of the house, but when Chad had parties, it was both of our houses. (Which meant he used my side of the house.) It was a cool project we did together, but I was getting tired of a few things.