Boys Like You(33)

“What time?”

“Around nine.” Brent grinned and I saw the relief in his eyes, but I had to set him straight. I knew a little bit about the process of healing— or not healing— and nothing was easy.

“He’ll probably say no.”

“Probably. Though I think he’ll have a hard time saying no to you.”

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“Really,” I said dryly.

“I know I would.” He grinned. “Sugar.”

The guy had enough charm to light up an entire city block in New York, and I couldn’t help but smile. “I can’t promise, but I’ll try.”

“Cool,” he said. “I’ll save you guys a seat.”

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Chapter Sixteen


Nathan


When my cell pinged, I almost didn’t answer it.

Rachel had been texting me for days now. She was incessant, and I knew that she wouldn’t stop because she was real stub-born. Always had been. I used to like that about her.

But right now, she couldn’t get that I wasn’t into her anymore.

She thought that us breaking up was about the accident, but she was wrong.

The events of that night were like a cancer that was growing and wouldn’t stop. But the seeds of that cancer had started a long time ago, and she was part of it. I was outgrowing the endless parties and good times— Trevor and I both were. Music had pretty much become everything to us, and it was hard to write really good songs when you were wasted.

And wasted is what she was all about these days.

It hadn’t always been that way. Rachel used to make me laugh. She used to have this way of making everything light and easy. We used to hang at Trevor’s and play guitar and write songs BoysLikeYou.indd 135

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and she’d listen to us, this big grin on her face because she really dug what we were doing.

God, she’d walk into a room and most every guy’s head would swivel around, and I was proud that she was my girl. But then something changed, and I don’t really know what it was. Maybe I just outgrew what we had. Maybe I outgrew our friendship, or maybe it was Rachel.

Bottom line was that I stopped thinking of Rachel as someone I loved a long time ago. I mean, I loved her, but not in the way a guy should love his girlfriend.

Music was my thing, and it had kind of taken over. It was mine and Trevor’s. It was all we lived for. And he knew how I felt about Rachel, about how I was going to break up with her. I’d planned on doing it that night, but then everything had gone to shit.

So I’d let it fester for three more months, and though I had finally stepped up and cut her out, the cancer was still spreading, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

I didn’t know how to end it because the cancer was connected.

It was connected to me and Trevor, and if it took my best friend whole, I was pretty damn sure it would take me too.

The cell pinged again and I stared at it, not moving. We’d finished dinner and my mom had just cleared the plates. I heard her and Dad in the kitchen, talking softly, murmuring to each other. They were worried. Worried about me.

I didn’t deserve their worry or my mom’s sad looks or the way she tried to smile though her pain.

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“Are you going to answer that?” Dad’s voice jerked me from wherever the hell my mind was at, and I glanced over to him.

I shrugged. “Doubt it. It’s probably Rachel again.”

I’d migrated to the family room, and he slid into the leather chair across from me. The big screen was on, the Texas Rangers were pounding the crap out of the Dodgers, but there was no sound. There was only the shit inside my head.

Dad leaned forward. “You guys broke up?”

“Yeah.”

“You have a fight?”

I looked at him as if he’d lost his mind, and he held his hands up.

“Just asking.”

I shook my head. “We didn’t have a fight. We just…we just don’t fit anymore.”

“It happens.”

“Yeah.”

He cleared his throat. “I ran into Mike Lewis today.”

That had me sitting up. “Is Trevor okay?”

“He’s the same.” My dad blew out a long breath. “Mike told me you were there last Saturday.”

My eyes slid away. “I needed to see him, Dad.”

“I know.” My dad got up and walked over until his knee was touching mine. He bent forward, clasped my shoulders in the way that guys do, and I hated that all the pain inside me was bubbling, just there, just underneath my skin like invisible scars.

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“They hate me for what I did.”

He ran his fingers across the top of my head, just like he used to do when I was little, and a big lump clogged my throat.

“It’s not hate,” he said roughly. “It’s…you have to understand the place that Mike and Brenda are living in is dark. Mike’s taking it out on you because he has no one else to hit. Right now, you’re it. You’re the face he sees when he’s in pain, but he’ll come around.”