Page 47 of Bring You Back

I open my mouth to continue my tease when he cuts me off with a “Shut up,” and I laugh when he lifts the destroyed cup for a drink that’s not there and makes a face before dropping it back down to his side.

11

You Like Mean

Julian

“I told her to shut up,” Reyna slurs as I help her from the passenger seat of my Jeep.

“Yeah, you did,” I say with a slight laugh as I turn her toward the house. “Come on.” I steady her with my hands on her hips, and I guess her drunken mind takes that as some sort of invitation, because the next thing I feel is her ass press up against the front of my shorts.

“I was mean,” she practically moans out while she grinds into me.

“You were fine,” I say as my hands start to guide her movements, but I quickly realize what I’m doing and gently push her off me.

“Oh, right,” she says on a laugh, moving forward. “You like mean.”

I ignore that jab and guide her to the driveway, up the path, past her mom’s car, and around the house to the outside door to her room—the door we use when we’re trying to avoid running into Valerie and whatever state she happens to be in at the time. The journey isn’t smooth, with Reyna stumbling and falling against me most of the way, but we make it intact, and I guide her the last few steps through the door and to her bed.

She sits on the edge and sways as I take off her sandals. “I shouldn’t have said that. Her brother died. She’s all alone.”

The sadness in her voice makes me pause, and I drag my eyes up to meet her closed ones. “She’s not alone,” I assure her, rubbing a circle around her ankle with my thumb.

Camille has you, Tommy, and my mother.Even still drunk, Reyna already regrets the things she said to Camille tonight.

I lift her legs up to the bed and she falls against the pillows. I cover her up, leaving her in her dress. I don’t want her to think I’m trying to send out another invitation when she’s this way.

I can’t even believe shedidthis. Well, considering what I’ve put her through, what this fucking town put her through, I can. Sometimes things get to be too heavy and we need something to lift the weight, make it light enough to carry.

Still,this—not just drinking like Valerie but drinkingwithValerie—isn’t what I’ve ever imagined Reyna doing as a coping method. None of us did. And I hope we won’t have to witness it again.

Reyna isn’t her mother. She might look like her, she might sound like her, but her head’s smarter, and her heart’s better. She just doesn’t always realize it.

“Why didn’t they want my work?” Her voice jolts me from my trance. “Why didn’t they want me?”

I sigh and drop to my haunches. “It’s not you. People just suck.”

“They do, don’t they?” she says through a breath, and I release another slight laugh when the corner of her mouth lifts.

But my amusement dies off as I watch her breathe, her eyes shifting every few seconds behind her closed lids.

Reyna is still Reyna. But this—tonight—is the first sign that things could change. She could change.

She’s breakable.

So many reasons factored into her decision to go against her own vow to stay away from alcohol, but I’m one of them.This is kinda your fault.I’m part of this. I’ve already cracked her.

I rub my hands down my face. People suck. I suck. All of this sucks.

I run my hand over Reyna’s blonde waves while immediately picturing Camille’s dark ones. I pull back, my fingers curling into a fist.

“Don’t fall for her,” Reyna says through another breath, a plea, a warning, and my nails bite into my palm.

Unfortunately, I’d already started falling for Camille. Last year. When my eyes started finding her in every room. When my body started responding in more than friendly ways at the sight of her. When everything inside me started racing with excitement, fluttering with nerves at the thought of her. When my mind opened to the possibility of us being more than friends.

After she left, those new feelings didn’t go away, but they didn’t exactly grow, either. And after she cut me off, they morphed. Everything inside me started racing with anger, clenching with pain.

Now that she’s back, I can see that my feelings for her hadn’t morphed—they were just distorted. Beneath the resentment and emotional bruising, the feelings I felt for her then are still here.

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