Page 21 of Tuesday

“Wait,thisis Josh? This-” Blanche waves her hand in the air, indicating the boring looking man in front of us. “This is him? The one that was mean to your Mom and then dumped you?” Blanche shoves the rest of her muffin into her mouth and struggles to get her pregnant bulk out of her chair to stand next to Vi.

“This is him?” Mira asks, her voice almost a screech.

“I’ve never seen a human embodiment of a ham sandwich,” Pops says.

We all stare as he gapes. “No, come on Vi. We were perfect together, you just needed a little…. refining.”

“Oh hell no!” Nat throws down her napkin and stands, as do the rest of the Girl Gang.

Oh, it’s so on.

Rhodie

“So brother, you wanna tell me what the hell is going on with you?” I raise a brow at Judge and stare him down. I’m not letting him get away without answering.

Which is why I made him go for a ride with me. I figure a little wind therapy is what he needs to get his head in order.

“Leave it in the past, brother.”

“Like you clearly haven’t?” I goad.

He huffs out a long sigh before turning to look at me. We’re both parked up next to Rose Grove’s town square, eating hot dogs from a street van because Judge refuses to go into the diner. “You ever do something when you were younger that truly fucked up one of your best relationships?”

I chew my mouthful, staring at him. “You talking bout cheating on a girl?”

“Yes. No. Fuck, I don’t know!”

Both my brows raise of their own accord. Judge never struck me as the type of guy to play around like that, but I guess we were all young and dumb once.

“What do you mean, you don’t know? Fairly certain it’s easy to know if you’re cheating on a girl.”

Judge scrubs a hand over his bald head, and then down his face. “Look, I had a best girl friend, inseparable since we were kids. We fooled around a couple of times, lost our virginity to each other, that kind of shit. But we were never dating or going steady or anything. Anyway, the last time I saw her, she’d come to talk to me, said it was important.”

“And?”

“I was with my new friends, I’d made quarterback and suddenly found myself popular, that sort of shit. She kinda caught me getting a blow job from a girl,” he cringes and I fucking feel for him.

“But you guys were never anything official? Not dating?”

He shakes his head, a wistful look on his face. “No. By the time she came around to talk we hadn’t done anything for like a month or so. We only slept together twice and went about our normal lives.”

“Well, it definitely wasn’t cheating. That little lady in the diner, was it her? Did she think you were cheating on her?”

He lets out a soft growl. “Yeah, it’s her. But-” he looks away, a frown marring his features, “I don’t think it was the blowjob, as such. Argh, fuck this is embarrassing and makes me look like an asshole,” he shakes himself off. “So, I was off my face, hanging with the jocks and the cheerleaders and she turned up asking to speak to me. My dick was in Chelsea Master’s mouth and some of the jock kids started calling her names, Geek Girl, Dweeb, that sorta shit. Fuck, at the same time Chelsea tickled my balls and I giggled. That one giggle broke her fucking heart man. I could see it on her face. It was one thing to be getting a blowjob, but she always had a rough time making friends and me, her fucking best friend laughs at her with all these jock losers?” He looks toward the diner, face screwed up. “The look on her face, fuck, it screws my guts up thinking about it.”

I close my eyes and fuck, my heart goes out to the brother. I mean, yeah, it was a shitty thing to do, but hell, we all do dumb shit when we’re in high school. We’re young, dumb and really fucking full of cum.

“Did you apologize at least?”

“I hid away for two days, trying to come up with a big fucking gesture. I turned up at her place, flowers, chocolates, her favourite DVD’s, the fucking lot all to find her and her father had moved. No idea where they went.”

“And now she’s back.”

“And now she’s back and full of piss and vinegar and I can’t even blame her.”

I slap a hand on his shoulder and give him a shake. He’ll figure it out. Shit if he ever wants to eat at the diner again, he’ll have to. Vibrating in my pocket has my thoughts changing direction. Glancing at the screen I see Moss’s name flashing.

“Moss? Don’t tell me my Ol Lady needs your assistance again.”

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