Page 19 of Jaded

Charlie grins, way too high for conversation. “You a Dingoes fan, kid?”

“Of course I am,” Avery scoffs. “You gotta support the home team.”

“Even if nobody else is,” Charlie mutters. “You play hockey, I assume.”

“Of course. Day River High starting center, baby.” Avery grins, but I see the way it wavers—starting center, but for how long? How many more skipped school days does he have left before his coach benches him?

He really is too much like me.

“Pretty ill.” Charlie leans forward to give him a fist bump. “Nat and I played for DRH too. He was starting center. I was his left wing.”

“Hell, you’re the reason I played at all,” I admit, half wincing, half smiling at the memory. “Remember how your mom used to sneak me into your mites games?”

Charlie tilts his head back to laugh. “Shit, yeah. Thank God Brenda finally got you into squirts.”

Thank God, indeed. My father was too busy with Jesse’s games to bother with an unwanted afterthought like me. I grew up on ponds and backyard rinks. Charity of parents and coaches. Until Brenda walked into Rey’s world and asked,why the first son and not the second?

“You guys are like, besties.” Avery flexes his fingers, in and out of a fist. “So, are you a music nerd too?”

“Nah, tone deaf.” Charlie shakes his head against the leather armchair. “You?”

I groan aloud. Wrong question, Charlie. Wrong damn question.

“Oh, I play a mean guitar.” Avery’s gaze shuttles down to my guitar on the coffee table, and a huge grin blooms over his face. “Syd’s taught me a little.”

“You’re gonna wish you never asked that,” I say as Avery settles the instrument on his lap. “I have witnessed Sydney’s lessons—”

“Hey!” Syd crosses her arms across her chest. Glares. “I’m a great teacher.”

I watch Avery’s fingers bend awkwardly over the strings. “Yeah, I don’t think the problem, in this case, was the teacher . . .”

Avery starts plucking “Should I Stay or Should I Go.” It’s like the rough approximation of an overenthusiastic child banging the inside of a ten-gallon bucket with a drumstick.

“How am I supposed to hear my own thoughts?” Charlie whines, tilting his head back. “I’m not high enough for this.”

Sydney stays quiet, though her face assumes a puckered expression, like she’s trying to hold in a sneeze.

“I don’t think there’s a quantity of weed or booze that would make this bearable,” I admit. Though they might have sanded down my hard edges.

Charlie whines again. “I take it there’s a reason Syd’s lessons did not continue?”

I glance over at Syd, still holding her sour-lemon pucker. Again, she declines to respond.

At long last, Avery’s ill-performed song closes in a screech of fingers slammed to strings. Charlie groans. “Oh, thank fuck.”

“What’s next?” Avery flashes a crooked grin around the room. Even Syd’s expression is painfully pinched.

“Does there have to be a next?” Charlie groans, both of his hands clapped against his ears. “I wanted to enjoy being high for a while before practice. I should’ve just stayed home with Ben.”

I almost flinch. Not sure why. The last girl I . . . well,datedis a strong word. The last girl I hung around with . . . that relationship ended weeks ago, but it was doomed from the start.

We both knew, but played through the farce of it for the sex, or because being with the wrong person is better than being alone, until it’s not.

I don’t miss her any more than she misses me. So why does the mention of Charlie’s current boyfriend make me wince?

“Teach me some real music, Syd.” Avery nudges Sydney’s knee with his, so naturally, that’s where all my attention goes. “Something you’d play. You ain’t playing three-chord punk.”

“Yeah, but I know more than three fucking chords,” says Syd, unveiling her signature expert-level eye roll. Glad it’s not just me she uses it on. “We never got past that in like, twelve lessons.”

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