Page 33 of Puck Lust

I deserved that.

Still, I don’t respond.

“I’m gonna get you to talk. You might not remember, but I’m pretty relentless. I will crack your asshole shell. Believe that.”

“Well, I guess the only way for me to get some sleep is to shut you up by giving you what you want.”

“Guess so.” He waves his arm out. “Listening.”

I ball up my own pillow and punch it a couple of times for good measure. “Just so you know, I’m imagining that my pillow is your head right now.”

“Dude, whatever lets the aggression go,” he says with a chuckle. “Although, I can say the same thing right back to you.”

I flip onto my stomach and turn my back on Carter, my unbruised side pressed against the pillow. “I started there because of Sam. He’s a do-gooder type, always doing shit for other people, always helping.”

“What a fucking dick,” Carter says in a mock-annoyed voice. “People like that really piss me off, you know?”

I crack a smile.

He really is a total pain in the ass.

God, I still want him so badly.

“I did it to be close to him, to work my way back in.” I let out a breath. “And he let me, for a little while. But we never really started up again. He was too into Brixton.”

“You kept volunteering, though.”

I slowly roll onto my back. “Yeah. Because I wanted to help the kids there who…”

The words are on the tip of my tongue.

Who were just like me.

But I bite them back.

“Who wanted to learn the game but didn’t have money.”

Clean. Simple. Close to the truth.

Maybe I did it because there was such a void in my own life that being with those kids made me feel a little less alone. They may not have gone through the same shit I did, but they all wanted to connect.

That’s all I ever wanted.

And the kids make it risk-free.

I never have to worry about getting hurt or being rejected.

It’s a safe place for me.

I peek over at Carter, who’s waiting expectantly.

I can’t tell him any of that. He’d never understand.

I saw him at the restaurant with his dad. Just enjoying a quiet dinner together. Talking like they actually care about one another.

I don’t have one single memory of doing that with either of my parents.

Sam’s family felt more like mine than my actual family ever did.

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