Page 71 of The Sun
“Ah, shit,” I mumbled, yanking the keys from the ignition.
Judah and Atlas grabbed the cooler from the back and started toward the double-story house. A group of girls was gathered on the front porch, smoking cigarettes while trying to look prissy by cocking their hips to the side and continuously flipping their hair.
“Hey Elias,” one of them called when we stepped to the gate at the side of the house. I was pretty sure that was the girl who bought a dime bag from me the night before on the beach, but I couldn’t be sure, so I gave a half-ass wave.
“Dude,” Judah said. “Bet you five bucks you could at least go up her shirt, and you just blew her off.”
“Seriously, man,” Atlas added.
“Why don’t you two go talk to her then?” I said, rounding the bushes.
With a shrug of his shoulders, Judah spun around. Atlas followed suit. By the time I had my hand on the gate, I heard them both singing, “Ladies. Ladies.”
Within an hourI’d sold the ounce I’d brought with me and pocketed two-hundred and fifty bucks. That was enough to cover the pipe, the water bill, and a Little Caesar’s pizza.
I took a seat on a railroad tie that separated the lawn from for Mrs. Jones rose garden and stared straight ahead at the bonfire. One of the logs crackled as it collapsed, sending the flames roaring higher into the night sky.
Atlas fiddled with the massive CD player set up on the patio table, turning around after the distorted opening notes of “Pepper” came through. He grabbed a few twigs on his way across the yard, tossing them into the bonfire before he took a seat beside me and cracked open a beer. “I love the Butthole Surfers.”
“That’s the stupidest name for a band ever.”
He glanced at my empty hands. “Since when did you become such a buzzkill?”
“It’s called trying to be responsible, shithead.”
Brandon took a seat across the fire from me. The heat and smoke warped my view as I watched him talk to some Lockhart guys.
Atlas snorted. “You hate him, don’t you?”
“No.”
But I did. God, I hated him for the simple fact he had the girl I always imagined would only ever be mine.
I snatched a dandelion from the grass and thumped the fuzzy white seeds. They haphazardly floated toward the heat of the fire. I watched a few of them incinerate in the flames and caught Sunny out of the corner of my eye. I tried my damnedest to focus on the blaze reaching toward the sky like red-hot fingers but failed miserably. Too much of her long legs showed between the top of her laced Doc Martens and the hem of her too-short jean skirt. Her hips swayed in beat with the slow rhythm of the song. My jaw tensed at the sight of the black bra clearly visible through her tight, white shirt.What the hell was she trying to do?Sunny had never been a girl who needed to feel noticed. Then again, there were a lot of things she’d never been. . .like his.
I grumbled under my breath when she bent over to dust off a chair. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t help but look. Atlas whistled under his breath, and I whacked him. “Stop being a perv.”
“You were looking!”
“Shut up.”
Before Sunny could sit down, Brandon grabbed onto her waist and pulled her into his lap, that damn skirt riding up her thighs. She squealed, and I threw the dandelion to the ground.
“Still don’t hate him?” Atlas asked.
“He had no loyalties to me.”
“So you hate her?” He tipped his beer back.
“Don’t you have some girls to go screw around with or something? Jesus!”
I listened to the lyrics while I stared through the bonfire at the way Brandon’s fingers curled around Sunny’s side. It ate me up from the inside out. I may not have thought Butthole Surfers was a good name for a band, and most of the lyrics made no sense, but the chorus? That chorus resonated with me because Sunny had no idea how she looked through my eyes, curled up in his lap. She looked right at me, and I gave her the coldest stare I could muster.
Atlas crushed his beer in his hand and pushed to his feet. “She watches you all the damn time.”
“I know.”
“Why don’t you do something about it?”
