Page 37 of The Beginning and End of Everything
“What?” I feigned disgust at the suggestion. “No. God, no!”
Her eyes narrowed in accusation. “What other stupid thing is there then?”
“I told the guys I had a date.”
“Why?”
I dropped my gaze to my bedspread, tracing my finger over the flower pattern. I wasn’t even sure why I had done it.
“Well, you’re hot. It can’t be that hard to get a date.” She grabbed a tube of lipstick from the makeup caddy. “Darryl’s always had a thing for you. And Davie.”
Darryl and Davie wouldn’t do at all. One, Brandon would never believe I chose to go out with either of those creeps and two, there was no way Iwouldgo anywhere with either of them. I wanted the male version of Lola Stevens. A guy that would make Brandon’s blood boil, and one that Brandon wouldn’t dare try to start a fight with. “Hope, I need a date. With a hot guy.” I chewed at my lip. “A really hot guy that could knock out Brandon.”
A short-lived laugh bubbled from her lips. “First of all, no one can knock out Brandon.” She pulled a short, black skirt from her backpack and tossed it to me. “Secondly, since when did you stop pining after that dickhead long enough to look at another bloke.”
Hope may have been my best friend that was a girl, but the way I felt about Brandon was a secret I hadn’t confessed to anyone. I feigned disgust. “I do not pine after him.”
“You do, but so does every girl.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Hell, I might even give the pikey a crack if he wasn’t such a wanker. Probably had the clap more times than the circus.”
Heat spread across my chest while I stared down at the skirt in my hands. I hated the way I felt about him. I hated that there was nothing he could do to make me feel differently.
I chucked the miniskirt to my bed. “I’m not wearing that.”
Hope snatched it up and threw it at me again. “Yeah, you probably shouldn’t. Brandon would hate it because it shows to much skin.”
I pulled off the modest skirt I had been wearing and slipped into the flimsy material. It clung to my hips, my butt, and it barely hit midthigh.
“Now, back to this date. You’re trying to make the pikey jealous, aren’t you?” She tilted her head, her gaze locking with mine in the mirror before she spun around with an excited grin. “Or is it Connor?”
“Hope…”
With a roll of her eyes, she went back to touching up her already made-up face. “I’ll ask Silas if he has any friends.”
“Silas? As in, Slutty Suzie’s older brother? The one that just got back from war? With the tattoos and scars!”
“M-hmm.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Hot, isn’t he?”
Silas looked the part of a cartel boss. Intimidating and bad—exactly Hope’s cup of tea. "Hope, he's twenty. Twenty!"
"And?"
There was no use debating the likely moral compromise that accompanied a twenty-year-old trying to date a sixteen-year-old. Besides, anything that compromised morals was right up Hope’s alley.
“You want to make Brandon O’Kieffe jealous. One of Silas’ friends should do the trick.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to make him jealous!”
“Didn’t have to.” She eyed the short skirt I’d put on with a smile, then plucked her cell phone from the bed and tapped the buttons. Barely a minute later, the device dinged. “You officially have a date with Liam Malley. You’re welcome.”
My jaw dropped.
“What?” she said, her gaze meeting mine in the mirror while she fluffed her hair. “He’s nineteen. Not twenty.”
Brandon would absolutely lose it if, and when, he found out I was going on a date with a womanizer like Liam. But thatwaswhat I had wanted, wasn’t it? Even if I hadn’t admitted it to Hope.
“Possuuuum!" Brandon’s head popped through the window before he tumbled over the ledge and toppled to the floor with a roll. The smell of whiskey permeated the room.
"Only a pikey would crawl through a window like a stray cat,” Hope said.
