Page 52 of No Romeo
“I’m serious, Hendrix.”
There was no playfulness to that statement. She looked genuinely distressed.I felt the slight smile on my face drop. She was serious about this?
A million scenarios as to why she didn’t want to fuck me again swopped through my mind like screeching bats, and with each one that involved another guy, specifically, Gold Finger Chadwick Suck-my-dick. My jealousy and annoyance rose like the rotting dead out of graves.
“It’s not like it’s adding to your body count…” I hated the idea of her sleeping with anyone else. The idea that any other guy had touched her, fucked her,kissedher… those lips were mine.
“You think that’s what I’m worried about?” She shook her head. “Look, you can go and screw any girl. Youhavescrewed any girl…”
Her disappointed gaze lifted to me, and a sick feeling washed through me.
No matter how much either of us might have wanted to pretend that nothing had changed, everything had. I couldn’t blame her for hating what I’d done.I wished like hell I could erase every girl I put between us, trying to forget how much she had meant to me, how much she had hurt me.
“I don’t want to fuck any girl. I just want to fuck you.” It wasn’t the most romantic line, but it was the truth. She was all I’d ever wanted.
The hurt on her face softened. “We can’t just fuck, Hendrix. It’s us. We’re all or nothing. And we can’t be all.”
Which left an option I didn’t like. “We can’t be nothing, either,” I said.
“But we can be friends.”
And that stung like a jagged blade right in the gut. Lola Stevens wanted to be my friend...
We stared at each other across the couch. Two people who were once everything to each other, who didn’t know how to be nothing.
Friends.
I snagged another piece of pizza and grabbed the remote, turning on the TV. “Sounds like a real clear line….” I said.
The hell it was.
“Whipah!” Wolf slammed my locker door, dragging my attention from Lola and Kyle to his gimpy-looking face.
“Fuck off, man.” I fell in line with the crowd of students headed to the cafeteria.
“Dude, what kind of rat crawled up your ass?”
A rat wearing a souvenir T-shirt saying Lola wanted to be friends.
I glared over my shoulder at him. “Tony’s in jail, asshole.” It was a legitimate concern and probably should have been my top priority. But. Fucking friends…
“We just have to sell more weed.”
Because weed was the answer to all our “friendly” problems… I half huffed on the way to the cafeteria.
I shouldered to the front of the lunch line and grabbed a plate of taco salad, ignoring Lola-My-Friend-Stevens on my way to the table.
Wolf complained about his ex-girlfriend, and I pretended to listen.I’d finished my lunch, then took his leftovers when the cafeteria fell silent.
I glanced up from the tortilla chips as Officer Jacobs stepped into the lunchroom with Principal Brown.He could have been in here for most of the students, but something uneasy took root in my gut.
Wolf’s knee bounced underneath the table. “Shit.” He swiped a hand over his jaw. “Tony…”
Panic crept through my veins.
What good would it do to snitch on a couple of eighteen-year-olds he’d hired?
“Man, come on,” I said. “Why the hell would—”
