Page 75 of No Romeo
I tried to focus on the conversation over lunch, but it was hard. Every time David or Chad did anything with Gracie, all I saw was Hendrix doing the same thing with her. They were a family the same way we used to be. They doted on her, loved her…I was both grateful she had that and sad she wasn’t getting it from me every day.
A crayon drawing of three people landed in front of me, the words “I miss you the most. Luv, Gracie,” scrawled across the bottom. “Can you give it to King Buttmunch?”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “Of course.”
Chapter26
HENDRIX
There wasn’t a party at my house.
I never invited anyone. I never intended to, and while I hated lies, I hated the way I felt about Lola more.
About an hour ago, I’d made the mistake of pulling up Lola’s most recent Instapic post—a photo of Gracie, Lola, and the wannabe, young, dickass Daddy Warbucks of Barrington on a motherfucking boat. Smiling. Lola’s cheeks were pink from the sun, her wet, blond hair stuck to her perfect face, and Gracie in her lap. Mr. Barrington sat wedged right beside the girls who used to be mine.
I hated everything about it.
Ever since I’d seen that picture, I’d sat on my bed in my boxers, ignoring texts from Bell and Wolf asking if I was coming to the dump party while I strummed over the worn strings of my guitar. The guitar I hadn’t played in two years because I’d pawned it for her. Medusa. The girl who had turned my once-beating heart to stone.
As much as it meant to me, I hadn’t thought twice when I’d pawned it to get the ring. The ring that, for some reason, still sat in my nightstand drawer. When I confronted her the night after I saw her at the clinic with Kyle and she told me the baby hadn’t been mine, that she’d cheated, damn did the thought I gave it up for her break me.
Angry as hell, I went straight back to the shop, thinking I could get the guitar back, but it was already gone.
Lola knew how much it meant to me, and the irony that she was the one to bring it back to me was why I couldn’t make myself tell her thanks. It hurt, just like everything else about her did.
Sighing, I plucked out the chorus of “Glycerine.”
The lyrics fit Dayton. And the older I grew, the more that song shifted and changed until it made absolute sense. And damn, did it make more sense than it ever had right about then. Push and pull and utter desperation.
I strummed out the tune, changing the lyrics just enough to make sense for me.
She had been here, then she’d been away.
I’d been alone with a revolving door of girls.
And the fuck could I love anyone more.
I needed her. When she wanted us less… And just fuck…
I finished off the song, something heavy as shit in my chest. I had one life. One. And at the end of the day, regardless of what she’d done, I just wanted her in it.
Forget the goddamn days gone by…
I dropped my skull against the headboard, my grip on the guitar neck tightening as I stared up at the faded glow-in-the-dark stars. Out of sight, never out of mind, but nowhere close to within my grasp, and I’d never, not once, stopped loving that girl. She’d always been my gravity, and right then, I had proof she was with someone else. Giving that rich boymydamn smiles, and all I wanted to do was float the fuck into oblivion.
What the actual hell was wrong with me? Gravity? Float into oblivion?
That was what Medusa had turned me into, a sniveling, poetic little prick of a man. Where was the pettiness?
I snatched my phone from the foot of my bed, stamping my fingers over the screen.
Me: Having a good time with Mr. Golden Dick?
Medusa: Why do you care? Shouldn’t you be busy rattling your headboard?
Oh, she was just as bothered as me. That response was way too fast.
Me: The night is young, and my balls are full.
