Page 17 of Spark

“No, don’t do that! I promised him I wouldn’t say a word to you.”

“Well, you did, and I have a feeling your brother lied through his teeth. So, you’d better start talking.”

“Fuck.”

Kendrick’s Adam’s apple bobs. But that’s the full extent of his response. So, I grip the White Sox emblem on his hoodie and hiss, “If you don’t tell me everything that weasel of a brother told you, right fucking now, I’ll . . .” I pause to think of the worst thing I could possibly do, in Kendrick’s eyes. And when it comes, I smile broadly. “I’ll sob. All over you. I’ll cry and cry, buckets of tears, with snot and everything, till you have no choice but to tell me.”

“Come on, Ruby. You’re not fighting fair here.”

“Boo-hoo-hoo. Wracking, heart-wrenching sobs,because you wouldn’t come to my aid when I needed you most.”

“Can we forget I said anything, please? I promised Kai I’d never?—"

“Well, it sucks to be you, then, because I promised him the same thing after he begged me not to say anything to anyone, ever. But now, it sounds like Kai has used my silence against me, to secretly slander me, which means all bets are off, motherfucker.”

“Ruby, please. I promised.”

“Too bad. You’re going to tell me what I want to know, or I’m not only going to Kai’s room, and I’m not only going to sob all over you till you’re covered in my snot and tears, but I’m going to Titus’s room first to tell him and ask him to beat the truth out of your brother.”

Kendrick palms his forehead. “There’s no need to involve your henchman, okay? That’s exactly what Kai wanted to avoid.”

“I bet he did.” I look at my watch. “You’ve got exactly ten seconds to make your decision. Nine. Eight.”

“Okay, okay!” Kendrick exhales loudly. “Jesus Christ, you’re scary.”

“Four. Three. Two.”

“I don’t know too many details, okay? Kai just told me the gist of what happened.”

“What did he say?”

“That you, you know, asked him to go upstairs at your twentieth birthday party. To . . . sleep with you. And he turned you down.”

My heart explodes in my chest. “Motherfucker!Kendrick,Iturnedhimdown! Kai asked meto go upstairs, and I said, ‘Dude, I think of you like a brother!’”

Kendrick’s jaw drops. “No fucking way.”

“I swear.”

He’s floored. “Could you have misinterpreted what he said? Could there have been a misunderstanding?”

“Absolutely not. That boy pulled me aside during my party and told me he’d felt an ‘attraction’ to me from day one, but?—”

“What?”

“—because of my age, and the band, and blah, blah, blah, he felt compelled to ignore it and pretend it didn’t exist.”

“Motherfucker!”

“He was like, ‘But, hey, now that we’re both adults and it looks like the band is falling apart, anyway. . .’ This was when you were still off being a football god, and the band was dying a slow death without you. So anyway, he goes, ‘We’re both adults now, and the band is on life support, and, oh, ha, ha, I had a super-hot sex dream about you the other night, so?—”

“What?” Kendrick bellows, even louder than before.

“‘—I’m curious to see if the real thing would be as hot as my sex dream.’”

“I feel sick.”

“That’s how I felt! Kai was like, ‘So, what do you say, Ruby? You wanna go upstairs and do something crazy and have meaningless sex with me?’”

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