Page 24 of Songbird: Black Kite
“Oh, fuck that,” Sabrina barked, drawing a disapproving frown from Mrs. Tollman, where she was finishing the last of her salad. I gave her an apologetic wave before turning back to Bri.
“Keep it down.”
“That stupid hag doesn’t have car trouble. She’s got boy trouble. She’s been banging the guy from the hardware store behind her boyfriend’s back for weeks.”
“What?” I asked, pausing in my wiping to stare at her in shock. “Which guy?”
“The one with the tattoos,” Sabrina said, curling her lips in a devilish smirk.
“No way! He’s, like, thirty!”
“He’s thirty-two,” she corrected, and I cackled.
“That’s insane. What would someone our age even do with a guy like that?”
The guy in question was hot. Like,reallyhot. I had needed to pick up some light bulbs two weeks ago, and didn’t want to make the trip all the way across the river to the Walmart, so I’d ducked into the hardware store downtown to save some time. That was when I saw him, helping someone in the plumbing department, looking like he’d just stepped out of a tattoo magazine, all dark and sexy. I’d looked—of course I had—but then I’d done the sensible thing and turned my ass around and paid for my light bulbs.
A guy like that would mean nothing but trouble for a girl like me.
“She’s doing what any sane woman would do if a guy like that gave her the time of day,” Sabrina replied, oozing confidence I could never imagine having. “She’s riding him for all she’s worth and pissing off her daddy at the same time.”
I thought about it, what my inexperienced self would do with a grown man who had probably been with more girls than I would like to actually consider. I could feel my cheeks reddening, the imagined embarrassment I’d feel when I was a complete dud in the sack making me uncomfortable.
Fuck. How did I ever expect to lose my virginity when I couldn’t even think about having sex with someone without blushing like a moron?
I was going to die alone.
The night wore on with Sabrina pouting from her seat at the counter, deciding that nursing a milkshake while I toiled away was an acceptable compromise to our broken movie night. Customers came and went, and I told myself that if nothing else, the extra money would be worth it.
And I almost believed it, too, until the bell over the door rang and in walked my fucking nemesis.
The one and only Denise McQueen.
She floated into the diner, her tight jean shorts and pastel pink crop top leaving her suntanned skin on display for everyone to admire. Her golden blonde hair was bouncy in the kind of beachy waves I could never hope to achieve, and her horde of preening clones followed behind her, emulating her style and her attitude to the best of their abilities.
I watched as she swanned in, ignoring the ‘please wait to be seated’ sign and helping herself to the large corner booth where she sat primly, Jason Mason flopping down beside her like a felled tree.
“Oh, that’s just perfect,” Sabrina groaned, holding her milkshake covered straw up and letting it drip into her mouth. “As if our night wasn’t bad enough already. Now you have to serve the Queen Bitch?”
“That’sMcQueenBitch, to you, Bri,” I replied dryly, not taking my eyes off their table.
I didn’t see much of Denise these days, mostly on account of her having followed Jason to the D1 school he was drafted to on the West Coast, but also because I tried to avoid her like the plague.
But it was summer, and she and all her cohorts were back in town, hanging at the local coffee shops and hot spots, laughing loudly and making sure everyone knew exactly how awesome college was treating them.
Good for them, or whatever.
It had gotten even worse since Jason Mason had popped the question at the Fourth of July Picnic last week. The whole fucking town had swooned, fawning over Denise the way she always loved, gasping over the ring and how perfect they would be together.
I had wanted to gag.
Personally, my life had been a thousand times more pleasant when Denise and her hoard of crones had left for college for ten months of the year, but unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and summer brought them all back to town and back into my nightmares.
“Why do they always have to sit in my section?” I grumbled, and Bri snorted.
“Babe, you’re the only one here. It’s all your section.”
“Valid.”
