Page 17 of Riot House
“Aren’t we Wolf Hall kids?” I call after her, as she bounds toward the diner entrance.
“We don’t count! Come on!”
Carina picks out her own table—a corner booth next to a vintage juke box—and makes herself at home. I sit opposite her, wondering exactly how many coffees she had before she kicked down my bedroom door this morning. It’s unholy that anyone should have this much energy at such a horrendous hour, even if the sunisshining.
“Well, well, well. Look who it is. Miss Carina Mendoza, in the flesh. Thought you’d gone and died up on that mountain, girl. Where you been? All our lemon cake went bad last weekend. We don’t make it for anybody but you.” The waitress who comes to serve us smiles broadly at my friend, leaning casually against the side of the booth. She slaps her notepad on top of Carina’s head, studying me suspiciously out of the corner of her eye. “And who, pray tell, isthis?”
“Jazzy, this is Elodie. Elodie, this is Jazzy. She’s worked at Screamin’ Beans for the past twenty-five years.”
“Twenty, girl!Twentyyears! Don’t go makin’ me older than I already am!” She pretends to sulk, stuffing her notepad back into the front pocket of her apron. “I take it you don’t want no lemon cake today. No coffee neither.”
“Oh my god, Jazzy, you know five years wouldn’t make a difference,” Carina says, catching hold of her by the hand. “You’re gonna look eighteen until the day you die. Pleeeeeeaaasssee don’t take away the coffee.”
Jazzy laughs, rolling her eyes. “Okay, okay. I’d hate to have to see a poor, undernourished, impoverished child such as yourself having to beg for some caffeine,” she says, laying it on thick. “I’ll be right back. You want coffee too, child?” she asks me.
“Hot tea, please. If you’ve got it. And a little cold milk on the side?”
I don’t think my out-of-the-ordinary order does me any favors in Jazzy’s eyes. Straight black drip coffee, she can get on board with, but hot tea with milk? She probably thinks that’s a posh Wolf Hall kid type of order. She jots down my request all the same and hurries off in the direction of the kitchen.
“Most of the other kids drive over to Franconia in search of a Starbucks. They don’t realize the coffee here is so good,” Carina says.
“And you haven’t been going around, sharing your secret?”
“Hell no!” She smirks, waggling her eyebrows. “This is my cloak and dagger spot. I only bring the best, most trustworthy people here.”
“Glad to know I made the cut.”
She’s about to hit me with a come-back, her eyes dancing and sharp, but then the mirth radiating from her abruptly vanishes. She sees something over my shoulder and everything about her changes. The bell above the diner door jangles, announcing a new customer, and Carina shrinks down into her seat, all of her enthusiasm vaporizing in a puff of smoke. “Yeah, well. I’m usually very good at gauging who should be allowed into the Screamin’ Beans club, but sometimes evenImake an error in judgement.”
Behind me, a male voice with a thick English accent asks for a table for three, and my insides tangle themselves into a knot at warp speed. Impressive how quickly I go from relaxed and at ease to frozen and uncomfortable. Carina and I must be quite the sight, sliding down into our seats.
“We can get our breakfast to go?” I suggest. “Drive until we find somewhere nice, or we could eat by the lake?” It’s shitty to have to leave just because Dashiell’s showed up, more than likely with Pax and Wren in tow, but we’re not at Wolf Hall now. I don’t want the weekend ruined by their bullshit.
Carina shakes her head. “He’s seen us. It’ll look weak if we bail now. We should just chill and make the most of it. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to react that way, it’s just…Dashiell knows exactly how to get under my skin.”
She might not want to talk about it, but my curiosity’s getting the better of me. I have to ask her. I have to know. “I take it something happened between you guys? Something…romantic?”
“Hah!” She shakes her head, looking up at the ceiling. “Romantic? Yeah. I guess you could call it that. He was charming, and polite. A real gentleman. Treated me with respect. Took me out to dinner. Wined and dined me. Made me feel so special that I thought I was the only girl he’d ever been interested in. And that fuckingaccent. He got me good, Elle. I swear, I’ve always prided myself on being smarter than the dumb girl who gets duped by a handsome guy with a few cheesy pickup lines. I should have seen it coming. I should have seenhimcoming a mile off, but he totally blindsided me.
“I was saving myself. Hadn’t even let a guy graze my fucking kneecap with an index finger before. I was a virgin. And I’m talkingvirgin. No experience whatsoever. And then, low and behold, Lord Dashiell Lovett the fourth comes along with his family fucking title, and his airs and graces, and he looked deep into my eyes and told me that he loved me, and I just…” She throws up her hands in disgust. Her knuckles bang the table, clipping the wood when she drops them. “I just spread my damn legs for him like it was nothing. Two days later, he asked me to meet him in the observatory after dinner. So I went along, excited about getting to see him, getting to kiss him, getting to tell him that I’d fallen head over heel in love with him…and I walk in to find Amalie Gibbons on her knees with his dick aaaaaallllll the way down her throat.”
A tear streaks down her cheek, and my heart squeezes tightly, aching for her. Reaching across the table, I hold her hand, shaking my head. I don’t even know what to say…
“And you know the worst part?” she says, laughing shakily, batting away the rogue tears. “The worst part was that he didn’t even care. He wasn’t embarrassed. Didn’t scramble to push her off him, or pull his pants up, or come after me. He saw me, standing there in the doorway, saw the hurt and the pain in my eyes…and he fuckinglaughed. He said—” She clears her throat, frowning deeply. “He said, ‘Looks like I might have made a scheduling error. Can you come back in an hour? I should be ready to go again by then.’”
“Wow. What an unbelievable prick.” So, so, SO shitty. Who does something like that?Any guy with money, a title, an accent, and a name like fuckingDashiell?a voice in the back of my head offers. It seems so obvious after the fact, but I get it. Carinaisa smart girl, but guys like Dashiell are master manipulators when they want to be. They’re exceptionally talented and very well practiced at getting what they want. It can feel sorealat the time…
I can’t count how many guys I’ve come across like Dashiell Lovett. The only reason I never fell for their bullshit and gave them precisely what they wanted was because my father would have murdered me ten times over and then some. He only let me hang out with Levi because he knew he was gay. It never ceased to amaze me that my father could hate so many people to such brilliant and astonishing degrees, for all kinds of stupid, pointless reasons, but he never had a problem with me having a gay friend.
“I wish I’d been here then,” I tell her. “I’d have kicked his ass for you, no question.”
“There’s still time,” she jokes, smiling lopsidedly through a fresh round of tears. “You’re a good friend. Maybe if youhadbeen here, you might have been able to talk some sense into me and stop me from making such a fool of myself.”
“Don’t do that. You didn’t make a fool of yourself, okay. You trusted someone who lied to you and broke your heart. That reflects poorly on him, not you. At some point karma’s gonna come along and render him infertile as punishment.”
“Jesus. I really hope not.”
Goddamnit, what the hell is it with these boys, sneaking up on people? I should have been paying attention to Dashiell’s precise whereabouts, especially since we’re talking about him, but I dropped the damn ball. Dressed like he’s off to watch a polo match, the smug motherfucker leans up against the counter, popping a toothpick into his mouth as he glances from me to Carina. His gaze settles on her, full of contradicting emotions. For a second, I think he looks remorseful, but then I see the cruel delight flickering in his blue eyes, and I want to leap up out of my seat and kick the fucker right in the kneecap.
