Page 20 of Riot Reunion
“Whatever. Just…go with me on this. Dash and Carrie are apart. They haven't seen each other for weeks. Dash is feeling a littleperturbedabout the possibility that Carrie might meet someone while he isn't around to defend his territory—”
“I take exception to that,” Pax interjects. “Chase isn't territory. I don't wanna piss all over her. I’m not trying to mark my property. Not that I wouldn’t mind her pissing onm—”
“Stop! Nope. Stop, stop, stop.” I screw my eyes shut, shaking my head. “Just, please. For the love of God, donotfinish that sentence. I do not want your wet-play fantasies haunting me whenItry to go to sleep tonight. What do you think Dash would do in this situation? If he was far away from the girl he loved, and he wasn't feeling particularly good about the fact that other guys might try and hit on her?”
“He'd talk to her about how he was feeling,” he answers definitively.
Damn. Maybe this isn't going to be so difficult after all. “Great!”
“Because he's a prissy little bitch who can't handle himself,” Pax continues.
Fuck. My. Life. This is a test, right? Pax has been sent here to tap dance on my last nerve. Pinching the bridge of my nose between my fingers, I exhale slowly, taking a moment to consider how the hell I'm going to make any kind of headway here. Eventually, I look up, ready for a final Hail Mary. “You want me to call Pres and ask her if any guys have been hitting on her? Isthatwhat you want?”
“That’d actually be awesome.”
“I amnotcalling your girlfriend to dig for dirt for you! That's tantamount to spying, not to mention really fucking toxic!”
“Ahh, come on. It's not as if I can ask Jacobi to do it for me. He hasn’t said more than five words to Chase in the past five years, and frankly I want to keep it that way. What's so bad about asking her if the guys in Yonkers are behaving themselves? It's not as if I don't trust her. I just know what horny college frat boys are like—”
“If you trust Presley so implicitly, then why are you even letting this faze you? If you know she's not gonna do anything, why not just put this nonsense out of your head altogether?”
“I can trust Presley until the end of time, but that doesn't mean I want some smarmy fucking lacrosse player trying to shove his dick down her throat every time she goes to study in the goddamn library! I can't fucking deal with the thought of it.” He's shaking so badly; I can see him trembling. “It makes me wanna scream!”
Pax’s emotional default is anger. I've seen him so mad, so often, that it's a surprise when heisn'tfurious. This is the angriest I've ever seen him, though. I've always suspected that he enjoys the chaos of being at the mercy of his hairpin-trigger temper, but he’s plainly hating this right now. He'd do anything tonotfeel this way; he looks like he’s three days dead and wild dogs have been fighting over his bones. For the very first time in my entire life, I experience a spike of empathy for Pax Davis.
“Okay, okay, just breathe. We'll figure this thing out. It's going to be all right.”
“You'll call and ask her, then?”
“No! I've told you, I'm not spying on one of my best friends. I will call her and have a conversation with her, though. Maybe that way, you guys can figure out a time to FaceTime or something. You're worried about nothing, okay? Knowing Pres, she’s been consumed by studying. That’s why she’s been so hard to get ahold of. She probably completes all of her assignments in her room, not the library. I bet she’s so focused on getting her work done and getting back to you as quickly as possible that she hasn't even bothered to make any friends, for God's sake. I’ll put her on speaker so you can hear the whole thing.”
Pax doesn't say a word as I take out my cell phone. He slumps, dejected, back into the chair again, scrubbing his face with his hands, groaning quietly.
Presley picks up on the fourth ring. “Hey, Elodie,” the voice on the other end of the line whispers.
“Hey, Pres!” Man, I soundwaytoo peppy. “How’s it going?”
“Yeah. Yeah, things are…they’re uh…they’re good?” From her tone, things are not good. The way her voice rose at the end of her sentence made it sound like a question instead of a statement.
“Cool. Yeah, that’s great. Glad to hear that. How’s school? Are you still loving Sarah Lawrence?”
Pax rolls his eyes at me from the couch, unimpressed with my performance thus far. I’m a shitty actor, though. What can I say?
“Actually…” Presley’s voice wavers, a strange catch in her voice. I hear it clearly. Unfortunately, so does Pax. He sits up straight, becoming very alert. I was so sure he was imagining things, but fuck. Presley soundsweird. “I’m not at Sarah Lawrence anymore,” she says. “I…I kinda transferred to a…ah, a different school.”
Pax erupts.
Leaping to his feet, he lunges for me, reaching to grab my phone, but I hold up my pointer finger, aggressively shaking my head. This does nothing to dissuade him from trying to snatch my cell, so I kick him as hard as I can in the shin. He hisses in pain, furious, bracing a hand against the arm of the sofa, baring his teeth.
“Elodie? What’s going on?” Pres asks. “You still there? The line’s muffled.”
“Yeah! Yeah, totally still here!”
“Give it to me,” Pax hisses murderously.
“Just shut up and let metalkto her!” I fire back. Smiling, I try to keep the fact that I’m being attacked by an unhinged, six-foot-two psychopath out of my voice when I speak again. “I don’t think I heard you right. Did you say youtransferred?To another college?”
“Yes. I left last week. I know how crazy this is gonna sound, but…”
