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“I don’t even do that many hookups,” I protested weakly. Zero was the number of hookups I’d had in recent years. Even that was exaggerated.
“Still. You only do crushes, never relationships.”
Not in the mood to be reminded how Row was way above my league, I picked up my Daisy Dukes from the lawn and hopped up, slipping them on. “I better head home. Dad wants to teach me how to pickle eggs.”
“Jesus, Cal.” Rhyland stuck his axe’s blade in the ground, retying his man-bun. “Some of us want to eat in this century.”
“Don’t slam it before you try it, Rhy.” I winked, pretending that he didn’t scare me. He did. A little. In a manageable way.
Row had his back to me, still chopping. He was pretty far away, but I could see the new tattoos snaking up and down his skin, swarming with colorful ink. I wanted him to turn around. To award me with his sleek, predatory gaze that turned me inside out.
“Fucking humidity is making it hot enough to scald a lizard.” Rhyland grabbed his shirt from the yellowed grass, slipped it on, then began rolling himself a joint. “I’m tapping out. Cal, wanna bum a ride?”
I did, but I also didn’t like the idea of being alone with a guy who wasn’t Dad or Row. “Thanks, but I—”
“I’ll drive her.” Row hurled his axe against the tree trunk he’d used to chop the wood, burying the blade inside. He picked up a kitchen towel and wiped off his hands. “Gotta buy some ice anyway.”
Can’t you just shave some off your heart?
“Oh, I don’t want to burden you.” I braided my hair over my shoulder awkwardly.
Row threw me a dry look. “You’re about a decade late and a dollar short. Get your stuff, Dot. Hopping in the shower, then we’re leaving.”
“Don’t let her proposition you.” Dylan cupped her mouth, yelling to him. “She made out with, like, four guys from our grade this year alone. Never know what she’s carrying.”
I kicked her ribs lightly, a smile on my face. A sharp stab of guilt sliced my chest open. I hated lying to her. “Thanks, Row.”
Dylan lingered in the backyard, working on her tan and flipping through a magazine.
“Wait in the living room,” Row instructed, shouldering past me on his way up the stairs. I followed him with my eyes, waiting for the faint sound of the shower to hit my ears, accompanied by the whining of the rusty pipes behind the walls. I took the stairs up to his room on my tippy toes. I wanted to get a glimpse of Row’s universe uninterrupted, something I’d never had a chance to do before. I didn’t feel too bad about snooping. Row never had given a crap about privacy.
Once I entered the room, I breathed as shallowly as I could without losing consciousness to mask my presence there. I didn’t know why I was feeling so self-conscious all of a sudden. It wasn’t like I had a chance with him. Dude had fished chicken nuggets and queso from my hair when I’d drunk-vomited into his toilet in the middle of the night two years ago, after Dylan and I had stolen their dad’s vodka and gotten shit-faced. He’d once caught Dylan popping a zit the size of Montana on my chin. There was no allure or mystery where I was concerned.
Row was taking his sweet time. The shower was still running, so I treated myself to a small tour of his room. In my defense, it was barely even his room anymore. Zeta had been using it as a makeshift pantry for all the sauces and olive oil she made and sold to the locals. I opened drawers, sifted through dilapidated vintage books, and rummaged through his closet. Most of his stuff was gone—sold or taken to Paris—but there was one drawer in his closet that seemed stuffed, full to the brim. It was jammed, so I had to yank it open using force. As soon as I did, huge stacks of paper greeted me. Documents…books…pictures? Yup. There were pictures there too. Funny, he didn’t strike me as the sentimental type. I recognized one peeking out from the bottom of the mound, of me and Dylan at a county fair, and plucked it out with a smile. My beam collapsed when I realized he had cut me out of the picture. Scissored a square where my face had been.
What the…?
With trembling hands, I started going through the pictures in his drawer. There were dozens of them. All of them of me and Dylan, or just me. In all of them, my face had been cut out. What the hell? Why would he do this? We weren’t friendly anymore, but we weren’t enemies either, as far as I could tell. Tears prickled my eyes, but I didn’t let them loose. The bedroom door opened with a familiar old-house grunt. I twisted around savagely, my cheeks stinging pink.
He stood there, his six-pack on full display, his hair a damp mess. A towel was wrapped around his slim waist. “What the fuck are you doing in here, Dot?”
Hot, liquid anger swirled in my gut, making my entire body hum with fury. “Why?” I raised a stack of ruined pictures in my fist, tilting my chin up daringly. “Why do you hate me? What did I ever do to you?”
There was no other way to explain the sudden change in his behavior. His eyes met mine across the room. Surely, he couldn’t break my heart before I gave it to him. He had no permission to do so.
What was I talking about? I had no heart to give. It’d been smashed into powder, ground into dust.
Then why is it pulsing so loudly between my legs now that it’s just the two of us?
“It’s not what you think,” he said woodenly. His voice sounded foreign, detached; my knees buckled. He didn’t deny it. God, what excuse could he have for doing something this mean? This creepy?
“You don’t know what I think.” A miserable smile slashed my face. “But tell me how it is anyway.”
“Can’t.” Face expressionless. Eyes dead. Muscles stiff.
“Why?”
“Reasons.”
