Chapter 23
I slipinto the girl’s locker room, resisting the urge to look back to see if he’s following me. I think I lost him, but I still wait behind the door, expecting him to walk inside and corner me, to touch me and tease me the way he does every time he gets close enough.
When he doesn’t come, I pretend I’m not disappointed as I move further into the room. I look in the mirror, confused and angry at myself for feeling the way I did back there. I was jealous. Angry. Hurt. It makes no sense. I shouldn’t care what he does or who he talks to. Who he lets touch him and whisper things in his ear right in front of me.
I grit my teeth.
Rumor is Madison’s been his favorite fuck buddy since freshman year. That’s not going to change just because he’s decided it’s fun to chase me. I’m nothing to him. Just a game he likes to play in his spare time, a toy to play with when he’s got nothing better to do.
Why that makes me feel like someone jabbed me in the ribs, I don’t know.
Shaking my head at myself, I walk out of the locker room and through the gym, deciding to take the long way to my next class. When I push through the doors leading outside to the bleachers, the scent of weed hits my nostrils. I should mind my business, but I find myself stopping instead, looking over to find Callie Kingston sitting on the ground with a joint between her lips. She’s alone. Her bloodshot eyes peer around me as if she’s expecting someone to follow me out. When that doesn’t happen, she holds her joint up in offering. I make a face. She chuckles, pulling it back to her lips to inhale a hit.
I don’t walk away. Staring at her rounded lips, I watch as the smoke curls out in perfect little rings as she exhales.
“Sit down, coffee girl.”
I blink at that. “With you?”
“Yeah,” she says, amused. “With me.”
I look around, worried I’ll get in trouble right along with her if she gets caught smoking weed at school. When I don’t see or hear anyone, I hesitantly step closer to Callie, unsure what I’m even doing as I sit down next to her. I feel awkward as I mirror her position, leaning back against the wall with my eyes on my hands. I run my thumb over my daisy tattoo.
“Where are Wren and Levi?”
“Around,” she says, blowing her smoke the other way. “What happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“You just walked out here looking like you wanted to take someone’s head off.”
I frown. “No, I didn’t.”
“Was it Madison?”
My mouth parts, and I blink at her again. “How did you…?”
“Rachel’s got a big mouth.” She holds up her phone. “Want me to kick her ass?”
I make another face at her. She’s serious. “You’re not normal.”
She smiles a secret smile to herself. We sit in silence for a minute before she says, “He likes you, you know.”
I grit my teeth, her words running through me like fire and ice at the same time. “I’m not an idiot, Callie.” I try to sound harsh, but it comes out softer than I’d like it to. “He’s playing me.”
“You sure about that? ‘Cause it seems to me like you’re the one playing him now.”
“Excuse me?”
“I think you like it.” She smokes more of her joint. “The chase. Playing hard to get just to see how far you can pull him in. I think you know you’ve got him wrapped around your little finger, and I think you like the game just as much as he does.”
When she catches the look of fury and outrage on my face, she barks out a laugh.
“He’s not wrapped around my little finger.”
“Funny how that’s all you deny,” she mutters, then shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong.”
“You are.”
“Okay.”
I glare at the bitch. She flicks the butt of her joint into the dirt across from us, and I drop my eyes to the hickey on her neck, half hidden by the collar of the massive hoodie she loves so much.
“Why do you wear that all the time?” I ask. “Is it Damon’s or something?”
“No, it’s mine,” she snaps defensively.
“Okay.” I say. It’s just a hoodie, but I can tell it means something to her, that it’s important to her.
She rolls her eyes. “It was Levi’s.”
Our eyes lock, mine widening in shock as her face pales a little. I’ve heard the rumors about the Kingstons, that they like to share and pass each other around, that the five of them are in some kind of group relationship together, but I’ve never really believed any of them until now.
“I—no, that’s not—” she stammers. “Jesus. I met Levi once before I moved here. When I was fifteen, he…he gave it to me back then.”
“Okay.” I say again, unsure why she’s acting so weird about it.
I feel her staring at the side of my face. Just as I’m about to get up and leave, she says quietly, “He saved me,” and I turn my head until our eyes meet again. “Jason, my dad… He was a nasty piece of shit. I got hurt pretty bad one night and Levi was there. He got hurt too, but he saved me. He got me out of there.”
I stare at her, and she stares at me, still pale and wide eyed as if she can’t believe she just said all that. I can’t believe she did either. I don’t know her well, but I know enough to assume I’m probably one of the only people outside her boys she’s ever told about that.
“Callie, you don’t have t?—”
“I have a scar on my back that I don’t like people seeing,” she goes on, and I shut my mouth and let her talk. “Jason cut me and I made Levi stitch me up in a park. Anyway.” She pulls her sleeves over her knuckles, wrapping her arms around herself protectively. “I know my hair’s long enough to hide it, but I wear this just in case, you know? It makes me feel…”
“Safe,” I whisper, saying it for her.
She nods once. Her body is tense, her head down and her jaw locked as she waits for my reaction.
“So…you don’t all fuck each other?”
Her eyes snap back up to mine, and she laughs. I laugh lightly too, leaning back next to her, my shoulder touching hers.
“You did fuck Kai that one time though.”
“And Wren,” she adds, wiggling her brows. “But you don’t really care about that part, do you?”
“Fuck off.”
Another laugh. I smile before I can stop it.
When I hear the sounds of two hushed voices approaching, I startle, and she calmly rolls her head to the left. I follow her line of sight, seeing Levi and Wren coming from the direction of the bleachers, stumbling as they make out while trying to fix their wrinkled clothes.
They freeze when they see me sitting with their sister-in-law. Instead of being hostile and telling me to beat it like I thought they would, they grin at us. The grin falls off Wren’s face when he drops his eyes to Callie’s empty hands. “Dude, did you smoke it all without me?”
“Dude,” she mocks him. “You were gone for like twenty minutes. What did you expect?”
He huffs, and then the boys look at me again, both studying my face as if they’re searching for something. I scrunch my nose at them, wondering what the hell it is they’re looking for.
“I didn’t smoke any of it.”