three
Rumor Has It… A certain, newly restored member of the elite was seen out and about spoiling his queen on several occasions of late. Is he making up for lost time, or working up to something bigger?
Colt Darling
“Are you coming over after this?” Dixie asks as we pull up to Two Scoops of Love.
“I thought you wanted to go out, now that we can,” I remind her, since that’s what she said earlier.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to still hang out at home too,” she says. “We can watch Twilight and make popcorn. Maybe my parents will even let you spend the night. I mean, we’re both eighteen, and they know we’ve been hooking up for years.”
“And now my family’s not being shunned, so they approve of me again,” I finish, saying the quiet part aloud. Shaking off my annoyance, I get out of the car and go around to open her door, take her hand, and help her out.
“They were just looking out for me,” she says. “You can’t blame them for that.”
I sigh. “We went out Friday so everyone would see us together at the movies, we’re coming here so they’ll be reminded that I’m allowed anywhere I want to go. How much of me do you need to see?”
“It’s spring break,” she points out, stopping at the door to the ice cream shoppe and waiting for me to open it. “We can hang out as much as we want.”
“And keeping me busy is your way of keeping tabs on me,” I say. “If I’m with you, you know where I am and what I’m doing.”
“That’s not fair,” she cries, her voice loud and shrill inside the small place. A few tables give us curious looks, and I know she’s going to cry in public to make me look like an asshole. I guess I deserve that one, but after years of it, I’m sick of being the bad guy. I know why she doesn’t trust me now, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I’ve told her for years I’m not the relationship type, that I didn’t want that, but she wouldn’t let me walk away. So here we are.
“Let’s just order,” I mutter, glancing at the counter, where Florence is working.
“Whuhkinnagechall?” she drawls in her deep, deep south accent. If I was here by myself, or with family or friends, I’d tease her about her new haircut, blonde spikes poking out in directions and slicked down in the other, though it’s no weirder than the others she’s had. But if I take my attention off Dixie, she’ll just get madder and louder.
I give her a look, hoping she’ll chill out while we order, though I should know better by now. Florence is good people, a Faulkner legend even if she didn’t grow up here, a warrior and survivor of her own battles. She’s the one who gave me a key to this place, a small kindness done in secret, passed from palm to palm with a whisper and an unspoken understanding. I never for one moment took that for granted the way I would have before the Dolces. I know what she could have lost.
“I can’t believe you’d say that to me,” Dixie says, not bothering to keep her voice down.
I grit my teeth and approach the counter.
“Don’t walk away from me,” Dixie shrieks, chasing after.
“Can we just order and sit down before you yell at me?”
“Oh, now it’s all my fault?” Dixie asks. “Because I’m such a bad girlfriend? Is that it? You still think you can do better, don’t you? You’ve always thought you were too good for me.”
“Dixie,” I warn, glancing at Florence, who stands behind the counter waiting, a tall oak of a woman in her Docs, dark Levi’s, and ever-present flannel shirt, this one sleeveless and showing off her muscular, tattooed arms. “This isn’t the place.”
“What’s wrong with this place?” Dixie demands. “A minute ago you didn’t want to hang out at my house alone, but now that we’re fighting, you don’t want to be with me in public. What’s the problem, Colt? You don’t want everyone to know you treat me like shit?
“The problem is you’re causing a scene,” I grit out. “In front of someone I respect.”
“Well, it’s good to know you respect her,” she snaps. “What about me?”
“I respect you plenty,” I say. “Enough to want to keep you from embarrassing yourself.”
“Embarrassing myself?” she shrieks.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I mutter, then turn to Florence. “I’m sorry. We’ll leave.”
I give her a nod, then turn and stalk out, Dixie on my heel, hounding me the whole way. “Oh, so you’ll apologize to random people in stores, but not to your own girlfriend? I’m sorry I’m not good enough for you, Colt. I’m sorry I’m so embarrassing to you.”
In the parking lot, I turn back to her. “I apologize to you fifty fucking times a day, Dixie. I’ve said I’m sorry so many times I’m starting to think that’s my name. And in case you’ve forgotten, you chose this. I tried to set you free, and you didn’t want it.”
Now I know why I tried to end it for good last year. I left her because I wanted Lo.
It seems impossible. I got tattoos on my arms for Gloria Fucking Walton, the demon queen, the stuff of nightmares, the girl of my wildest fucking dreams. I don’t know whether I hate her or Dixie more.
“Because I love you,” Dixie cries, her eyes wide. I believed it for years, every time she said those words. But now I watch her not blinking until her eyes start to water, like she did in the café with Harper that day. I’m onto her now, the way she can make herself cry to manipulate me, and I wonder in what other ways she’s tricked me.
“That’s not love,” I say. “It’s control.”
“What?” she asks, blinking a tear onto her lashes, giving me her signature wounded look. How did I not see it before? It’s all fake, as manufactured as Gloria Walton’s diamond exterior. But instead of playing the villain, Dixie plays the victim.
“Is that why you really wanted to come here?” I ask. “Because it’s always busy, and this way you get to look like the victim in public? I mean, you’ve already fooled me for so long it must get boring. I hardly blame you for wanting a challenge. Fooling the whole world must be so much more satisfying than just some dumbass who never suspected you.”
“Suspected me?” she asks, her lip trembling. “What are you accusing me of? I’m not allowed to say I love you now?”
“When you say you love someone to guilt them into doing what you want, that’s not love,” I say. “When you say you love someone so much you’ll kill yourself if they don’t stay, that’s not love.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I don’t know what to believe,” I say, raking a hand through my hair. Pieces are falling into place, things I never saw because I kept a distance between us until the accident, and I couldn’t remember what happened right before. Maybe it wasn’t about Gloria at all. Maybe I found out something, and that’s why I dumped Dixie. Maybe she just said it was about another girl so I wouldn’t look too closely at her.
She was allowed to run her blog for years with no interference from the kings of the school. They even fed her information to post. What did she give them in return?
I’m such a fucking dumbass. When you’re being watched, and your stalker suddenly gives you a gift, only an idiot wouldn’t look to see if it was bugged.
“You’re the one who doesn’t know what love is, Colt,” she says, swiping at her cheeks. “You obviously don’t love me, even after everything I’ve done for you. Maybe you don’t know how. Maybe you’re incapable of love.”
I think about shivering in a sleeping bag on the floor of Grandpa’s treehouse, telling Destiny we should take off our clothes to get warm. And how it felt like a dream when she giggled and agreed, how it felt like a miracle every time she said yes. I think about how wild and sexy I thought she was when she asked me to fuck her with another guy, and how confident when she offered to let me choose another girl to join us to make it even. How every time she linked her fingers through mine in front of our friends, I was filled with pride, and gratitude, and awe.
“Maybe,” I concede, looking away from Dixie’s tearstained face.
I was fourteen, for fuck’s sake. What did I know? Nothing. I was just thankful to get my dick wet. I probably would have called it love no matter who it was. It’s been so long I sometimes think I made it all up, the way I thought I did the fantasies of Gloria Walton. The year with Destiny is a rose-colored memory that looks better than what it was because everything that came after is seen through the shit-smeared lenses the Dolces shoved over my eyes.
“It’s not your fault,” Dixie says, wrapping her arms around me and pressing her cheek to my chest. “I mean, look at your parents. They both cheated on their marriages, or you’d never have been born. And your mom didn’t even love you enough to stick around when the Dolces targeted you. But I’m here, Colt. Even if you didn’t have a good example from your parents, you have me. I can show you.”
I feel myself sinking into the sludge of her quicksand logic, getting lost in the maze of her words and my own broken brain where I’ve been searching for answers in the dark for so long that every glimmer of hope looks like the truth, the way out.
“Do I have a choice?” I ask.
“What do you mean?” she asks. “This is what love looks like, Colt. You said it yourself. Doing anything to be with the person you love. I’ve been doing that for almost four years. Don’t you think I know what love is better than anyone?”
“I don’t know, Dixie,” I say. “Are you going to threaten to commit suicide if I don’t go home with you and let you show me?”
She releases me and steps back, and I hate myself for the relief I feel, like I can breathe again now that she’s not wrapped around me, smothering me in her inescapable grip.
“I told you I was sorry,” she says, pouting. “When are you going to stop throwing that in my face?”
When you stop throwing your love in mine, I think, but I don’t say it because I’m done with the constant arguments. I just want some peace, and maybe the goddamn truth for once.
“Kinda hard to forget your girlfriend saying she’s going to kill herself.”
“I told you I didn’t mean it,” she says. “Everyone says stuff like that when they’re fighting. Why do you keep bringing it up?”
If I didn’t, you’d accuse me of not caring if you went through with it.
I don’t say that, either. No matter what I say, it’ll be the wrong thing. I can’t just forgive her when she says sorry, because she doesn’t want forgiveness or even absolution. She wants guilt. She wants an apology for making her feel bad enough to apologize. I can’t fight Dixie because she has all the answers, and I can’t fight knowledge with ignorance.
“Let’s just go.”
“But we didn’t get ice cream.”
I grit my teeth and take a breath. Of course she’s going to drag me back in there, and I’ll apologize to Florence and act like I’m not fucking mortified by my girlfriend’s behavior, and Florence will give me grace because she’s a southern lady, even if she’d die before admitting it. And we’ll sit there and eat, and I’ll feel everyone watching, but I’ll pretend I don’t, and everyone will spare my dignity by not bringing it up. And Dixie will have her ice cream, satisfied that she won, like she does every goddamn time because I don’t have a defense strong enough to combat the weapon she calls love.
“Not feeling it anymore,” I say. “But go get yourself something if you want it.”
I pull out my wallet and hand her a twenty, then walk away to the sound of her protests. She charges after me. “I’m not going in alone,” she huffs. “Everyone in there saw us on a date. What will they think if I go back without you?”
“They won’t think anything,” I say. “They all know we’re fighting.”
“What does that mean?”
I sigh and climb into my truck, closing my eyes and laying my head back on the headrest, hoping I’ll have two seconds while she goes around to get in her side.
Instead, she stands in my open door, blocking me from closing it and planting a hand on her hip as she looks up at me expectantly.
“It means we weren’t subtle.”
“Are you saying I’m tacky?” she asks. “Is that it? You don’t want to be seen with me now because you’re popular again and I’m still fat?”
“I’m saying you know how to get attention when you want it,” I say. “And for the last fucking time, I’ve never cared what you look like.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have let you back in the elite circle,” she says, lifting her chin and giving me a haughty look. “You know, I could have stopped that. I was queen already, without even sitting at that table. If I hadn’t made sure you sat at the founders’ table every day, you’d still be a nobody sitting at the rebel table. You wouldn’t be a king again if I hadn’t made it happen.”
“Then why did you?” I ask, not opening my eyes.
“Because you deserved that,” she says. “After all you’ve been through. We deserve it. You’ve been a king before, and I was queen. But we deserve to be king and queen together, to win prom and be officially crowned, so the whole school knows it.”
“Prom?” I ask incredulously, lifting my head to stare at her. “That’s what this is about?”
“Part of it,” she admits. “Don’t you want that? You never won, even back when you were on top. Now you can.”
“Unbelievable,” I mutter.
It shouldn’t be. Dixie’s been obsessed with that since she was a freshman, and back then, when that kind of thing seemed important, I wanted it for her too. I thought about how happy she’d be, and when she said a girl like her would never win, I told her that wasn’t true, and I hoped I was right. Now it seems so insignificant, even ridiculous, to care about a plastic tiara when people in school are being raped and beaten. But then, those things never touched Dixie’s little bubble of blissful ignorance.
She may not have been crowned at the fucking prom, but she’s always been on top, above even the queen. The queen still answers to the people, after all. Dixie answers to no one.
Suddenly, I hate her for it.
She’s still screeching at me for my comment, but I’ve switched off. All I can feel is the spear of need jabbing into me with each shrill word that jabs into my eardrums. The craving hits like a wrench hooking into my gut, the pull so hard it threatens to drag me out of the car and across the world if that’s what it would take to find relief. I know it won’t fade until I take one of the half-dozen pills remaining, not enough to get me through the rest of the day if we keep fighting like this. Reaching into my pocket, I finger the little tin where I keep them, but I resist because I want to be clearheaded when I do this—as clearheaded as a guy sucking down a dozen high dosage prescription painkillers a day can get, anyway.
I know I should cut back, but every stressor has me itching for them, and life seems to be nothing but stressors lately. I miss my lunch breaks under the bleachers, where I had a haven of calm to myself, the freedom of ostracism that I told Gloria I’d trade her in a moment. Ironically, now I have, and I understand the sadness in her the night when she said she envied me, inside this very building, when we snuck in to get root beer floats.
“This isn’t working,” I say, cutting off Dixie mid-squawk.
“What?” she asks, her eyes wide as she stumbles back like I pushed her. Until a few months ago, I’d have believed I hurt her, but the more we’re together and the closer we become, the more I see through it. Now, I can’t help but wonder if she’s putting on a show for the car pulling up, trying to make it look like I laid hands on her.
“I just need some space,” I say. “I can’t be with you every day, Dixie. It’s too much.”
She blinks at me in disbelief. “Seeing me every day is too much?”
“It’s not about you,” I say. “I’m just not that kind of guy. I need room to breathe.”
“Now I’m smothering you?” she demands.
“Yes,” I say, throwing up my hands. “What do you want me to say? Yes. That’s the truth, and I’m sorry, but I’ve never been the kind of guy who needs to be wrapped up in someone twenty-four seven. It makes me claustrophobic. I like being alone sometimes. I like doing my own thing. And I like you, Dixie, but if you want it to stay that way, you need to respect that and give me space when I need it.”
“I have respected it,” she says, her lip quivering. “I gave you space. I waited years for us to be able to be together, so excuse me for wanting to enjoy it now that we can finally be together at school and not have to sneak around on the weekends.”
“Yeah, well, the Dolces weren’t the only reason we kept it casual,” I say.
“What?” she whispers, gaping at me.
“The Dolces may have laid down the law, but I was fine with that arrangement.”
“I knew it,” she says. “I knew you were ashamed to be seen with me.”
“Not the hiding part,” I say, holding up a hand. “I’m fine being your official boyfriend. But the rest of it worked for me.”
“Well, it didn’t work for me.”
We stare at each other a second, and then I nod, picking at the seam on the tin. I wanted to be clearheaded, but once the craving hits, I might as well have taken one, because it’s hard to think about anything else.
“Then maybe we don’t work,” I say.
“Not this again,” she says, sighing. “You don’t have to break up with me every time we fight, Colt. You said once we were officially together, you wouldn’t do that anymore.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t be together at all.”
“Or maybe you could learn to compromise. That’s what adults do, and if we’re going to last, you have to do that. I’m not letting you break up with me because of some silly argument over nothing, Colt. Don’t you think you’re being just a little dramatic to walk away from four years of our love because you don’t want to watch Twilight again?”
“I didn’t even know that’s what we were arguing about,” I say, prying open the tin. I close my eyes and run the pad of my thumb over the smooth white pills like they’re my greatest treasure, more precious than diamonds. To me, they are. When has a diamond ever gotten me through a day, an hour, an argument, or a revelation that I fucked my worst enemy, and maybe she’s not the enemy at all?
“Then what were you arguing about?” Dixie asks. “I thought it was because you didn’t want to get ice cream and watch a movie on the same day.”
It sounds so simple when she says it, but it’s so much more—almost four years more. Four years of trying to fit together the same two puzzle pieces that were never meant to fit, wearing down the edges, softening the fibers, trying to morph them into something they were never meant to be. Even if we file them down until they fit, they’ll never match because we don’t match. The only thing we had in common for the last two years was that the Dolces looked the other way when we talked. Now I wonder if that was all part of her plan, something she arranged with Baron the way I arranged our official status with Duke.
I shake the thought away. I’m starting to give in to paranoia like Preston. Just because Dixie annihilated Gloria, a girl she insisted was her friend for the last two years, with a gleeful relish that reminded me of Duke and Baron combined to an unsettling degree, that doesn’t mean she’d do the same to me.
But I can’t shake my doubts. We’re closer now than we’ve ever been, and I’ve seen sides of Dixie that set me on edge and make me want to distance myself even more.
She climbs back into the truck, and I pull up to the drive-through window to order, relieved she’s not forcing me to take her inside again.
“See?” Dixie says as I pull away from Two Scoops. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
I scowl at her patronizing tone and finally give in, fishing one of the pills out of my pocket and slipping it onto my tongue. I swallow it with a gulp of root beer from my float.
“Good,” Dixie says. “I could tell you needed one of those. You were getting grumpy. Now we can go home and hang out, but not watch a movie. How’s that for the next compromise?”
“What happens if one person isn’t willing to compromise what they want for the other person?”
“That’s not an option,” she says lightly. “You got to do that for years. Now we’re together, and you’ll just have to learn.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You will,” she says. “Like you just did. You worked too hard to get back to where you are. You finally have the status you always wanted, the attention, the visibility. You’re back in your rightful place, and I know you have too much pride to give that up, even if you miss how things used to be sometimes. It’s not easy being queen either, but I manage. It’s worth it.”
“So if I don’t do what you want, you’ll put me on blast on your blog,” I say flatly. “You’ll tell them they were right about me all along, and probably tack on some lies just for the hell of it. You won’t stop until I’m back in the gutter. Is that it?”
I pick up the float, but suddenly the thought of drinking it with this girl makes my stomach turn, and I put it back without taking a sip.
“You wouldn’t risk finding out, would you?” she asks. “You try to act like you’re all tough and rebellious now, but admit it, you enjoy the popularity as much as I do.”
“You know what, Dixie?” I say, turning the wheel hard and gassing it when we reach the road out toward my house. “Go ahead. Pull the plug on me. What do I care about popularity? It’s not like I get anything out of it. I don’t get to play football. I don’t get to fuck any girl I want.”
“Who do you want to fuck?” she demands.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Because I don’t have the option, do I? The other guys get to choose. They have freedom. I have you.”
“I knew this was about her,” she seethes. “Go on, Colt. Tell me the truth. Who am I stopping you from fucking? Gloria Walton? Is that who this is really about?”
“It’s about you,” I say. “Like every fucking thing in the world. You’re my whole world, just like you want. Just like you were when I was no one. So what’s the fucking difference, Dixie?”
“The difference is, you have the crown now,” she says. “You have everyone’s respect and admiration. I know how much you missed that. How much you wanted it all that time.”
“Yeah, well, turns out I’m not the same person I was before. My old life is gone, and it doesn’t come back just because someone hands me my old crown. I can’t force it onto my head and pretend it never left. It doesn’t fit anymore. More accurately, I don’t fit anymore.”
“You think I fit in with your crowd?” she asks. “In case you forgot, I’m not the skinny blonde cheerleader type the elites usually go for. It’s not about fitting the mold. It’s about proving the crown can belong to anyone, no matter who they are.”
“I guess that’s where we disagree,” I say. “I have nothing to prove to those assholes or anyone else.”
“How can you just give up like that?” Dixie asks. “You finally have a chance to show them you’re still royalty, that you’re just as good as them after they humiliated you for years. How can you not take it?”
“What they think doesn’t matter to me anymore. I see who they are, what they’re about, and I know they’re not worth the effort.”
“What is wrong with you?” she demands. “You worked for years to get the crown, and now it’s yours. You can’t just walk away!”
I shrug. “Maybe they rewired my brain by bashing it in one too many times. I don’t expect you to understand. You weren’t there—not really. You were always watching from the stands, sipping lemonade, and taking notes for your gossip column. I was in the ring with them.”
“That’s not fair!”
“Isn’t it?” I ask. “You have so much fucking clout with them. They tiptoe around you like they’re walking on eggshells. You said it yourself, that you could ruin Duke. But I was the one who had to go to him and beg for the privilege of dating you, because it’s what you wanted.”
“I thought you wanted it too,” she protests.
“I thought so too.”
We drive in silence for a minute, and then she starts sniffling. I turn the car around because I know I’m not going home anytime soon. But I can’t stop the rush of thoughts spinning through my head, the terrible new ideas taking shape.
“Why didn’t you ask him?” I ask at last. “You have so much power at school. More than I have. Maybe more than they have. You could have just asked him yourself. So why didn’t you, if it meant so much to you? Why didn’t you ask him last year, or junior year, before they almost killed me?”
“I wanted you to fight for me,” she says. “For us.”
“And how did you fight for us?” I ask. “You want me to feel like shit for the things I’ve had to do for Duke to get the favors you asked for, but you never lifted a finger to help me. Not with the favors, and not for the two years before that. I didn’t expect it, and I’m not pissed about it. But if you’re going to accuse me of not putting in any effort, then tell me what you’ve done, aside from guilt-tripping me into staying.”
“I did what was best for us,” she says. “To keep us together.”
“Right,” I say slowly, turning onto the street that leads to her neighborhood. “But if we’re being honest here, then you can stop playing the poor little victim act, because you haven’t been that since the first month of freshman year. Like you said, you have the power to elevate or remove someone from the elite circle. So you could have helped me during that time, but you chose not to, because if I wasn’t exiled from the social scene, I might have chosen someone else, and you knew that. You wanted me where I was, with no options. That’s how you kept us together.”
“I wanted to be with you,” she cries. “Enough to do anything to keep you, no matter what it took. I let you put me on a leash and call me a dog. I slept with your gross cousin for you!”
“Why’d you do it, if you didn’t want to?” I ask. “So you could throw it in my face later? Every time I asked you, you said yes.”
“Because I didn’t want to lose you,” she says, swiping at her tears. “I love you, Colt.”
“Bullshit,” I say flatly. “Love isn’t a weapon for you to wield against someone.”
“You don’t think I love you?” she asks, looking stricken by the idea.
I pull into her driveway and turn to her. “You say you know what love is, and you’re going to show me, but all you’ve shown me is that you’re more conniving than Gloria fucking Walton. Even a screw-up like me knows love isn’t something for you to throw in someone’s face when you fight. It’s not a tool to manipulate and control someone to do what you want, to take away their choices so they have nothing left but you.”
For two years, the Dolces knew my ego would blind me to the truth, and I’d believe someone would risk everything for me. But I see it now. Dixie never risked anything for me—or for us. It was all for her. She was always safe, and dumbass that I am, I never asked why.
“I didn’t take away your choices,” she chokes out through her tears. “I just wanted you to choose me.”
“And you made damn sure I did,” I say. “Whatever it took. So what did you do, Dixie? What did you give them in return for letting me stay at Willow Heights, keeping other girls from talking to me, and being allowed to post all your blogs about them? What did you have that granted you permanent immunity?”
“Nothing,” she cries. “I just posted what they told me to on the blog.”
“And?” I grit out. “Why would they let you do that? They wouldn’t even let people take pictures of them at parties. They don’t like anyone in their business. Why would they let you post it for everyone to see?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “They just wanted to put their own spin on it.”
“And?”
“And what?” she asks, turning her wounded gaze on me.
“And why did they choose you?” I ask. “And don’t give me that shit about their sister. I know it was more than that.”
“It wasn’t,” she says. “How can you not trust me after all this time?”
“I’m friends with Duke now, remember? Do you want me to ask him instead?”
She swallows and looks away, and the sickness churning in my gut builds. Some part of me was still hoping I was wrong. But long before I made a deal with Duke, she made one. More likely, with Baron or Royal, who held more power. She was always their choice for me, after all. Of course they weren’t going to give me something with no strings attached, especially not something as dangerous as a powerful, popular girl.
She got what she wanted, and they got what they wanted, and I got fucked from every angle.
“Get out of my car,” I say flatly.
“I don’t want to,” she says. “Where are you going? You shouldn’t drive when you’re on those pills.”
“I’m always on these pills,” I say. “And I’m sure as fuck not staying here.”
“It’s not anything like you think,” Dixie says. “I didn’t tell them you couldn’t have other friends. I swear.”
“Get out,” I say. “Before I remove you.”
“You can’t break up with me,” she says. “I’m not just going to let you go.”
“We’ll talk later,” I say. “I need to not be here right now.”
“Fine,” she says, throwing open the door. “But you’re lucky you had me all those years. You could have had no one. And for your information, everyone always told me I could do better.”
“Then maybe you should have.”
She climbs down, and as soon as she slams the door, I back out of the drive without bothering to glance in the rearview. I don’t even care at this point. If someone hit me, I wouldn’t even feel it.
I pull out my phone as I turn onto the road out of her neighborhood.
“Hey, Dynamo,” Maverick drawls on the other end of the line. “What’s up?”
“You know a hacker?” I ask.
“Don’t you have one at your school?”
“He skipped town, and I got the next best thing sent to a teen challenge ranch or some shit. You got one or not?”
“I might.”
“Can you hook me up?” I ask. “I need help tracking down some shit.”
“We got a guy,” he says. “Probably even better than your guy. But he’s a silver spoon dickhead.”
“ I’m a silver spoon dickhead,” I remind him. “Besides, I know your guy’s dad. Where do you think I got hooked on those pills before you started selling them to me?”
“Christ,” he mutters. “This should be fun.”
“I’ll swing by in ten,” I say. “You can introduce us. And then maybe you can tell me, since I know you don’t do relationships, what the fuck you’re still doing with Gloria Walton.”