Chapter 40
FORTY
POGO STICKS ARE PERILOUS
The practicalities of dried cum are evident a short while later, but I’m obviously crazy because I love it.
Despite accepting that I won’t let Zach anywhere near me tonight before I shower.
The tangible (if faintly gross) proof has me holding my head up high when we step inside Darcy Lovell’s apartment building.
Everyone knows her dad owns it; that’s why she can have a party without getting her ass kicked out. Fuck the other neighbors who spend fifteen grand a month to live here—the landlord’s bitch spawn is in residence and what she wants, she gets.
Zach collects our coats in one hand but drags me with him so I’m not alone. I will definitely be rewarding him later for that.
The music’s loud, the massive apartment’s full to the brim, and I can already see Pecan bouncing up and down on the makeshift dance floor like he’s—
“Does he have a pogo stick?”
Zach shouts in my ear, “Who?”
“PECAN.” I point to where our mutual dumbass friend is doing a great jack-in-the-box impression.
Zach’s scowl’s immediate, as is how he hauls me through the crowd toward Pecan.
“The fuck are you doing, dude?” is his greeting. “Where did you even get that thing?”
I can see some of the girls tittering behind their red cups and know I’m definitely the butt of a lot of the jokes. When I spy Addison Fitzpatrick standing among them, I half-expect a smirk, but she surprises me by shooting me a sympathetic smile.
Not that it means much when she’s surrounded by mean girls clearly taking a lot of pleasure from my humiliation, but I guess that’s something.
And it’s not like I can even focus on them too much. A dipshit Pecan might be, but I’m so glad for his bizarre brain. Breaking his neck on a pogo stick is more of an emergency than Dyers’s BS.
“Zach! Deeeeeeeee!” Pecan yeehaws. “You made it!”
“Where did you get a pogo stick?”
“Dunno,” he chirrups, bright and breezy as ever. Or is he? I know him well and beneath his cheer… “You want a go? Be great for your coordination—”
“Maybe if you didn’t stink of Grey Goose, we could applaud you for training at a party,” I throw in, wanting to smile but knowing I shouldn’t encourage him. “What if you break your arm, Peeks?”
“D, you’re so right.” He bounces. “What if I did?” He bounces again. “That would suck.” Another bounce.
“Feel free to stop at any time,” Zach yells.
Bounce.
“But it’s fun!”
Bounce.
“Might be. But what if you broke your arm and tore your ACL?”
He stops bouncing.
ACL, meniscus, hamstring—dirty words to an athlete.
“D, you think I could?”
I watch him wobble from side to side on the stick. “I think you could if you don’t jump off, Pecan.”
He veers to the side just as Zach snags him and yeets him upright. A call of ‘GERONIMO’ tears through the living room and a chorus of boos greets us once Zach saves Pecan’s butt.
“Where’s Hailey?” I shout at Pecan. “She usually keeps you in line.”
My closest friend’s happy countenance darkens. Instantly.
And there we have it, folks.
Girl trouble.
“I don’t know where she is and I don’t care, all right?”
When he shoves through the crowd, I gape at Zach. “What was that about? Did he tell you about any problems he’s having with Hailey?”
“No. I don’t know what’s going on with him.” Bending so I can hear him better, he states, “But we might have our roommate back full-time.”
“You think they broke up?”
“I think it’s likely. When does Pecan ever get that way unless he has girl trouble?”
Great minds and all that.
“True.” I tug on his hand. “We need to find him.”
When he nods, then straightens so he can peer over the crowd’s heads—perks of being a beanstalk—he hollers, “That way,” and raises our joined hands so I know where we’re going.
As he guides us through the crowd, I follow in his wake.
It’s hard to hide from the partygoers’ amusement at my expense, but I angle my chin high and inwardly tell myself that this will pass.
When we find Pecan in the kitchen, his tongue down Darcy Lovell’s throat, I groan and grab his arm.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Darcy barks when Pecan blearily blinks at me.
Ignoring her because hello, BITCH ALERT, I snap, “Are you trying to lose Hailey forever?”
“She dumped me,” he booms, looking like he’s on the brink of tears.
The only time I’ve seen that happen is when he’s lost a major game…
Ooh, boy.
Hailey’s as important to him as hockey.
Jeeeez.
“Seriously? Who the fuck let her in?” Darcy slams her hands onto her hips.
“She’s with me,” Zach snarls, but I ignore him, knowing he’ll handle the C U Next Tuesday.
Dragging Pecan to the refrigerator, where there’s a minute amount of space for us to talk, I hiss, “What happened? Did you cheat on her?”
He gapes at me. “NO! Do you know how hard you rammed home never to cheat? You’d be the one to skin me alive.”
Well…
“At least you listened,” I grouse.
I mean, I tried to do my fellow womankind a service by ensuring that lesson resonated.
Doesn’t mean their girlfriends treat me right though.
Admittedly, Hailey’s a sweetheart. Whenever she’s around, Pecan’s always happy, even if she has so many jobs to make ends meet that I’ve barely gotten to know her.
When he semi-moved out of our place and into hers, I wasn’t all that surprised.
Not just because I thought he’d caught feelings but Pecan’s a gent—if he lived there, he’d help with bills, which would give Hailey, who I know’s a scholarship student, a lot of relief. A fact he confirmed at Friendsgiving.
Because he’s miserable, I tug him in for a hug. That he squeezes me is another massive shift in Pecan’s usual MO.
He’s the kinda guy who slaps you on the back—me included. Despite the fact it usually launches me across the room.
For him to accept a full-on hug, things are worse than I thought.
“Can I help?”
“I don’t know,” he mutters, and I can feel the tears on his cheeks trickling down my neck.
“That’s it. I’m cutting you off,” I reply in his ear as I hug him tighter. “You’re coming home tonight, right?”
“I was going to stay here.”
I slap him on the shoulder, hard enough for him to oooof. “Don’t be an idiot. You think fucking another woman will get you back in Hailey’s good graces?”
“What do you mean good graces? I didn’t do anything wrong!”
“Well, clearly, she doesn’t agree.”
“She said we were too different.”
“And?”
“There a reason you’re snotting all over my girlfriend?”
I roll my eyes at Zach’s possessiveness, but Pecan just mumbles, “Been friends with her as long as you have, fuckface. So get lost.”
Zach winks at me to let me know he’s only messing.
Seriously, with how the last few days have gone, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was jealous.
“What’s going on?”
“Hailey broke up with him.”
“Stomped on my heart—that’s what she did. Broke up with me. Ha. If only it had been that simple.” Pecan squints at me. “You have a paper napkin, D?”
“Do I look like I’m carrying napkins, Pecan?” I grouse in exasperation, stacking my hands on my hips.
He studies me, then his brows lift and he flicks a look at Zach. Something passes between them, some form of communication, then he shakes his head. “You’re kinda cute together. All coordinated and shit.”
I roll my eyes. “What can we do aside from not letting Darcy get her claws into you? Honestly, Pecan, what were you thinking?”
“That you get over one by getting under another,” Zach inserts wryly.
I sniff at him. “If we ever break up and you do that, there’s no second chance.”
“Well, I’m never letting you go,” is his smooth rejoinder. “So there’s no worrying about that.”
Pecan huffs.
Zach claps him on the shoulder. “Come on, dipshit. We’ll go to Dopie’s and get you something to soak up the 40 of alcohol you drank. My treat.”
He grimaces but his gaze is hopeful. “Pecan pancakes?”
“With extra pecans and extra raspberry sauce,” Zach confirms.
“Okay, let me get my shit.”
“What shit?” I ask.
“Some of my stuff is in Darcy’s bedroom. I came here first—”
I shake my head at him as he wanders off, then I twist and turn until I find Darcy. She’s glowering at me, but I’m okay with that. I don’t want her dive-bombing Pecan while he’s in her room—we’ll never get him away from her.
She’s been sniffing around him since we came to Oakwood and once I’ve deciphered why Hailey and Pecan broke up, I don’t intend on letting Darcy mess with them further.
Not when Hailey is damn good for Pecan. He didn’t get caught with his ass out in public once by anyone other than me, even though I know they fucked in less-than-private areas while they were together.
For Peeks the Cheeks, that’s a massive frickin’ win.
“What are you thinking?”
I keep my gaze locked on Darcy. “That we need to smuggle him out of here so Succubus Sally over there can’t get her claws into him.”
His hand settles on my nape. “He’s coming.”
“That’s my worry.”
“I meant literally. He’s over there.” He cackles when I blush. “Hey, you know he’ll be fine.”
“You didn’t see him last year, Zach. He didn’t do well without you.
” I can’t say that I did much better either.
“Hailey, I dunno, balanced him? She made him… better.” It sucks to say that about a close friend, but there’s no denying Pecan can be annoying as fuck sometimes.
“I need to figure out what’s going on between them. ”
“You’re such a meddler.” He chucks me under the chin so he can plant a kiss on my lips. “Your charge is by the door so I think we can leave.”
“You sure you don’t mind?”
“Nah. Barely anyone from the team’s here anyway. Plus, we made our point. You’re here. You held your head high. You faced these fuckers. It might take some time, but the holidays are coming up and you’ll be going to Spain soon. Memories will fade.”
Relief that I’ll be spending six weeks in Spain at the start of the new year hits me. I can sense he’s dreading it so I don’t blurt out, “Viva Espana!”
Instead, I squeeze his hand in thanks before we trudge through the crowd.
Hell, alcohol might help with memory loss too—the amount these idiots are soaking up will definitely damage their brains.
Zach grabs our coats, and I release a deep breath when we step outside the building. It’s cold and brisk and the noise is so loud, it feels as if the bass is rumbling through the sidewalk.
Pecan, unsurprisingly for a man of his size, might be shitfaced, but he can still walk in a straight line.
When we reach Zach’s ride, he dumps his stuff in the trunk, then climbs into the back seat.
Tweaking the playlist so that “Laissez-Faire” plays straight off, I ask him, “Right, what happened?”
“Let Auntie Denny fix things for you,” Zach coos as he hits the ignition and takes us to Dopie’s.
“There’s nothing to fix.”
“Sure there is. This can’t have just come out of the blue. She had my back at the library!”
“Yesterday, she was fine. Earlier, things were normal. I made her goddamn breakfast in bed this morning and we left for class. She kissed me. Then, this evening, she’s like, ‘We need to talk.’” He scrubs a hand over his face. “You know that’s the death knell.”
My brows lift at the idea of Pecan, my buddy Peter Canard, master of the takeout app, making Hailey breakfast in bed.
The hell?
“What happened then? Specifically. Hailey’s too rational for something like this—”
“Apparently not.” He folds his arms across his chest. “Look, I don’t want to talk about this. I just want pancakes, candied pecans, and bed.”
“Coming up, bud,” Zach tells him, but his hand settles on my knee and he squeezes it.
I know what that means—he wants me to back off.
With a heavy sigh, I do, but there’s something going on with Hailey for sure. I just wish I were close enough to her to help figure it out.