Chapter 17
Seventeen
Jade
The lines in Wal-E-Mart were always a mile long. And as we stood in it, I couldn’t help but notice people throwing glances at Wolf.
A group of college-aged girls in the line beside us whispered to each other, their starry gazes aimed his way. I couldn’t really blame them. I was pretty sure I used to look at him the exact same way—still would if I had less discipline.
The girls’ attention drifted to me, and their grins fell.
I knew it was good old-fashioned jealousy, but there was always a dash of extra venom because I didn’t fit the mold of someone he “should” date.
To their minds, Wolf Brookes was on a pedestal of god-like status.
For him to date someone they wouldn’t aspire to look like, short-circuited their brains.
My instinct was to step away, to make it clear that no, I was not dating Wolf Brookes. I never liked drawing attention to our dating for that reason. It made me feel judged, not good enough.
Instead, though, I held my head high. My self-worth is not dependent on external validation.
Evidently, theirs was, though. I knew any one of those girls would kill for five minutes of Wolf’s time, and they didn’t even know him.
He could have been a total asshole, and they wouldn’t care.
I almost pitied them. Although when I thought about that, it was pretty dehumanizing for Wolf.
Like he was nothing more than the sum of his pretty face and ability to throw a ball.
The blonde of the group broke free, smiling like a practiced pageant queen when she approached Wolf and asked for a selfie.
Tuning out the sound of their voices, I scrolled on my phone.
Halfway through her fan-girling, a Lonely Fans notification ribbon popped up at the top of my screen.
In my panicked bid to get rid of it, I accidentally opened it to a new message from PussyHunter69.
Shit. I fumbled, trying to close the app and?—
“Pussy Hunter sixty-nine?”
I jumped when Wolf’s voice drifted over my shoulder. Shame and humiliation burned through me while I stood there, frozen, like a kid who’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t by a parent.
I glanced at Wolf, then past him to where the group of girls were now huddled around the blonde, staring at her phone screen. “Done with your adoring fans so soon?”
My phone dinged again with a Lonely Fans notification, and I stupidly looked at the screen. The screen with the chat still right there on it.
PussyHunter69: I’ll suck that chocolate sauce off your toes while I stroke my dick.
Kill me. Why the hell did I have my notifications on for my dodgy sex site?
“Jesus Christ. I know shit’s bad, but fucking Lonely Fans?”
The people in front of us turned and stared. I crammed the device into my pocket, my face heating to a nuclear level.
“What? Why would you say that?” I doubled down. Nothing on that message thread said Lonely Fans. Just the color scheme, the logo, and the general assumption that it was clearly a sex site based on the use of chocolate sauce and dick stroking. Still…
“The LF logo in the corner, Jade.” Frowning, he gave me a disapproving shake of his head. Like his criminally laden, immoral character had any right to judge me.
I lifted a brow. “How do you know what the Lonely Fans logo looks like?”
“I’m not on it, if that’s what you mean.” His disgust over that was clear.
Whatever. “It’s none of your business.” I turned my focus to the old-as-dirt check-out lady who I really wished would scan the items a little faster.
“It will be my business when Pussy Hunter sixty-nine murders you so he can cut off your feet at the ankles and use them to ‘stroke his dick.’”
“Oh, my God.” I turned back to him, annoyed by this whole situation. “It’s safe. They aren’t even allowed to talk about meeting in person, or the app bans them.”
“You think he can’t find your IP address and hunt you down? I mean, it’s in his name, Jade. Pussy Hunter !”
“You’re ridiculous. He doesn’t know who the hell TwinkleToes123 is.” If he followed my IP, he’d end up at a frat house.
Confusion wrinkled his brow. “You used the nickname you gave me as your Lonely Fans handle?”
He said that loudly enough that the group of fawning girls was now staring. It was probably only a matter of time before they pulled out their phones and filmed the whole shitshow. Just what I needed. Jason Voorhees and Twinkle Toes.
I slapped my palm over his mouth, glaring up at him. “Announce it to the world; why don’t you?” Maybe I had used his nickname, but it was not deliberate. Well, not really. “And no, I did not use your nickname…” I whispered, lowering my hand from his face.
God, this was getting so weird. Cassie had come up with that name, and yeah, okay, maybe some vengeful little corner of my mind thought it to be a twisted kind of irony. “Well, I did, but… Can we just not talk about this?”
The line shuffled up. Of course, the lady in front of us pulled out a coupon wallet. Why did the universe hate me?
“It is my nickname.” He shoved a hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out a lavender lighter. One with a bunny ballerina on it.
My chest grew annoyingly warm and fuzzy.
I had given him that lighter senior year as a joke after he’d told me he took ballet as a kid to make his mom happy.
That was when I’d started calling him Twinkle Toes as a joke.
Ironic, seeing as he was enormous and spent his spare time charging down a football field, taking people out.
He dangled the lighter in front of me with an accusing glare.
“I can’t believe you still have that.”
His expression went lax, like he’d been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar. “It’s a good lighter.” He crammed it back into his pocket. “Seriously, though. Delete that shit.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” I glanced over his shoulder at the group of girls who were still watching, like the world’s best soap drama was playing out in front of them.
“I will when what you’re doing is stupid.”
I shifted until I was pressed against his side with my back to them. “At least Lonely Fans is legal,” I said, keeping my voice barely above a whisper. In the grand scheme of my life, this featured pretty far down on my list of problems. Because, you know, it couldn’t get me put in jail.
“It’s stupid,” he said again. “And gross.”
My jaw went lax. I looked at him, trying to fight the nasty sensation burning through my chest. Of all people, telling me I was gross.
“Excuse me! How many slutty, ‘gross’ girls have you screwed over the years? Screwed , not sent a foot picture to. Was that okay because they gave it out for free?” I folded my arms over my chest. “ Or maybe it was just fine when you were benefiting from them being ‘gross?’”
His jaw ticced before he grabbed the plastic checkout divider and slammed it down onto the conveyor belt. Someone didn’t like having the rhetoric flipped.
“ You’re gross,” I mumbled, trying to deny to myself how much that one word hurt.
“You want to get killed by some foot freak—” He dropped the rat traps on the checkout—“Go right ahead.”
I let out a breath and glared at the woman counting out her three million ten-cent-off coupons. “Maybe I will.”
It wasn’t my best come back, but fuck him.
Thank God the police had called on our way back from Wal-E-Mart.
I could pick up my “stolen” car from the impound lot, and that could not have come at a better time.
One more minute in that car, or house, with Wolf was going to kill me.
No, it was going to kill him. Gross. Asshole.
What right did he have to make me feel bad for making money?
I didn’t want to go to that stupid house and look at Wolf’s stupid face, so I drove to the local gas station and parked in an empty space. I spent the next hour doing my homework before I drove to work.
I pulled into the Roller Burger lot and grabbed my skates from the back seat.
On my way to the staff room, I passed a couple of the other girls, who waved as they skated past in their skimpy outfits.
Wolf didn’t have a problem with me working here, acting gross .
Everybody knew no one was coming to Roller Burger for the food.
Although, I could admit, it wouldn’t have been my first choice for employment.
I’d needed a job, though, and in a student town, flexible, minimum-wage jobs were in high demand.
So, yeah, Lonely Fans wasn’t the first time I’d sold my dignity for money.
I shoved open the door to the staff room to find Cassie sitting on the bench in front of the banged-up lockers, lacing up her skates.
“Where the hell have you been?” she asked. “I had to do all of Rogue’s stupid chores on my own this afternoon.”
I hadn’t told her about the whole stolen car debacle, mainly because I didn’t want to lie to her. “Sorry.” I opened my locker and shoved my bag inside. “I couldn’t deal with going back to the house.”
“Why? Last I heard, you got a ride home with Wolf. After sleeping in his bed with him last night, and going to breakfast?—”
“Rogue gossips far too much.”
“So, you didn’t sleep in his bed?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“So, it didn’t mean anything?”
I glared at her.
“Yet Wolf came back to the house alone.” She inspected her nails. “Tell me you’ve come to your senses and decided that cozying up to your blackmailer isn’t a good idea.”
I tugged my shirt over my head, then took the Roller Burger one from my bag. “You’re sleeping in Rogue’s bed.”
“Against my will. But this isn’t about me.”
She was exhausting. I let out a long sigh. “He saw my Lonely Fans.”
“And?”
Of course, she wouldn’t see an issue. “And, he was a dick about it.”
She rolled her eyes before bending down to lace her other skate. “Wolf needs to get into the modern world. You are an empowered woman taking advantage of weak men.”