I make my way out onto the front porch to watch the festivities, and I fish the phone out of my pocket to see what she’s said this time.
Only this text isn’t from my mother.
It’s from Levi.
Fuck.
I’ve traded one person I don’t want to see for another. Another who shouldn’t even have access to a cell phone right now because he should be in prison.
I lean on the railing that surrounds our porch, paint peeling and wood sagging, and I read the text.
I’m out f**ker. Come get wasted with me.
He’s out? I count back the months. He was caught selling pot, among other things, last fall, but it can’t have been more than six months since he was actually sentenced.
Six f**king months?
If it had been me, I’d be rotting away in there for a few more years at least. Then again, I grew up in a trailer park. Levi was raised in a house with bathrooms bigger than my old living room.
When you grow up like I did, no one has to tell you the world isn’t fair. You figure it out pretty fast on your own.
A body settles against the railing beside me, slim and petite, and I look over at Stella Santos. She says, “You look even broodier than normal.”
I look around expecting to see her best friend Dallas attached to her hip. She’s alone, though, which means either Dallas and Carson haven’t showed yet, or the coach’s daughter decided she didn’t want to talk to me and made herself scarce.
Probably the latter.
I guess when you try to bed a girl on a bet, you’re not going to be party buddies anytime soon.
“I thought girls liked broody.”
She flicks her short, black hair out of her eyes and sips something out of a red Solo cup. Her lips are painted nearly the same color, and she purses them before she answers, “Depends on the situation. There’s a fine line between broody and potential sociopath. Right now you’re walking the line.”
She tops that dig off with a sly smile, and I shove my phone deep in my pocket, ready to let her distract me from my mom, my ex–best friend, everything. She’d turned that same smile on me last year at a party, and I don’t remember doing much brooding after that. Granted, I don’t remember much of it, period, except that she was feisty, and she knew what she liked—two things I can always get on board for. I don’t usually go for seconds on my hookups, but Stella is different. She won’t try to make it into something it isn’t. I don’t know for sure because we didn’t talk about it, but I just get this feeling that we’re alike, that we both know a different side of the world than everyone else here.
My gaze dips down to take her in, and I nod my head at the Slip ’N Slide in the yard. “Where’s your bikini?”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh please. I believe in leaving some things to the imagination. I’m not that desperate.”
I smirk. “Who needs imagination when you’ve got memories?”
She shoves me. Or tries to anyway, and I laugh. The girl is so tiny she doesn’t have a hope of moving me.
She glares at me, but her full lips are tipped up at the corners.
I nod at the T-shirt and shorts she’s wearing and say, “You’re wearing one underneath there, aren’t you?”
She looks like she wants to shove me again, but she doesn’t. Instead she huffs and says, “Fine. Yes, I am. But I’m only mildly desperate. Like a tiny, tiny amount.”
“You do realize you could have half the guys at this party with very little effort, don’t you?”
“But the effort is the fun part!”
She says it with a smile, but I think she’s dead serious. When you live a hard life, you spend years wishing for the easy stuff, but then when you get it, it never feels right. You get used to having to fight and claw for the things you want, and when you don’t have to do that anymore, everything feels a little bit muted.
At least that’s how shit usually feels for me.
I ask, “That why you keep stringing the manager along?”
The glare she turns on me now is no longer playful. It’s harder. With an edge of something I can’t identify. “I am not stringing Ryan along. We’re friends.”
“Riiight.”
“Don’t Right me, mister. Like you know anything about relationships.”
That’s twice today I’ve had that tidbit waved in front of my face. I might be offended if it weren’t entirely right.
“I know f**k buddies when I see them.”
“We’re not,” she pauses, checking her volume, before adding under her breath, “We’re not that.”
“Yet.”
“I’m going to actually kill you. I’m going to wrap my hands around your throat, and then claim I got tetanus and was incapable of relaxing my muscles.”
“I had no idea you were into erotic asphyxiation, Santos.”
She shoots back, “I had no idea you knew what asphyxiation meant.”
I turn, laughing, and lean my back against the railing. A slow smile spreads across my face. “Speaking of erotic . . . here comes your f**k buddy . . .”
A group of people streams out the front door, including Ryan Blake, the team manager and Stella’s not-quite-boyfriend.
Stella says, “We’re not . . .” then trails off, a blush forming on her cheeks as Ryan comes to stand beside her, bumping her shoulder with his. Behind him is McClain, his arm draped over Dallas’s shoulder as her eyes flick between me and Stella. I give her my most charming grin, but her eyes only narrow in response.