He nods enthusiastically. “That’s big for you, though, man. You haven’t had a girl since . . . well, since I’ve been working with you. Unless you’re being a little mentiroso over there, keeping things from me. So what’s the problem, then?”
I scrunch up my face. “Just some weird stuff Thursday night. Her friends tried to stop her from being with me because I was bad news. And since then, no text from her. Which is just weird since she asked me for my number.”
“You hooked up with her the other night, man?”
I nod. “I suppose you could say that. We kissed.”
“You know what I think? She got what she wanted from you and now she’s good.”
“Nah, man.” I dismiss it, waving my hand. “She’s not like that.”
Angel turns back to his task. “I don’t know, man. These girls be savage sometimes. They’ll take your heart and stomp on it. They’ll ghost you without a thought. Trust me.”
My chest coils at the thought.
Wanting to change the subject, I ask Angel about his cousin Joe. I served time with Joe—and he was actually the one who told me to look up this place for work, and he hooked me up with Angel.
“He’s all right. Went and visited him last month. Still has a few years left, you know. He seems . . .”
Angel trails off, and I can tell he’s got a range of emotions pulling at him.
“Seems okay?” I ask hopefully.
Angel shakes his head. “Seems depressed, I was gonna say.”
I tense up, relating to what Joe is feeling.
“Hey, hang on a minute,” I say, going to my backpack to grab something for Angel. I come back, holding a book. “Next time you see him, you hand him this.”
Angel nods as he takes the book: Man’s Search for Meaning.
“I will,” he says, looking at me somberly.
Finishing the carrots, I move on to lettuce, garlic, and onion, fine-chopping them all.
At the end of my shift, my phone buzzes again, and—I hate to admit it—I lurch toward it like a middle school girl hoping to hear from her crush.
It’s not her, though, and my heart drops.
It’s my friend Kevin. I answer it.
“Hey, Mr. Ladies’ Man. Hope you had fun Thursday night,” Kevin says.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie.
“Oh, come on. Don’t bullshit me. I’m glad you were making use of the bedroom.”
“So what’s up?”
“We’re doing a little bar crawl tonight. You in?”
I hold the phone away from my ear.
Partying with Kevin is exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid. And for the most part I’ve done a decent job and stayed on the straight and narrow; the other night’s close call with the cops notwithstanding.
The truth is, I wish Harmony would just contact me so I could hang out with her. I know there’s the whole back-and-forth dating game you’re supposed to play, at least according to Kevin and my other friends who “date around.” You’re supposed to wait four hours to respond to their texts, make sure you don’t sound like too much of a wimp in every reply, and a bunch of other “rules” that sound like bullshit, if you ask me.
I don’t want any of that. After Thursday night, I know what I want—Harmony.
At least I thought I did. Apparently, she doesn’t want the same thing, though, if she doesn’t at least have the decency to text me back after a day and a half.
Aside from that, I wouldn’t mind stopping by Firehouse to give Mason a piece of my mind. I know he’s friends with Sebastian and Cole, and I want to know why they felt entitled to be such dicks to me the other night. I flash back to The Hungry Burger, where Cole gave me a hard time, and then again when they practically knocked down the door to interrupt Harmony and me. Who the hell do he and Cole think they are, controlling Harmony’s choices like that? She’s a grown woman who can decide for herself.
“Uh . . . Zach?” I hear Kevin’s voice in the phone.
I clench my jaw and squint at no one in particular. Some deep-seated rage boils within me, directed at no one in particular.
“Yeah,” I growl. “A bar crawl sounds great. Let’s make some trouble tonight.”
“Hell yeah,” he says. “That’s what I like to hear. See you at the Watering Hole in an hour.”
Chapter 10
Harmony
I stand in my room, gazing out the window and rubbing the back of my neck as I hold the phone to my ear.
Yesterday, I practically ran around town trying to find Zach. You’d think it would have been easy. It wasn’t.
After a pause, Rose continues speaking on the other end of the phone.
“Why don’t you ask Malek for his phone number?”
“I asked Malek,” I say, clenching my jaw. “He won’t give it to me. He just keeps asking me out on a date.”
“Ewww, what a creep,” Rose says back.
I think about how not being able to get in touch with me must make Zach feel. And how I would feel if a guy assured me he’d text me the next day—and then ghosted me. My stomach roils from the guilt of not getting in touch with Zach. It’s been over twenty-four hours now. I know he’s probably fine, but I feel bad.
“Well, that doesn’t help me when it comes to getting his number. Also, why were Cole and Sebastian being so weird about him? You still haven’t really told me.”
Rose clears her throat. “I had a talk with Cole about that . . . he’s doing it out of love.”
I pace back and forth in my room.
“Out of love? What in the world does he mean by that?” Clearing my throat, I consider the early-morning conversation I had with my dad when he mentioned almost the exact same thing. “And that’s weirdly similar to what my dad said,” I tell her.
“That makes sense,” Rose answers.
I flinch, confusion ripping through me. “I don’t get it. Why does that make sense? And how is it out of love to tell me to stay away from a cool guy I really get along with? That’s the opposite of love, really. That’s controlling me.”
Rose lets out a long exhale. I wish we were on FaceTime so I could read her expression.
“Have you talked to your dad about all this?” she continues.
“Yeah, of course. We got into a huge fight yesterday after I confronted him for deleting Zach’s number.”
“I was going to tell you this when we hang out in person tonight,” answers Rose. “But I’ll tell you now. Your dad talked to Cole and Sebastian—Sebastian has his hand in the trucking business in town. And apparently Zach has some stuff about his past that is not good. Has he opened up to you about that?”
My heart sinks, thinking that Zach could be hiding something big from me. But that sinking is overpowered by anger that my dad would intervene in my life like I’m a child who can’t make her own decisions. “We didn’t get to that, no. And back this truck up. My dad TOLD Cole and Sebastian to keep Zach away?!”
It sounds to me like Rose was ready to gloss over that point.
“It’s weird, I know. I think he’s looking out for you.”