“Noah has everything,” I mutter. “Why can’t I have Dad?”
“It sounds like you’re jealous,” she says, strumming the strings. It doesn’t make that awful sound when she does it.
I kick some of her pictures out of the way and sit down on the floor. She hands the guitar back, pulls her flower off the easel, and sits in front of me. “I’m not jealous,” I tell her. “You’re an only child. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Maybe.” She shrugs, then goes to color in her flower.
We are quiet for a few minutes. My brain races a million miles a minute. “Maybe I’m a little jealous,” I confess. “I just…he’s so perfect, and I’m…” I wave a hand up and down my front. “I’m just me. Sometimes I think Dad wishes Noah was his full-time son, and I was his part-time son.” I huff in frustration and push the guitar off my lap.
Roni stares at me a beat, her bottom lip trapped between her teeth. She reaches for the guitar and uncaps her marker. “Maybe, you’re looking at it wrong.” Her hand slowly begins to trace out another sunflower, this time on the back of my guitar. “It’s like how Mrs. Masters says when we’re in art class. It’s all about perspective. Maybe your dad just wishes he had two full-time sons?”
“Maybe,” I say, watching her hands work. “Are you putting a flower on my brand new guitar?”
She grins, guiltily. “Maybe.”
Devin, age 18
“Fuck, this shit is dank,” Reese grits, passing the blunt to me.
“I know, right.” I hit the blunt and pass it to Aaron, who's scowling at his phone. “Here, dude.”
He finally looks up and takes it in his hand. “Thanks,” he mutters distractedly.
“What’s up your ass?” I ask arching my brow at him. He’s been quiet all afternoon, which is totally unlike him.
“Chloe’s pissed at me because I said some girl she follows on TikTok had nice tits and apparently that makes me an asshole.”
Reese and I look at each other, then back at him. “That does make you an asshole,” Reese says.
“She asked me what I thought about them. It isn’t like I was like, oh, that girl has a nice rack. She set me up.”
I chuckle and shake my head. “And you failed miserably.”
He sucks on the end of the cigar, then hands it to Reese. “Was I supposed to lie?”
“Yes, or pretend like your blind, anything other than acknowledging another girl’s tits in front of your girlfriend,” I tell him.
He scrubs a hand down his face. “Great. I’m probably not getting laid for a week.”
“You know who has great tits?” Reese says, pointing the remote towards the TV. The screen glows to life as he flips through channels.
“Who?” Aarons says.
“Roni. God, that girl is fine.” He pulls his phone from his pocket and types out a message. “She’s playing hard to get though, but I have a feeling I’m wearing her down.” He flashes us his phone, and there’s a text chain between them. It’s innocent enough, mostly him texting first and her responding, but it annoys me nonetheless.
My jaw ticks, and it takes every bit of restraint I have not to break his fucking nose. “Maybe she isn’t playing.” I grunt as flashes of the night before creep into my mind. Me in Roni’s room, in her bed, between her legs. Her telling me I already have her heart. Me spilling my fucking guts like we were at a sleepover.
“She wants it,” he says, leveling me with a look that says, obviously. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”
“You sound like a fucking perv.” I scowl.
“And you sound jealous.” Reese eyes me for a moment then snaps his fingers. “You like her...don’t you?”
I snort. “She’s been my best friend since diapers. She’s like my sister.”
“A sister that you want to fuck.” Reese laughs. “Now who’s the perv?”
Aaron finally puts his phone down and adds his unwanted opinion. “Where’d you go last night?”
“Fuck both of you.” I grunt. “And you,” I point to Reese, “just leave her alone.”
“Not a chance. I like watching you squirm too much.” Reese eyes me.
“I’m not into Roni,” I lie, not because I’m embarrassed or ashamed of my attraction to her, but because I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t know if I’m capable of loving someone the way Roni deserves to be loved. But I also don’t want this fucking asshole to have her either.
“Then why did you kick Brooke to the curb?”
“She was getting too clingy,” I tell him. “Me and Tru just broke up. I’m not looking to get into anything else serious, so soon.” Even as I say the words, they taste bitter. Bitter because they’re true. I’m not looking for anything serious, and Roni isn’t the kind of girl to do casual. She’s the kind of girl you hold onto. I want her. I am attracted to her, and not just in a physical way—I’m drawn to everything about her, but I’m scared to death of breaking her.
“You want to know what I think?” Reese leans back into the sofa, his eyes drift from the screen over towards me.
“No.” I deadpan.
“I think you want to fuck Roni just as badly as I do. I just haven’t quite figured out why you're holding back.” There’s an edge to his tone. A bit jealous and a whole lot condescending. Reese and I have always been frenemies at best. He thinks we’re in competition. My rivalry with Noah had inadvertently crowned me the king of the east side, a title I never asked for or even wanted, but it caused a rift nonetheless. I hoped we could leave that petty bullshit back in high school, but here we are.
“What if I did?” I draw out each word, part in warning, and partly to remind him why I’d been crowned king in the first fucking place. The shit hand life dealt me, reinforced my heart with Teflon, and Tedesco blood running through my veins means I don’t back down from shit. “What would you do about it?” I hold his gaze for a few beats.
His lips quirk up into a smile and he runs his hand through his hair. “Do you want to make this interesting?”
I snort. “No.”
“Why? Scared you’re gonna lose?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I don’t bet on pussy, and Roni isn’t a fucking trophy.”
“Sounds like you’re afraid of losing.”
“We aren’t in high school anymore.”
“Exactly, and your last name means fuck-all in the real world.”
“I’m out,” I say, rising to my feet. I need to remove myself from this situation before I do something I’ll regret.
Reese’s phone pings and he grins at me. “Our girl is coming to The Grove tonight.”
12
Chapter 12
Roni, age 18
I stare up at the sky. My fingers float above my head as I trace the twinkling outline of the constellations. The wind kicks up and my hair blows across my cheeks. Chloe’s chatting with a girl she went to school with. Heather, I think.