And there went the façade.
“I’m not going to say anything, but if Mason starts a fight, don’t expect me to save your scrawny little ass. Even if Mason is on the verge of killing you.”
“I know.”
“I’m fucking serious, shithead,” Connor said. I always felt like Connor had the most potential for Hulk-like anger in the group, but it had always remained at a simmering tension. That tension suddenly seemed on the verge of breaking in a dangerous way. “What you did has the potential to break us apart more than anything else that has ever fucking happened.”
“Look, man, everything was consensual, OK? I didn’t rape her. I didn’t kill her.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Connor said. “Your best-case scenario is that Mason never finds out. Your most-likely scenario is someone blabs, Mason beats your ass, you get kicked out, but no one is sent to the hospital.”
Fuuuuck. Put that way, there’s really no area where everyone knows and nothing changes, huh?
“If shit hits the fan, I’ll take the fall for it,” I said. “My decision, my consequences.”
“Easier said than done,” Connor said. “We all watched it happen, and none of us did a thing. We all thought you wouldn’t be so fucking stupid. We know you work with your dick out, but we thought you’d have some fucking awareness about what you did.”
I grimaced. I guess Connor had a good point.
“When shit hit the fan, the funny thing about that? You don’t know who’s gonna get hit with the shit. We could all get some shit in our faces because of you. So do us all a favor. Keep your mouth fucking shut. Don’t even fucking hint at it. Because I will beat your ass and say the Bandits did it long before I ever let Mason find out what you did.”
Jesus.
I mean, it was one thing for Connor and the rest of the guys to think I had made a poor choice. It had almost become a running gag in the club about my poor choices—to a certain extent, I think I sought out my terrible choices in women precisely because it gave people a reason to laugh and pay attention to me.
But there was a poor choice like “bro, she’s so fake, Barbie is more natural,” and there was a poor choice like, “bro, you slept with your good friend’s sister—the only family he has.” One was funny. The other was deadly.
Connor stood up.
“See you at church sometime,” he said. “I suggest you bring alcohol around with you more. I’d like for you not to break character.”
“This is me,” I said.
Connor walked to the door, looked back, and smirked condescendingly.
“Yeah, and I’mjusta tattooed fighter who gives no fucks about the world and wants to watch it all burn.”
Connor opened the door and walked out, leaving me by myself to think about what I had done.
Moments later, the door opened again. I looked up to see Diamond walking over to me. She didn’t waste much time straddling me and grabbing my head.
“Time to hold up your end of the bargain,” she said with a hint of seduction in her voice.
This might have been the first time I could ever remember passing up sex.
“Not right now, Diamond.”
Diamond, her hands still on my face, turned me up toward her and looked at me with a judgmental gaze.
“We had a deal, Garrett,” she said. “I’d fuck the older guy all night so you could go for the teenage rebel, and in return, you were going to fuck me Sunday to Sunday.”
“Sundaynightto Sunday,” I corrected. “Don’t know if you’re aware, but it’s not time yet. Get me drunk and I might change my mind.”
Diamond smirked, got off me, and went to the liquor cabinet.
“That was a joke, Diamond.”
She looked at me like I’d just told her that I was gay.
