“Cal, I don’t have time for that anymore.”
But you have time to sneak here when Daddy’s not?
She kept going, but I tuned it out. Cara, despite the efforts of my parents, was doing a lot better than me; she shouldn’t act worried on that account. Everything Momma said I wanted to throw back at her. If she wanted to know how Cara was, she could fucking ask her. Cara might need me to some degree, but she needed her parents too.Ineeded my parents and for more than just telling me how much of a priority I wasn’t.
Momma left without a kind word, and I kept my mouth shut to keep the peace. I didn’t want to be put in the middle of it, but I had to wonder if I stayed quiet only because then they couldn’t brush me aside even more. As long as I didn’t give them something to ignore, some shred of my life they could dismiss, then they weren’t technically abandoning me, right?
That evening, Cara wasn’t hungry for dinner after eating junk all afternoon, and Daddy would be late again, so I played video games before the guys came over.
Michael brought Jamie—as always—and Asher with him. The pair stayed on the deck and entertained Cara while Nick, Michael, and I tossed around the football in the backyard.
“Think you’re getting voted king?” Nick asked once we’d hammered out the game particulars.
I caught the ball and held it a few extra seconds before passing it back. “Really hope I don’t.”
Michael snorted. “Thank fuck I’m never on the ballot.”
“There’s always the write in name,” Nick said.
I slapped my hands, then spread them as I waited for the ball to come my way again. “Reserved for Chris Hemsworth, who probably wins every year, but they won’t announce him.”
“Fucker gets my vote.” Nick laughed.
“The whole thing is stupid anyway.” Every year, I asked the school’s admin to remove me from the voting, because every year, I sure as shit was on it. They wouldn’t.
“Cal?”
The three of us turned at the snapped word. Sasha stood on the deck, hands on her hips as she glared at me over the heads of Cara, Jamie, and Asher sitting on the steps.
Jesus, fucking, Christ. Why was she here?
“And that’s our cue to disappear,” Nick said as he captured the ball one last time and tucked it under his arm.
“Take Cara inside,” I muttered to both of them.
Jamie got to his feet with an unspoken command from Michael and backed away. Slowly, my closest friends slithered into the house and left me alone with myex-girlfriend. Though they didn’t know that yet. I hadn’t said anything, even to them, not wanting the added drama if news leaked. Sasha would be out for blood at that point.
I stepped onto the patio and turned so her back was to the house’s many windows. “Why’re you here?” I asked with a surprisingly even tone.
She didn’t make a scene,yet. Keeping her voice low and not closing the distance I’d set between us, she hissed, “You would do this before Homecoming.”
At least she sounded as if she’d accepted it.
“I didn’t time it or anything.” Fact. Had she not been such a bitch that night, things might’ve been different.
“So you’d rather me walk arm in arm with some other guy?”
“You may not win,” I said before my brain could tell me not to.
She gasped, flinging her bag off her shoulder and striking me with it. The metal buckle on the front dug into my arm. I gaped in surprise as I rubbed the spot.
“How dare you, Calvin Winters?”
“What? What do you want me to say?”
“How about have some faith in your girlfriend? Maybe champion me like you do your jock buddies?”
Well, there went her accepting it.
