Raising my brows, I ask, “Excuse me?”
“Who. Are. You? I’ve met your friend a few times and she’s exactly like every other girl I know, bar the wealth. She’s starved for attention, and her crossing our tracks won’t help her find what she needs. Tariq will be good to her for as long as she entertains him and then he’ll move on. But you seem different.”
Wow, he doesn’t mind sharing what he really thinks, yet am I ready to bare what’s in my soul?
“Come on, tell me who you are.”
He leans forward, reaching for the liquor. Pouring himself another drink, he offers me the bottle but I’m good with what I have left.
“I have no idea who I am. What I like changes all the time. What I want to do with my life flits from one thing to another every week, half the time I go through life not really seeing anything or anyone.”
Huh, maybe I was ready to share my soul. It’s more than what I’ve shared with Clare lately.
“Most people can’t admit they don’t know who they are, they see it as a weakness. That’s what makes you different to your friend, she’s all about the surface, there’s no depth to her.”
“You don’t know her, she hurts a lot. Your friend is just a distraction for her. She’ll probably find her next distraction long before your friend grows tired of her.”
The need to defend her grows stronger. How dare he make assumptions about her. He can’t possibly know what’s in her heart, what darkness lurks in her mind and what she battles every day.
“When you come from where we do, you get to know people real fast without them having to say much, if anything. We have to keep our eyes open at all times, living like that you get to see everything.”
“You think you have to live like that because of where you come from, but to me, people aren’t that different whether they have money or not. Wealth doesn’t give you kindness.”
“I guess that’s the one level everyone can be on regardless of money,” he says, his voice deep and smooth.
He leans across the table, his actions causing me to sit back out of his reach. But it’s not me he’s leaning over for, he scoops up the bottle of liquor and pours himself another drink.
Mine is still half full and he ignores refilling my glass. His eyes, dark orbs, pin me as he rolls his lips together. I have noidea what to say to a guy like him. I don’t need to know him to know he’s nothing like the guys at school.
“You’re not going home tonight, are you? You won’t leave your friend, even though if the situation were reversed and I was fucking you up in your room, she’d leave you in a blink of an eye if it benefitted her.”
“You don’t know that about her. Besides, we will never be in that position to find out.”
His smirk returns. “Maybe.”
There is nomaybeabout it. I know it won’t ever happen and not because he’s a part of a gang, it’s not because he’s covered in tattoos and bloody from fighting. I’m not interested in anything guys have to offer at the moment.
“Happy birthday.”
Taken by surprise, I ask, “How do you know it’s my birthday?”
“Tariq said that’s why his girl was out tonight.”
I don’t like how he refers to Clare as Tariq’s girl, it makes it sound like he’s a permanent fixture.
“I don’t know why she bothered, it’s not like she didn’t ditch me the second your friend showed up.”
I slam my mouth shut. I can’t believe I just oozed with bitterness in front of him.
“Perhaps she’s only your friend when it benefits her? Looks to me like you’re a time filler for her.”
I go to snap back at him, but nothing comes out. I don’t want to agree with him but after tonight, it’s hard to disagree.
5
Amelia
Adull ache throbs in the back of my head. My eyes flutter open, trying to blink away the aches and I pull myself up. A blanket covers me on the couch in Clare’s formal living room, and a soft snore fills the room from the armchair by the grand fireplace. I remember moving from the kitchen to the living room near two a.m., but I don’t remember falling asleep. I didn’t drink that much after we got back. I focus on Darius and take in how vulnerable he looks when he’s asleep. He’s methodical when he speaks, firmly believing every word he says, but I see the walls he’s built around himself. His views of people from my side of the city are true to an extent, but the way he was looking at me didn’t seem to agree with what he was saying. I’m pretty sure I’m not reading too much into it, but then I don’t have the greatest track record when it comes to guys who I think like me. I was convinced Matt O’Hare was into me last year, I caught him staring more than not, he always seemed to be where I was, but it turned out, he was into Clare. I’d never felt such an idiot.
