Cap stops blinking in confusion. He stops blinking altogether, actually, his eyes intensifying until his glare leaves no question as to whether or not he still doesn’t get my meaning. The small clip that was once our joint unceremoniously falls from his hand, and he doesn’t even bother to stomp it out, or kick it under a bush so his mom doesn’t find it. “You…” He takes a step toward me, but I don’t retreat. “You want to date my sister?”
I nod once, firm, true.
Cap catches me off guard, taking a full-on swing at my left eye. And then he’s on me.
We wrestle around on his gravel driveway until I get one up on him and land a solid punch to his jaw. I take advantage of his disorientation and shove him off of me, putting some distance between us, huffing out hostile energy, clenching my fists to keep from throwing them back at my best fucking friend.
“You don’t date, Dave,” Cap pants out, catching his breath. “You hook up, and you bounce.”
“Like you should be talking,” I retort.
“I’m not the one suggesting I’m good enough to date fucking Beth!”
Cap steps closer to me, but I stand tall. If he wants to hit me again, I’m ready. I may even deserve it, but at least I’m ready. But he doesn’t swing. Instead, he lets his words do the pummeling. “You—” He points his finger in my fucking face. “You think you and Bits are ‘close’? That you have some special bond? Well, I call bullshit.”
But his words don’t pummel, they cut—they slice me right open. They’re not true.
“You do the same shit with every fucking girl, Dave. Get what you want and then lose interest. And then what? You think you can just break my baby sister’s heart and then come over to play ball the next day? You and Beth would be done, and you and me—we’d be done, too.”
I gulp at the implication. My dad and I don’t get along, and my mom—well, she rarely acts like anything more than an extension of her husband. The Caplans, my boys…they’re all I’ve really got, and if we fell out…
“It would be different with her.” It’s my only defense. Because most of me knows Cap is right. My history with girls isn’t something to be proud of outside of a locker room. But I’m sixteen, and I haven’t met a girl worth more than the time I gave her, so what the fuck was I supposed to do? Get married or stay celibate? And Cap is the biggest fucking player of us all, so for this judgment to come from him…It pisses me the hell off.
He takes one more step forward until we are almost nose to nose. “You are not good enough for Bits, Dave. Don’t you fucking get it? You don’t know how to give a fuck.”
My mouth opens, but the retort doesn’t come. Already I can feel my left eye swelling, pounding painfully with each heartbeat. I thought it could be different with Beth. That I could be different for her. But Cap is the person—other than my parents, of course—who has known me longer than anyone. My oldest friend. And if he thinks I’m the piece of shit he’s describing—which, incidentally, sounds an awful lot like my dad’s assessment—well then maybe they’re both fucking right.
“Yeah, brother,” I spit. “You’re right.” I turn my back on him. “This is me—not giving a fuck.” And I start slowly down his long, circular driveway. I don’t feel like hopping fences tonight. A nice, long walk in the cool, early summer midnight air and about half a pack of cigarettes sound a hell of a lot better right about now.
“Stay the fuck away from here, March,” Cap calls after me. “Until you get your fucking head straight.”
I ignore him.
“And if you so much as suggest this bullshit again, you won’t be welcomed back here at all!”
I keep walking.
“You fucking got me, Dave?” Cap shouts desperately. If the thought of me taking Beth on a date has him this riled up, he must think even less of me than I realized. He wasn’t half this agitated over the thought of Falco dating her—Falco, the clean-cut soccer star.
I throw one hand in the air in a halfhearted wave of my middle finger, both indicating that Cap’s been heard, and that I resent the fuck out of it.
Because I do hear him, loud and fucking clear.
Chapter Fourteen
David
Present Day
Beth slams the door of the Uber and runs barefoot into the building, her heels dangling from her hand by their straps. I give her a thirty-second head start, clenching my jaw shut to resist calling after her with something I might regret, knowing my temper and the still-potent buzz of alcohol have the potential to create the perfect storm right now.
Beth bypasses the small elevator bank and veers left toward the stairwell, heaving the door open and making sure to slam it loudly behind her.
I shake my head in disapproval, wanting to berate her for even that—taking the stairs alone at night when she knows the elevators are safer. Even if the small part of my brain that’s still somewhat rational admits that my building is relatively safe in general. But it’s her mentality that’s making me crazy. With everything going on right now, and everything she knows about this fucked-up world, why would she take risks with her safety at all? Because Brian fucking Falco isn’t the only danger out there, which Beth very well knows.
So what the hell is she thinking sneaking around behind the back of the one fucking guy on campus who actually gives a shit about her? Like I’m just some kind of paranoid, overprotective asshole, out to cramp her goddamned style. Or keep her apart from her worthless ex—the jerk-off who tossed her away like fucking garbage, who just called her a slut in the middle of a club—like they’re star-crossed lovers or some shit. It’s completely ass-fucking-backward, and I can’t help the resentment tearing through my chest.
I continue to pace myself through the lobby, measuring each step carefully so as not eat up too much of Beth’s lead, but the turbulent anger she leaves in her wake is so damned palpable I slow on instinct anyway, as if to physically trudge through it.
