“Why does that matter?” she asks, trying to bait me.
“Did you walk there with Toni, too?” Even tone. Standard volume. So far, so good.
“Why don’t you ask one of your fucking spies?” Beth crosses her arms over her chest obstinately.
I would if you hadn’t fucking lost him! I want to shout. “That’s not what they are.” Keep it the fuck together, March.
Beth takes several steps toward me. “Is that why they follow me all around campus? And insert themselves into my conversations?” she huffs. But I know the conversation she’s talking about. Rectum Ralph reported it to me on Friday right after it happened.
I stand from the couch. “You mean, when your piece-of-shit ex-boyfriend had the balls to shout at you in the middle of Standman quad? That conversation?”
This isn’t about jealousy. Having Beth under me may have been some next-level shit, but that doesn’t mean I want Beth for myself. At least not in any way other than the way I’ve always wanted her. And it isn’t about fear, either. My stomach may roll at the thought of Falco telling her about the night he broke up with her—about the part I played—and the truth is, lately I’ve been wondering if I shouldn’t just tell her everything myself. But I can’t afford a distraction right now.
Because this matters. Beth’s safety matters. She matters.
And that’s all this is. It doesn’t mean something more now just because I’ve been inside her, and pretending otherwise is just high school bullshit. So why is Beth acting like she doesn’t give a fuck about me one way or the other? To fucking prove something? Well, all she’s proven is that this little casual act of hers is starting to piss me off.
“So he did tell you,” Beth mutters coolly.
“Of course he fucking told me!” I growl.
Beth advances another few steps, and the closer she gets, the less control I have over any of this. “But he’s not a fucking spy, right?” she retorts.
I glower at her. When will she get it through her pretty blond head? Brody could hurt her! And Falco could—well, he could hurt her, too. Maybe even worse. My gut rolls with panic. How can I just stand here and watch it happen all over again?
“You know what, kid?” I default to my unaffected tone, despite just having told myself how pointless and immature it is. “I’m not the one that ran straight from another man’s bed into the arms of her ex.”
Beth’s mouth drops open before she clamps it shut, but her eyes are on fire with righteous indignation. Finally—something.
I keep up the detached act if only because it seems to make a dent in her armor. “You know, I’d love to know why I’m the one lucky enough to be the target of your wrath yet a-fucking-gain, when I’ve done nothing but go out of my way to look out for you. Meanwhile, Falco treats you like you’re fucking disposable, disappears for three years, then calls you a goddamned slut, and you’re all, ‘forgiveness’ and ‘friendship’ and motherfucking rainbows.” I cock my head at her. “I’m starting to think you’re doing it just to fuck with me. Either that, or you’re just so goddamned stubborn that you’re determined to let someone who has repeatedly fucked you over be a part of your life no matter what they do.” I raise my eyebrows, as if to say, your move.
But the explosion I expect—that I’m fucking desperate for at this point—doesn’t come. Beth eyes me thoughtfully with that same deep blue gaze that always sees too damned much, and I get the eerie feeling that she’s got some ace up her sleeve. But all she says is, “I’m the stubborn one? Really, David?”
I shrug. “You know what they say about shoes fitting.”
Beth’s calm is no longer an act, but there’s nothing casual about it—in fact, she’s deathly serious. “I’d rather give someone a chance who may not deserve it than block people from my life who might not deserve that, either.”
I blink at her. Has she lost her goddamned mind? “You’re telling me you think Falco might not deser—”
“I’m not fucking talking about Brian!” Beth’s patience goes up in smoke.
Fucking finally! But if she doesn’t mean Falco, then—
“I’m talking about you, David,” she says sharply. Her glare is brutal and unforgiving.
“’The fuck are you talking about, Beth?”
She bites her lips, and I can’t help but recall how sweet they tasted—how they ruined my favorite dessert for life—and I think of how incredible she must taste in other places. Fuck me, my mouth starts to water, and I have to swallow before I start drooling like a fucking hound.
But Beth’s hesitation fuels my curiosity. “How am I stubborn, exactly?”
She meets my gaze dead-on. “Have you met your birth parents yet, David?”
Her question washes over me in a surreal wave of shock—at the subject, at the fact that after years of never mentioning it, she’s bringing it up for the second time in as many fucking weeks. And at its possible relevance to Brian fucking Falco.
“As smooth as you are at changing the subject, I’m not quite as dense as you seem to think.”
I glare at her.
