I grinned.LOL. Even though I wish you’d taken him with you, no. No homicidal plans on my end. I was justwondering.
Strange thing to be wonderingabout.
The bartender came back with my dish and the bill. As I dug out my wallet, I remembered I owed Liam fifty dollars. I paid for my meal, then took out the owed amount and slid it inside my bag’s frontpocket.
When I looked back down at my phone, August had written:Want me to callyou?
Ifrowned.
One more line of dialogue appeared:For a refresher course. Wolf101.
I did need one. I was about to type yes when Matt sidled up next to me at the bar. He ordered more beer and filched a soggy tortilla chip from my bowl. “Who yousextin’?”
The chip I’d been chewing on went down the wrong hole. I coughed, then grabbed my Sam Adams and took a longgulp.
“I wasn’tsexting,” I wheezedout.
A goofy grin slashed his jaw. “Sure youweren’t.”
“Seriously, Iwasn’t.”
He snatched another chip. “Who were youtexting,then?”
“Everest.”
“Liar.”
My spinetightened.
“You couldn’t have been texting Everest ’cause he’s right there, sucking face with somechick.”
I spun on my stool. Everest was here? Sure enough, he was sitting on a brown leather couch in a dusky corner of the room, making out with the girl from the musicfestival.
“So? Who were you really talkin’ to, LittleWolf?”
“No one,Hulk.”
His smile grew larger. “As long as it ain’t that creep you went out with the other day, I’m cool withit.”
I snorted. “It wasn’t, but thanks for your consent.” Even though I would sooner swallow a live goldfish than admit this to Matt, I was sort of touched by hisconcern.
“You looked out for me, so now I look out for you… Only fair. Unless someone’s already doing that?” He looked at Everest again then, and I didtoo.
Like the hunger crimping my stomach, Everest’s fickleness pinched my heart. It had barely been a month since Becca’s suicide attempt, and he was already kissing someone new. Sure, I’d thought it was healthy for him to be flirting, but making out with someone…that was too much toofast.
“August just wrote back,” Mattsaid.
I whipped my face toward Matt and swiped my cell off the bar. I didn’t check the text message, just stuffed the phone inside my bag. My heart had leaped a good couple inches into my throat. “We’re justfriends.”
As he paid for his beers, he said, “I’m not judging. I like theguy.”
I wanted to add don’t tell Sienna,but that would’ve sounded incriminating. I scooped up some plasticky cheese and crunchy bacon bits with a chip and stuffed them inside mymouth.
“Lucas wiped me out.” Liam was suddenly here, right next to me. He swiped a beer from Matt’s stash and drank half of it. “Your turn, Mattie.” As though just noticing me, he asked, “Unless you want to play,Ness?”
My heart performed a strange little twist as I looked up at Liam, as I imagined him carrying my limp, naked—ugh—body in his arms. They’d probably had to draw straws, and he’d gotten the shortestone.
“I can barely move myarms.”
