Two Outta Three (Two Outta Three #1) (20 page)

Chapter 25

“Why did you do that?” I hissed.

“I couldn’t let you get in trouble. Why would you take the blame?”

Jesse and I sat side by side in the vice principal’s office waiting for our parents to come. Well, my parents. Jesse’s mom wouldn’t show up unless there was a promise of an open bar and cigarettes.

I bounced my leg nervously. “My record is cleaner than yours. I could take the blame and walk but you—”

“Will be expelled?”

I nodded.

“Figures,” he snorted.

“Raquel!”

I winced when I heard my dad’s furious tone and Mom’s sharp sobs. I quickly jumped to my feet. “Dad. Mom.”

“You!” Dad stomped over to Jesse, who merely looked up with a somber expression on his face. My dad wagged his finger at him, trembling frighteningly. “You’re lucky you’re a minor or—”

“Or what, Dad?” I quickly flew between them. “Are you going to hit him?”

“Rocky!” my mom hissed. “Since when did you become so disrespectful?”

“I’ll tell you when. It’s ever since she’s been spending time with this trash!” Dad shouted.

“Dad! Stop that right now!” I screamed, glancing over at Jesse.

“He’s right,” Jesse said quietly. “You know my parents; you’ve seen my house. Of course I’m trash.”

“No! You’re not!” I argued.

“We’re going home.” Dad’s face matched the color of my dress. He was furious and I knew I was going to be grounded for life.

“What about Jesse?” I asked meekly.

Mr. Elliott chose that moment to make himself be known. “We’ll wait for his mother.”

“What if she doesn’t come?” I cried out.

Jesse flinched, obviously knowing it was a big possibility.

Mr. Elliott cleared his throat. “I’ve already spoken to her and his father. They’ll be here shortly.”

“Wait, my father’s coming? How’s that possible? He’s in Charleston.” The blood drained from Jesse’s face.

For the first time all night, Mr. Elliott’s face softened. “He’ll be in tomorrow.”

“For what?” he demanded.

“I think you’ll need to discuss that with your mother.”

***

I’ve made plenty of decisions before, none of which I believed to be the result of fear. I was even ready to take the blame for Jesse time and time again. Was I scared back then? Nope.

Still, I couldn’t help but accept that he was right about me. Somewhere in my life I somehow turned stagnant. When did I become so afraid to take risks?

Maybe Stephanie was right. There was something about Jesse that woke up that risk taking part of my brain.

After almost five hours on the road, we pulled up to Rossi’s Novelties a little after one. I was pleased to find that Justin had kept his word and hired someone to plow the lot, allowing Jesse and I to roll up seamlessly in front of the store.

When the car slowed to a stop we both sat there, unsure of what to do next. Was Jesse going in with me? Was he going to turn around and drive straight back? Was he going to see his mom?

“Jesse, I—”

“Rocky!” a voice yelled, interrupting me. I turned to my right and found a very angry looking Ethan standing outside the car, staring into the passenger side window.

“Looks like your boyfriend is waiting for you.” Jesse’s cold tone perfectly complemented the furrow of his eyebrow and downward slope of his mouth.

“He’s not—”

“Just go,” Jesse said, cutting me off.

“What are you going to do? Where are you going? You can’t just leave me.” My bottom lip trembled. “Not again.”

“I’ll see you soon,” he assured me.

I gripped the door handle and paused before stepping out of the car. “For what it’s worth, Ethan has never been my boyfriend.”

“I’d hope not, considering what we did last night.”

“Jesse—”

“Just go.”

Without bothering to glance back, I stepped out of the car to an impatient Ethan. As soon as I slammed the door behind me, Jesse peeled off as fast as he could with all the slush on the ground. I stared after him, watching as he once again left me behind.

“I heard you were sick.” Ethan’s jaw clenched as if he were trying hard to bite back words he really wanted to say.

“I was.” I pushed past him and walked into the store. Though we were closed that day, Justin and his girlfriend were perched by the cash wrap eating sandwiches. Justin sat at the edge of the counter kicking his large snow boots against the wood looking as if he were a little kid. Once he saw me the smile on his face immediately washed off.

“Rocky!” He flew forward and motioned for his girlfriend to jump off as well. When she landed on her feet, she lifted an eyebrow, giving me a once over.

Not in the mood for your shit.

“Sorry about yesterday. I didn’t mean to ruin your day off.” I shot his girlfriend a smile and for a while I didn’t know if she was buying it. However, as soon as Ethan stepped up behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder her face quickly softened.

“Oh, it was fun, actually.” Justin snuck a glance at the blonde beauty and together they shared a conspiratorial wink.

I knew the look they shared well. It was the same look Jesse and I had after sex the night before. It was the look of content we shared after we made love.

I glanced at Ethan guiltily and knew I had to end it now. He was a good guy and didn’t deserve what I was giving to him.

Justin motioned towards Ethan. “He came here looking for you. Said he couldn’t reach you last night and came here first thing this morning.”

“You weren’t answering your doorbell either, or your phone.” By the tightness of his eyes and clenching of his jaw, it was easy to see that Ethan was definitely not amused.

I couldn’t remember my phone ringing once the night before. Then again, I never really checked it after we got back to Jesse’s apartment.

I scratched at my throat and let out a half-hearted chuckle. “Yeah, I was in my room all day. Sick.”

“Sick, huh?” It was obvious Ethan didn’t believe me.

Justin’s eyes bounced between us. “Um, your parents called too.”

“My parents?” I squeaked. “What did they want?”

“They didn’t say. Just told me to tell you to call them.”

Crap.

Thanking Justin and his girlfriend, I walked towards the back office. Ethan was at my heel, never letting me out of my sight. When I made it to the door, I spun around, feeling completely claustrophobic.

“Ethan, if you want to say something, then just say it.” I was feeling emotionally drained and really had no time for him. Besides the fact that Jesse went bipolar again, my parents were calling. Definitely not good.

I felt my face fall when I noticed the slight tremble of his lips. “I just wanted to tell you that I shoveled the walkway.”

“What?” I asked in surprise.

“Didn’t you see the shovel in my hand when we were outside? Oh, no, that’s right—you were busy staring at Jesse,” he shot back flatly.

I stopped moving.

“Yeah, that’s right. I saw you. I’m not as thick as you think I am.”

“I don’t think you’re thick.”

He waved his hand over my face. “No, let me finish. I had a feeling something might have gone on between you two. The way you acted any time he walked in the room and the way he stared me down as if he wanted to punch me…then you told me you were old best friends and I chalked it up to big brother syndrome.”

I looked down at my feet, unable to look anywhere else.

“I convinced myself that I had nothing to worry about. I mean, we had such a good time that night—the night I saw him parked in front of your house.”

I gasped and looked back up.

He nodded. “I still didn’t want to believe it, but then I heard you.”

“Heard me?” I had no idea what he was getting at.

“You butt dialed me or something, which I didn’t even know was possible on a smartphone. I heard him talking about taking you back to his apartment.”

My brain turned over, trying to figure out how I accidentally called him from a
smart
phone. Realizing I must have failed to lock my phone after I had spoken to Justin, I sagged my shoulders in defeat. “Sorry.”

He bit his lip and nodded. “He lived out of town, right? Were you even sick?”

I shook my head. It was time for the truth. I was sick of all the lies.

He grumbled. “Of course not.”

I brought my finger up to my mouth and began biting at my cuticles. “If…if you knew this why did you shovel the walkway for us?”

Really, out of all the things I could have said?

He let out a stale laugh. “What can I say? I’m a sucker. I’m a good guy and we all know that the good guy never wins.”

Before I could say anything more he spun around and walked towards the double doors.

“Ethan!”

“Goodbye, Rocky. Tell your parents there’ll be someone else working on their account. Of course you’ll have to wait to tell them until after you explain why there are about a million customer complaints.”

I blinked. “What are you talking?”

He either didn’t hear me or chose to ignore me. Regardless, I found myself staring at the back of his olive green parka and crisp new beanie as he walked out the door. I stayed frozen even after the ring of the bells silenced.

Chapter 26

“You can’t keep me from seeing Jesse! He’s my best friend!” I was trembling with rage, stomping my feet so hard that the heel to my stiletto broke. There went cleaning those suckers up and returning them the next day.

“I can and I will. As long as you live under my roof—”

“Well, then I can’t wait to move out!” I screamed, interrupting my dad.

That got him revved up. He moved quickly across my bedroom floor, his stomach jiggling in the process. I flinched, though I knew he’d never hit me, and prepared myself for the onslaught of words I knew would come flying at me.

To my surprise, his tone was calm. “I know you don’t believe me, but we’re trying to protect you.”

“From what?” I screeched.

“Bad choices.”

“You mean bad people.”

My dad turned away, but my mom stepped up as usual, playing good cop. “Rocky, you have to understand where we’re coming from. We’re sorry for what happened to the Tyler boy, but you can’t let him influence you anymore.”

“Those were my choices, Mom. Since when is it wrong to take risks?”

“When you don’t know if the risks will lead to bad outcomes,” she replied in a somber tone.

***

“Wow, who needs our Wednesday night show when you have this soap opera to keep you entertained.” Stephanie walked over and placed a cup of coffee in front of me.

I didn’t respond and kept my gaze on the wisps of steam as they made it up to the ceiling.

Placing a hand on my shoulder, she squeezed lightly. “How are you feeling?”

“Sad,” I answered simply.

“About Ethan or Jesse?”

I shot her annoyed look. “What do you think?”

“Hey, I’m just checking. Considering you ran off to Charleston without telling me, I feel as if I don’t know you anymore.”

I didn’t know if she was kidding or not. I sighed, throwing my head back in exasperation. “He left again, Stephanie. I’m sure of it.”

“So what?”

“So what? What do you mean so what?”

“Okay, tone it down, drama queen,” she replied, holding her hands palm side out.

I stared down into the tan liquid and frowned. “I need to tell you something. I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

“Oh, that’s a surprise,” she muttered.

“Do you want to hear this or not?”

She pressed her lips together and smiled. “Fine.”

“I…we…um…” My voice trailed off. Stephanie and I joked about sex all the time and even discussed her sexcapades in detail. Why was this so hard for me to say out loud?

Stephanie’s mouth dropped open. “Holy crap! You had sex with him, didn’t you?”

Well, guess I didn’t have to worry about telling her anymore.

I winced and nodded.

“Ahhh! So how was it? I bet it was amazing. You know, with all that pent-up sexual frustration you two had.” She lifted her hands up and pantomimed what I could only describe as grabbing somebody’s balls. “It was probably awesome, right? You have officially lost your V-card. Wait, it wasn’t just the tip this time, was it?”

“Oh my God, Stephanie! Please shut up!”

Her mouth dropped open. She quickly zipped her lips and grabbed the nearest chair. Sitting down, she stared straight at my face, waiting for me to say more.

I ran my hands through my hair. “He’s gone, isn’t he? Just like that. He left.”

She reached out and placed her hand on top of mine. “He wouldn’t do that. You know it. He’s not the kind of guy that hits it and quits it.”

I shook my head not fully believing her. “He’s cutting me off again. After—”

“Sleeping with you?” she flinched.

I shook my head. “After he told me he loved me.”

“Wait, he said he loved you?” Her eyes were widened, soaking everything in.

I nodded and shrugged, sniffling slightly. “I told him I loved him too.”

“I knew it! I knew he always liked you!” She clasped her hands together and sighed contentedly.

“What are you so happy about? He left me, Steph,” I reminded her.

She curled her lips up into a tight smile. “No. No, he didn’t.”

“How are you so sure? He just drove off.”

“And what did he tell you before he did?”

“That he’d see me later.”

“Exactly!” She waved her index finger in the air. “He’ll be back.”

“But—”

“He’ll come back. Just like he did before.”