I can’t control his life. I’m well aware of that. I’m also aware that I’m the one who has to change everything from my diet to my sleeping habits. Zeke has no obligation right now, and as much as I try not to be bitter about it, I can’t help it.
By lunchtime, Zeke is in the cafeteria, only this time he doesn’t even hide the fact that he’s staring in my direction the entire time. It wouldn’t be so frustrating if he would get up and come over and talk to me. We could find a quiet classroom or head out to the courtyard since we’ll probably end up yelling at each other and need as much privacy as possible.
But he just sits there, his golden-flecked hazel eyes burning holes into my face.
“You sure have his attention today,” Dalton mutters as he places his lunch tray beside Piper’s.
Piper rolls her lips between her teeth to keep from talking, and I know it won’t be long before she spills the beans to her boyfriend. After weeks of being around Dalton, I’ve come to accept that he’s just a part of my relationship with Piper now. My secrets become his secrets by default because they don’t keep anything from each other.
It’s also how I know that even though Dalton didn’t tell me himself, word is that Zeke jumped on Bronwyn’s ass for insulting me around him and that’s why she no longer does it in front of him anymore.
“I know we’re not friends with them,” Violet, a girl Piper and Dalton became friends with over the summer, begins as she sits down with excitement glistening in her eyes, “but we’re friends with you. Do we get to go to the party?”
“Party?” Piper asks the same time I say, “Huh?”
“Yeah. I heard in World Geography that it’s Zeke’s birthday. Apparently, he’s throwing a big party at your house tonight.” She grins as if it’s the best news she’s heard all year.
My eyes snap up to Piper’s.
A party? Just yesterday he found out I’m pregnant and he’s throwing a party? So much for thinking he’ll be responsible.
“I’m not going to be there,” I tell her, Piper nodding in understanding. “But you’re more than welcome to go.”
If they destroy my parents’ house, maybe that will get Zeke away from me sooner.
One can only hope he’ll go back to Utah because seeing him every day is killing me.
I can’t even look at Zeke as Violet and Caleb, another guy that has now somehow become part of our little group, lower their heads to gossip about the cool kids across the cafeteria.
I have more important things going on. Who cares about their debate on whether or not the Triple Threat, also known as Linc, Graham, and Bennett, three guys on the football team, are scouting for their next victim?Chapter 39Zeke
“Shot?” Bronwyn says with a wide smile as she holds up a tiny glass filled with golden liquid.
I shake my head and walk away. It doesn’t take any time for her to turn her half-drunk attention to Kyle, a guy on the baseball team. I’ve heard talk of them hooking up. Hell, if the rumors are true, Bronwyn and Dalton were the it couple last year until he caught Bronwyn in a risqué three-way with his former best friend and another guy from the baseball team. Well, that and the car accident that robbed him of all of his memories. The best thing that ever happened according to him.
I knew Bronwyn was fast the second she touched me without permission before I even knew her name. I’d expect that kind of behavior from a drunken girl at a dance club, but the first day at a new school was a little much. I still clung to her like a lifeline that day because she helped me avoid doing what I really wanted to do.
Man if I could go back in time, I’d change a million things from the last couple of months.
Last week I let it slip in practice that my birthday was coming up and at the time a party didn’t seem like a bad idea, but now that I’m in the middle of it, I wish I would’ve turned the porch light off earlier and not answered the door when Linc showed up three hours ago with enough liquor to drown an army and ten people I don’t even know.
The heat from so many bodies, the loud music, and the flickering strobe light someone thought to bring are all contributing to the headache building at the base of my neck. Frankie isn’t here. I don’t even know if she came to the house after school today, and that just means that it’ll be another damn day before I can talk to her.
Frustrated but unable to really do anything about it at the moment, I grab a beer and head to the living room, choosing to sit on the sofa and watch people act like idiots. A makeshift dance floor has been created in the center of the room after someone pulled the coffee table to the side and slid the two sofas further apart. Several girls have made the best use of it. They dance around each other, smiling, laughing, and having a good time until a slower song, one with a more sensual beat, echoes through the room. At the prodding and encouragement of nearly every guy in the room, the two girls cling to each other, whispering in each other’s ears while their hands roam the other’s body.