Archie let out a quiet “Fuck” as I pivoted to eye Cheryl. Of all the people to run into tonight, just fucking no. Frankie was having a good night. “Go away,” I told her. “No one invited you to join us.”
She frowned at me. “It’s a public place, and I want to talk to Frankie.” Glancing past me, she focused on Frankie, who let out a sigh.
“I don’t really have anything to say to you, Cheryl,” she admitted. “We’re trying to find a costume so…”
“But I’m so good at shopping,” the ditz pushed forward, but Coop blocked her from getting too close, and Bubba and Archie both had Frankie’s back. There would be no going around them to close that distance. Frankie didn’t want to talk to her, and as long as that was the case, the ditz could keep her distance. “I helped you find the perfect dress for Homecoming, remember?”
What vague sense of goodwill I tried to muster erased. “Go away, Cheryl, before I pick your ass up and dump you outside with the rest of the trash.”
She gaped at me, but she didn’t get a word in before Coop said, “There’s air-headed, and then there’s just flat cruel. You are digging a grave here, Cheryl. Now fuck off.”
“You know, I don’t have to listen to any of you. Frankie and I arefriends.” She looked past us to Frankie. “Right? We’re friends.”
“Did you know what Mitch was going to do when you gave me that bottle of water?”
All the air evacuated, and I clenched my fists. Cheryl needed to be very careful with her answers here. She shifted her footing, but Frankie pushed up next to me, and I wanted to drag her back and put her behind me, but this was also her fight.
“If we’re friends,” Frankie said slowly, “then you’ll tell me if you knew what he planned to do when you gave me that bottle of water.”
It wasn’t a difficult question.
Cheryl’s face crumbled.
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
“He never hurt anyone before…”
“Before?” Archie shot that word out like a bullet. “How many people did you hurt, Cheryl? How many of your friends?”
“It’s no big deal, he showed me.” The pleading on her face begged us to believe her, but she just made me sick. “Really, he did… He said it was…it would make things easier. You guys were getting all the girls, and he wanted to be able to keep up but he wasn’t a manslut.”
“No, he’s just a rapist,” Bubba said dryly. “Big step up.”
“You drugged your friends,” Frankie said. “You drugged them and set them up. He has sex with them and they can’t remember, and that’s okay with you?”
“He never hurt anyone,” Cheryl attempted again and took a step toward Frankie, but stopped at the look on Frankie’s face. “He didn’t Frankie, I swear. He never hurt anyone before what happened with you, and if you hadn’t fought him, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten mad.”
“Are you for fucking real right now?” Archie demanded.
Tears slid down her face. Were we supposed to feel sorry for her? I wanted to pop her upside her head, but I doubted there was anything rattling around in there. “He got mad over the summer when he thought I’d slept with you guys.”
“Why the fuck would he think that?” I had to know.
Cheryl bit her lip and flashed those damp eyes at me. Sorry, not buying the bullshit or the histrionics. She swallowed and took a step back. I didn’t have to look to know I wasn’t the only one glaring at her.
“Maybe I should just go,” she said, turning away.
“Why did he think that?” Frankie asked. “What did you tell him?”
“I wanted to make him jealous because he was hitting on someone else,” she admitted. “I wanted to prove I didn’t need him.”
“So you told him you slept with the guys?”
“Just Archie and Jake. I had pictures of everyone. I showed him them on my phone. He assumed it was all of you because he was really mad. He didn’t talk to me for two weeks. I thought I blew it and then…”
“And then what?” Jake asked. “Then he said, drug some girls so I can screw them, and everything will be all right? What iswrongwith you?”
She pushed toward Frankie, big fat tears rolling down her face. “I just wanted him to be happy. I know he’s not the greatest guy but…he was going to leave me, and it was my fault for lying. None of the others were hurt. You know…”