When he walks off, Gloria sighs and takes the cup back from me. “Thanks for covering for me,” she says. “You think he bought it?”
“What’s going on?” I ask, climbing onto the hood with her so anyone driving out will see two girls talking and having a celebratory milkshake instead of… Whatever she’s paranoid they’ll see. I have to grab the empty cup again so it doesn’t tumble away when the hot wind gusts across the lot, blowing our cover.
“Nothing,” she says, sweeping her hair back as it whips across her face. “We just drank floats. I told you, I can’t stand Colt. But I’ll try to be nice, at least when I’m talking to you, because you’re friends.”
“Then what are you so worried about?”
“Rylan,” she says. “He’s… Really intense. Passionate.”
“And he’d freak out if you had a Coke with another guy.”
“It wasn’t just a Coke,” she says. “It was ice cream. That’s date food.”
“Okay, but it wasn’t a date. Right?”
“Of course not,” she says. “Look, you of all people should understand jealous guys. Remember how Royal was with you last year?”
“Yeah,” I say. “He almost killed Colt when I hung out with him.”
“Exactly,” she says, slumping with relief. “So, you get it.”
“I guess.”
“That’s why I bailed on the Swans thing. Look, I’ll fight the good fight against toxic masculinity with you, but I can’t have something like that get back to Rylan. Even if it’s in the past. He has no idea about me and the Dolces, and believe me, that’s by design. I’ll take that secret to the grave with me.”
“But you hang out with them,” I say. “I hate to agree with Cotton Montgomery, but it’s bound to get back to him.”
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” she says. “I don’t want to lose my spot, but it’s been stressful as fuck trying to steer the conversation and make sure they don’t spend too much time together when I’m not around. It’s like I’m constantly waiting for a ticking bomb to go off. God, you have no idea what this year has been like for me.”
“You’re right,” I say. We sit in silence for a minute, and I can’t help hoping she’ll trust me enough to talk about Dawson, but I’m not going to bring it up if she’s not ready.
After a few minutes, when all the other cars are gone, a few fat drops of rain begin to fall, and Gloria slides off the hood. “Where’d you get this, anyway?” she asks, tapping her nails against the glimmering paint.
I shrug. “It was a gift.”
Her mouth twists into a little smile. “From Royal?”
“No,” I say, scowling at her.
“Hm, too bad,” she says. “I hoped you’d work things out.”
I give her a look. “Why? We were toxic as fuck together.”
“And yet, I always got the feeling you were both exactly what the other needed.”
“Maybe back then we were,” I say, climbing up into the driver’s seat. “But not anymore.”
She climbs up in her side and snaps her seatbelt on. “If you say so.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I just think this is the kind of thing he’d do.”
“Well, he didn’t,” I grit out. I’m pissed that I’m pretty sure she’s right, though. Did Preston outright tell me he got me this car? I assumed as much because it’s the same make as his truck, and I thought everything was coming from him. But if the food and couch came from Royal, could this have been his doing, too? It showed up right after he got all pissy about me driving Preston’s truck. And then the admission board called me the next day. Was that him, too?
It pisses me off that I don’t know, that he’s still doing shit for me, that he’s doing something that I’m supposed to be grateful for. And I am fucking grateful—so much that it pisses me off even more. This is the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me, and he didn’t even ask for a thank you.
But I remind myself that this was something he did in the past, when he still believed there was a chance I’d forgive him. He knows better now. Since he made that confession and I told him it didn’t excuse what he did, he hasn’t shown his face, hasn’t done a thing to try to prove himself to me. I finally made him understand that there’s no coming back from what he did. And maybe that’s what pisses me off most of all.