“Fucking knew it,” Sterling seethes.
“And why haven’t we ratted this bitch out already?” Dane wants to know.
“Because it’s not that simple.”
I feel those judgmental stares on me again after I speak.
“Why the fuck not? She screwed you over, now we rain down hell on her head. Sounds pretty fucking simple to me,” Dane reasons. He’s worked up like it’s his name on the line. Not mine.
“I can’t snitch because she knows,” I respond, already sounding defeated.
“Knows what?”
I peer up just as Sterling asks. And with what I say next, he shoots me a knowing stare.
“About Casey. From Casey,” I clarify before they can ask who the hell would tell Parker Holiday any-fucking-thing.
Their immediate response? Silence. Then, both take a seat to think—one in the armchair near the window, the other on the floor with his back to the wall.
“Damn,” Sterling sighs, finally getting it.
“If I tell what she did with the video, she’s telling everyone what she knows about me and Casey. Starting with Casey’s father.”
Both understand why that, in particular, would suck for me.
“Damn,” Sterling repeats.
We sit there for a while, not saying a word as they take in the full scope of the whole fucked up situation.
Dane shifts in the chair and he has me and Sterling’s full attention.
“You weren’t the only one who found out early who and what Vin really is. I was ten,” he admits. “It was when he hired that babysitter to look after us while Mom went home to The Bayou for a week.”
He flashes a humorless smirk
I remember that week, and the “babysitter” our piece-of-shit father hired to keep us out of his hair while he dicked around, doing absolutely nothing.
“I couldn’t sleep one night, so I got up for water. On the way to the kitchen, I heard weird sounds coming from one of the bathrooms,” Dane continues. “Not thinking, I walked in and caught them. He had her bent over the sink, pants around his ankles.”
I shouldn’t be surprised Dane has a story of his own, but I am. Apparently, I’m not the only one who thought it best to protect the others from what I knew.
“He bribe you with ice cream, too?” I ask, half-joking, half-not.
“Nah, fifty bucks and mention of Mom having threatened to overdose on pills the week before. He said that, if I snitched on him, she might make good on her promise.”
“What kind of asshole tells his own damn kid shit like that?”
Dane shrugs before answering my question. “Only Vin Golden.”
None of us argue with that.
“What a sick fuck.” Sterling scoffs. “I’ve never caught him in the act, but you couldn’t have paid me to believe he’s ever been faithful. Someone with an ego like that was never meant to be a family man.”
We’re quiet again, and I wonder if they’re reflecting on our hit or miss childhood, too. Yeah, having money made it easier to ignore some of the bullshit, but those highs have always been punctuated by some pretty unhealthy lows, shit no kid should ever have to see.
“So, what’s the plan?” Dane asks. And I note he didn’t ask what ‘my’ plan is. Now that they know the truth, they’ve made it their problem, too.
I shrug, feeling fired up and defeated all at once. “Hell if I know.”
“We need to get to the bottom of Vin’s lie, and we need to fix this shit between you and Southside,” Sterling says, but then he eyes me. “Unless … you still think you got the whole truth out of Vin.”
I think about that for a moment and consider how he’s manipulated all of us over the years. As easy as it was to believe I had this all figured out, it’s no longer just about me being aware of what Vin’s capable of. I saw something in Southside that night, and I know what I felt when I touched her.
That, alone, has me ready to throw my theories out the window, because of the reality I can’t outrun—I want this girl. Maybe even more than I want the truth. It has me thinking that, even if we never uncover the whole story, I might just say fuck it all.
That is, if I can ever get her to listen to me.
“I tried talking to her today, but it was a no-go.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Dane says with a laugh. “She thinks you plastered a vid of her, ass up, all over the internet. Would you want to talk to you?”
“Let’s be honest, though. It wasn’t exactly a bad angle.” Sterling tilts his head as he zones out, visualizing Southside in the footage.
“Really, bitch?” He ignores me and blocks it when I beam my icepack at him. “You watched the whole fucking thing, didn’t you?” I ask.
“The whole fucking thing,” he freely admits. “And if no one had mentioned you were in it, I wouldn’t have even noticed.”
I’m holding in a laugh—the first that’s threatened to leave me in days. No one in the world but these two assholes could get away with even thinking about Southside in this light.
Just ask Austin how that went for him.
“Just saying. She’s hot all over,” he adds, testing me again.
“We’ve gotta focus,” Dane cuts in. “Just coming out and telling Southside that Parker’s behind the leak is out, because you’d have to tell her why you can’t turn her in,” he rambles, pausing to think.
There’s a lot of shit to work out. A lot of moving pieces, which haven’t all been revealed yet. The thought brings me back full circle—to Ricky and that vague-ass comment he made earlier.
“You’re gonna have to start small,” Dane concludes, interrupting my thought.
My gaze flashes toward him. “Sooo … start smaller than a conversation?” I ask, arching a brow. “Because that’s pretty fucking small to me.”
I’ve never given much thought to how I approach a girl, so I can admit to being in uncharted waters here. Even though the only girl Dane’s ever put any stock in is Joss, I consider his experience in taking a delicate approach with women far beyond mine. Usually, I take what Mom calls the ‘bull in a China shop’ approach to dating.
Rush in with reckless abandon. Fuck shit up. Move on to the next.
“You gotta go smaller,” he answers. “And resist the urge to back the girl into a corner when you get impatient, West. Seriously. As far as she knows, you’re guilty. Of everything.”
He knows me well. Patience, for me, is right up there with tact. I wasn’t born with either.
“Also, you might want to pray she doesn’t dick kick you while you’re working things out. The girl’s got a lot of fight in her.”
Despite myself, I smile a little. He isn’t wrong.
I’m considering everything they’ve said, considering everything that’s come to light today, and I know I have my work cut out for me. Thing is, there’s something about Southside that makes it impossible to give up.
She hates me, I get it, but even knowing there’s probably no chance in hell she’ll ever speak to me again, I’m committed to trying.
All because this feels different. She’s the first girl I haven’t been able to get out of my head and … that has to mean something.