Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
It took every grain of control I possessed not to react, to pretend I didn’t care who he went and stuck his dick in. “Try not to blow your load on her shirt like a thirteen-year-old.” I turned away and walked off.
The lull of deep voices drifted through the humid night air moments before a group of men moved out from behind an abandoned van. Their conversation silenced, their attention homing in on me as my steps slowed.
A lone, shady-looking guy was one thing, but a group…
I slipped my hand into my shorts’ pocket, gripping my keys between my fingers as a makeshift weapon as they shifted past the van, leery smiles aimed my way.
If any of them tried to lay a finger on me, I’d gouge out their eyes.
“Those motherfuckers have guns…” Hendrix’s strong arm slipped around my waist, tugging me close to his side.
Safe. Despite the guns, I instantly felt safe, and I hadn’t truly felt that since the last time I was in his arms.
His stronghold remained around me as they passed by. We turned a dark corner, and my shoulders slowly relaxed. “Come on, Lola Cola…”
He’d always called me that. Six-year-old me hated it. For a while I’d called him Hendrix Appendix, but it hadn’t stuck.
“You know better than to walk around here by yourself at night.”
“Not like I have much choice.” I could have called Kyle, but he was with his grandma. And he was the only person I had.
Hendrix’s muscles tensed. He stared down at me through the dark like he wanted to say something, but instead, he pulled in a heavy breath and kept walking me through the rundown neighborhood, past Kyle’s one-story house. I didn’t want to feed into whatever obsession Hendrix had managed to concoct in his head about Kyle, so I let him keep walking me toward my mom’s.
Tension gripped my muscles when the tiny, rundown house came into view. I hadn’t been back there since social services had taken Gracie and me away.
The pack of dogs next door kicked off when we went by, and someone inside the house shouted for them to shut up. With each step I made, my chest tightened, and when we stopped in front of the rusted, chain-link gate, I felt physically sick.
I turned to face Hendrix, and although the pain in his eyes was new, the scene felt agonizingly familiar. “I am sorry, Hendrix,” I whispered. I’d said it in the lake last night, but I needed him to know. “You’re the last person I ever wanted to hurt.”
Sirens wailed in the background as silent seconds passed by. His chin dropped to his chest with a sigh, hiding his face in the shadows. “I’d give any-fucking-thing in the world to go back, but trusting you was the worst thing I ever did.”
I wasn’t prepared for the pain that lanced through me.
Closing my eyes, I fought back the sting of tears, fought the urge to scream that I didn’t betray him, that I could never sleep with anyone else. I hated that he had believed my lies so easily.
Then he pressed a kiss to the top of my head, and turned away, walking off into the shadows of the night.
Hendrix Hunt was my first friend, my first kiss, my first everything… There was barely a moment in my life he hadn’t been there for, and that was what made it all so tragic.
When I left him, I gave up the kind of love people wrote love stories about—to protect him—and I knew, no matter how long I lived, I would never, never find what we’d had again.
Chapter 9
HENDRIX
I waited until I reached the end of the dark street before I kicked the shit out of a parked car. “This is such bullshit.”
It was more than bullshit.
I swiped a hand through my hair, annoyed that I was letting myself get sucked back into her. Staking claim on her in front of the school. Finger-banging her in a grimy bathroom. Nutting on her shirt. Walking her home and wanting, like a pathetic little troll, to forgive her, then slam my lips over hers and tell her I still loved her.
My phone buzzed for the fifteenth time since I’d left the park. I knew it was Wolf’s ass because he was supposed to pick me up from the park, but noooo, Lola just had to try to walk home in the dark. And I had to be a sick-dick knight in white-trash armor and escort her through the damn slums.
At least Wolf wouldn’t have to know about this.
I passed underneath a flickering streetlight and fished the device from my jeans pocket.
Stumpy Ass: Where the hell are you?
Stumpy Ass: DUDE!!
Stumpy Ass: Are you dead?
Stumpy Ass: Are you high?
Stumpy Ass: Are you fucking someone????
Stumpy Ass: HENDRIX!
Stumpy Ass: H
Stumpy Ass: E