Page 56 of American Hellhound
“Um, excuse you?” the girl said, all snot and peeled-back lips.
Maggie gave her a flat look. “You’ve got lipstick all over your face.”
The girl gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth. She managed to look mortified while glaring daggers at Maggie. “Call me,” she told Cody, and whirled away, stomping off with emphasis.
Maggie spun the dial and opened her locker. “I don’t know why you put up with them.”
“Them?”
“High-maintenance Barbie dolls without personalities.”
Cody chuckled and braced his shoulder against the locker next to hers, so he was facing her. “I don’t give a shit about their personalities. Also.” He leaned in closer, close enough she caught a whiff of Barbie’s perfume mixed with his cologne. “I saw you down there with Fielding.”
She groaned and shoved her books into her locker. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
“You know why he keeps sniffing around, right?”
“He’s persistent?”
He leaned in closer and pretended to sniff at her. Close enough that awareness prickled up the back of her neck. Laughing quietly, he whispered, “You smell like virgin.”
Maggie slammed her locker shut and took a step back. “Shut up.”
He backed up and shrugged. “Hey, I’m just saying. You want to get rid of him? You gotta go and get yourself ruined, babe.” He winked. “You need somebody to help with that, just let me know.” He grinned and pushed away from the lockers, walking off in a lazy, kingly way that said he knew how many eyes were always on him.
“Prick,” she muttered, without heat.
But she didn’t think he was wrong.
~*~
“Sixteen?” Collier asked, brows shooting up to his forehead. “You’re shitting me, right?”
“I wish I was.” Ghost poured himself another beer from the pitcher in the center of their table. He loved Bell Bar all the time, but he especially loved it in the middle of the afternoon, when it was just them, the jukebox, and a handful of day-drinking regulars who kept to themselves.
“But…you didn’t do anything. Right?”
He’d overfilled his glass and sucked beer foam off his thumb.
“Ghost,” Collier prodded. “You didn’tdo anything, right?”
“I kinda kissed her.”
“Kinda?”
“Kinda a lot.”
“Jesus,” Collier said, and sounded tired. Like it was work being Ghost’s friend.
It was.
“I didn’t mean to,” Ghost said, as if that somehow made it better.
“You get that you could go to jail for even that, right?”
“I know.” He sucked down half his beer in one go, gasping for breath afterward. “I just…” He had no excuses, so he fell silent.
“Ghost,” Collier said, dropping his voice, shifting to the edge of his stool. “You know I love you, brother–”
