Page 23 of Spark

“That’s not what I said!” Kai shouts.

“Yes, it is!” I shout back. “Word for word.”

“You’re delusional.”

“No, you are. Not to mention, an egomaniac.” I address the faces staring at me. “But guess what Kai didn’t say to me. ‘Hey, Ruby, if your crush happens to beme, I’m sorry, but I’m not into you as more than a friend.’ And you know why he didn’t say that? Because, like I said, he fully intended to string me along and keep me as an option for later.”

“That tracks,” Titus says, as Kai grumbles, once again. “Considering the fucker tried to get into your pants only a few years later.”

“Oh, I’m a fucker now?” Kai retorts, shaking his head. “Guys, even in Ruby’s self-serving, untrueversion of events, I turned her down.So, who cares what I said to her years later, when I was drunk, and she was a grown-ass woman? By then, she wasn’t even close to a sixteen-year-old virgin anymore, so?—”

“Oh, you’re slut-shaming me now?” I shriek, as Kendrick, Titus, and Laila all shout something similar in my defense.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Kai shouts. “Would everyone please calm the fuck down? Jesus.”

I waggle my finger at Kai, feeling like I’m physically vibrating with indignation. “If you want to slut-shame someone, then do it to yourself, you fucking dickhead. You’re the one who’s been banging randos all tour, not me.”

“I wasn’t slut-shaming you, Ruby! I meant you were an adult by then, and you’d gotten yourself plenty of experience.”

“Plenty? There you go again!”

“You’re being hyper-sensitive. Jesus Christ. I don’t care if you want to fuck an entire football team, okay? I truly don’t give a shit. I just meant, in the full context of everything, me getting stupid-drunk at your birthday party, right after a bad breakup, and then suggesting we go upstairs to fuck for the fun of it wasn’t a capital offense. Was it my proudest moment? No. But it wasn’t as fucked up as you’re making it sound.”

“What about the sex dream you’d had about her?” Kendrick interjects. “Ruby said you told her you’d had one about her, when you hit on her.”

Kai shrugs, looking remarkably unbothered. “I’ve always had all kinds of weird sex dreams. I used to have them all the time about my geometry teacher, too, and she was a literal grandma.”

Everyone in the room, including me, cracks up at the revelation. But that’s Kai for you. He’s always been one hell of a horny motherfucker.

“Guys, I did something stupid. I admit that. But look at it from my point of view. One, Ruby’s objectively hot. That’s a fact. Two, I knew she’d always been desperately in love with me?—”

“I had a teeny-tiny crush on you for all of five weeks!”

“It’s my turn to talk now. You’ve had your chance.” With blazing eyes, Kai returns to the group. “From my personal point of view, I truly thought Ruby’d always been desperately in love with me, based on several nonverbal communications.” He ticks off on his fingers. “Three, whatever girlfriend had just broken up with me, and I was feeling low about that, and Ruby being Ruby, she was probably being extra nice to me that night to make me feel better about myself.”

“No good deed goes unpunished,” I murmur.

“And five, or six, or whatever number I’m on, I was shit-faced at the time, and that impaired my judgment and made me suggest something I shouldn’t have—something I would have regretted in the morning, if she’d been stupid enough to say yes to me.”

“As if.”

“And that’s it. End of story.”

Everyone looks extremely persuaded by that little speech. And that pisses me off, since I didnothingto give Kai theimpression that I was in love with him, let alone desperately. And certainly not for years and years, since age motherfucking sixteen.

“Not every crush blooms into deep feelings,” I sputter. “In fact, it’s usually the opposite. You look back and can’t believe you ever had that crush in the first place. Look at Kendrick and his fleeting crush on Laila, for example. I’m sure, when he looks back on that . . .” I trail off when I realize Kendrick looks mortified. Shellshocked.Furious.

Shit. I think I’ve just done something unthinkable: I’ve thrown my best friend under the bus to save myself.

“It’s okay, Kendrick,” Laila says quickly, apparently reading his body language. “I’ve always known about your tiny crush on me.”

“I told her back then, during the tour,” Savage explains. “It’s nothing to feel embarrassed about.”

“We all knew about it,” Titus adds.

My heart is hammering. Kendrick is glaring at me in a way he’s never done before—the same way he sometimes glares at Kai, after Kai’s fucked up. Man, he’s furious with me.

Kendrick grits out, “My crush wasn’t about you, specifically, Laila. Sorry. You were a placeholder.”

---