Page 30 of The Vengeance You Crave
"I know the two of you will probably never see eye to eye. But if you could at least try to tolerate each other, it would mean the world to me."
"I tolerate him just fine," I mutter, thinking of him being a much bigger part of my life than I ever wanted or expected him to be.
I thought exchanges with Kane Legend were done once I graduated. I thought he'd disappear into the pits of hell that was Harrow Creek, destined for a life of gangs, drugs, and crime. But no, apparently the universe had other ideas. As if I didn't already have enough to deal with.
Letty scoffs. "That's what you call tolerating? You're gonna have to get used to it. You're not going to be getting rid of him next season."
"I know," I mutter. The truth of it is, while I might be worried about Letty being with him, I'm not stupid enough to deny that he needs to be standing beside Leon and me on the Panther's offense. Unfortunately, he's the best man for the job. While I might place the majority of last season's failing on my own shoulders, I can't lie and say that his name also doesn't feature seeing as he ended up on the bench injured more than he played. And as much as I might hate it, the three of us are a good team on the field. If we have any chance of making a comeback next season then we need to solidify them, and sadly, that means that we're going to have to spend some time together. Assuming I want to be back on the field next season.
Letty's cell bleeping cuts off whatever she was going to say and she pulls it from her back pocket, opening the message and almost instantly laughing to herself at whatever is on the screen.
"His cock that small, huh?" I ask, although I've probably seen that motherfucker naked as many times as she has, so I know it's not true. Asshole.
"Nah. Ella insisted on a toga fitting last night. There was a lot of tequila involved. Look." She turns her cell around and my eyes land on Ella and Violet, two of Letty's old roommates, dancing around in their dorm room wrapped in what looks like cut-up bedsheets.
They're laughing and joking, clearly totally wasted but it's not the sight of them that makes my heart jump into my throat, because that's the flash of pink hair in the bottom left of the screen.
All the air rushes from my lungs but I quickly tell myself to get a grip. Loads of girls have pink hair on campus.
She's not even here. She spends too much time shaking her tits for assholes to attend classes.
But it was her night off,a little voice says in my head.
Shutting it all down, I look back to Letty as she takes her cell back.
"Looks like it was quite a night."
A genuine smile curls at her lips and I can't help but copy her. There were so many times she looked utterly miserable after she first started here last year, I love seeing her looking more like her fun-loving old self.
"Oh yeah, it was something. Those two were trashed."
The question about the pink haired girl is right on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it down, not wanting to alert Letty to something—something that I'm sure is nothing more than me jumping to conclusions.
The two of them never met. Letty arrived only a few weeks after Peyton left, and although she's aware that my old friend left on bad terms, Peyton never came to visit, and even talking about her turned me into a dark, angry beast that I needed to keep hidden behind closed doors, and the best way to deal with that was to do my best to forget any of it even happened, that Peyton never even existed.
Letty's probably heard her name many times over the years, and now understanding just how close her and Leon were, it makes me wonder if she knows more than she ever let on. Not that Leon ever knew the whole truth. It was bad enough that I had to deal with Peyton's lies. I wasn't poisoning my brother's mind with them too.
"You're coming Friday night, right?" she asks after putting her cell away.
"Uh…" Honestly, I'd mostly planned to sit outside The Locker Room like a sad motherfucker and wait for my daily hit of Peyton.
I wrap my hand around the back of my neck, realizing just how fucking pathetic I'm becoming needing a look at a girl in the dead of night to settle the darkness within me.
"Oh come on. Everyone is over the season. You need to stop sulking and enjoy your free time before it starts all over again."
"I'm not sulking," I mutter, earning myself a raised eyebrow in return. "Okay. Fine. I'll be there."
We finish our coffees and chat about bullshit like classes and assignments, both of us skirting around the more serious topics that we've only touched on.
The two of us are going to need more than this little coffee ice breaker until we're back on some kind of level footing again.
When it's time for us to head to our next classes, I pull her in for a hug and hold her tight, breathing in her familiar and comforting scent as my heart aches once more and confusion clouds my brain.
"I'll see you soon, yeah?" she asks hesitantly as if she's about to walk away and it'll shatter the progress we've just made.
"Yeah. Maybe you and that guy of yours should even come and hang at the house sometime," I offer, although I'm not entirely sure if I mean it or not.
I walk away with a heavy heart, but the knowledge that I'm closer to seeing Peyton again puts a bit of a spring into my step as I walk toward my afternoon class.
