Page 8 of Our Cracked Pieces
“My tongue would have been too busy wagging on the floor to be able to talk back,” Mandy chimed in.
I eyed her. “Shut up. You’re in love.”
“Hey, if Darnell can still have hearts in his eyes for his third-grade teacher, I can appreciate all that can be appreciated about Diego Cruz.”
I laughed. “You’re stupid.”
Mandy grinned. “Sometimes.
“Can we get back to freakin’ Diego Cruz, please?” Carly squawked.
I rolled my eyes. “By all means.”
Tammy’s smile was still lighting up half the state. “We hooked up,” she blurted.
Silence.
Mandy cleared her throat a bit. “Uhm, like…?”
“Holy shit,” I whispered. “You lost your virginity to him, didn’t you?”
Tammy nodded enthusiastically. “And if a girl is going to lose her virginity, it should be to Diego Cruz. Seriously.” Her face took on a dreamlike quality. “It was perfect.”
“Bullshit,” Mandy remarked. “The first times always suck. No one ever knows what the hell they’re doing.”
“It wasn’t his first time, Mandy,” Tammy replied. “So, trust me when I tell you, the guy knew what he was doing.”
“So, spill,” Carly demanded, and after she did, we were the exact picture of giddy high school girls. The best thing about it all? Tammy said Diego’s been texting her every day since then, and though things have a friend-vibe between them, she’s happy he hadn’t slept with her, then turned around and ignored her.
“You know who I wouldn’t mind losing my virginity to?” Carly said, a sly smile on her lips.
“Who?” Mandy asked.
“Officer Connors,” Carly confessed, and my entire body ran cold. “He is so freakin’ hot.”
“No arguments there,” Tammy added. “He reminds me of William Levy.”
“Right?” Mandy exclaimed. “I’ve been thinking that this entire time.”
“And I don’t care that he’s thirty-one,” Carly went on. “I’m eighteen.”
Tammy laughed. “How do you know how old he is?”
Carly grinned. “I might have stalked him on the police department’s webpage when he first started here last year.”
“He is hot,” Mandy murmured. “But he’s so standoffish.”
“He’s probably forbidden from getting too friendly with the students,” Tammy suggested. “He’s here to keep us in line. Not to become our best friend.”
I could feel my nails digging into my palms, and I had to literally instruct myself to unclench my fists. I had to instruct myself to keep breathing. I had to instruct myself not to have a panic attack in front of the entire school.
I had to keep it together.
I had to.
“Well, forbidden or not, I’m eighteen, and I wouldn’t say no,” Carly teased. Then she looked over at me. “Don’t you think so, Row?”
It took everything I had to keep my voice steady, an indifferent look on my face. “I’d rather hear about Diego Cruz.” I shrugged with as much nonchalance I could muster. “Older guys don’t do it for me.”
