Page 63 of Side Hustle
The girls stood and formed a circle around me, holding me up in a hug I knew I could never live without. These girls were my family. They never let me down, they let me cry and rage, and thought no less of me when I acted a fool. They were the only family I needed.
“Either he wants me or he doesn’t. I refuse to run after him or hold out hope. And if he becomes mayor, I won’t actually leave town. Pinky promise.”
The girls cheered and held me closer. The flames from the bonfire danced in the breeze off the ocean and held me mesmerized. I deserved someone who would fight for me. I knew that like I knew that fire could destroy the woods near our house in a matter of hours. I wouldn’t run. I’d stay and face whatever came next.
But if Rip wanted me back, he’d have to have the balls to come get me.
26
Rip
“Just once, I’d like one of us to fall in love with a woman and not go through this bullshit. Is that too much to ask?” Bain moaned, literally dragging me through the grass toward the waiting truck on the street outside my house.
He had my left side, Titus had my right. I’d decided to be limp, dead weight just to make them work for it a bit. Jayden stood off to the side, shaking his head like he wasn’t a total disaster when he and Lenora broke up in front of the whole town when he fired her. I wasn’t even drunk like Titus had been when Amelia had given him the kick to the curb. I just didn’t want to leave my house—the empty walls matched my mood—and they resorted to physical force to get me outside. When Bain had pulled out his handcuffs, I stopped fighting them. The only handcuffs I wanted to see were Hazel’s pink fuzzy ones.
To say I was miserable without Hazel would be as gross an under-exaggeration as saying Hazel was kind of fun. Without her presence, I was left with myself. And who the fuck wanted to be around that guy?
“He’s an expert wallower. We gotta slap some sense into him,” Titus said, huffing when he couldn’t get my legs into the truck.
“I can hear you, asshole.” Just because I wasn’t fighting them anymore didn’t mean I’d actually help get myself into the truck either.
“Then why don’t you pick up your fucking legs?” Titus shot back.
I shrugged, half in the truck like a lazy bastard, actually enjoying myself for the first time since I broke up with Hazel last week. “My legs were fine staying in the house.”
“Jesus,” Jayden muttered, throwing the shoe that had fallen off while they dragged me. It hit me square in the forehead and pissed me off.
“Hey! No one asked you guys to come over.”
Titus straightened up and gave me a look. For a nice guy, he was sure learning some mean expressions from spending too much time with Amelia. I raised both hands, flipped him the double middle finger, and swung to put my feet in the truck. It was clear they wouldn’t stop until I spent some time with them, and at this point, I was just delaying the inevitable. Maybe I needed to pivot to a new strategy: get this over with as quickly as possible.
Titus and Jayden squeezed into the back seat while Bain hustled to get in the driver’s side. It didn’t take long for me to figure out we were going to the beach. Probably beers and a bonfire. Maybe this unexpected trip outside the house wasn’t so bad after all.
“Where’s Charlie?” I asked when the cliffs came into view a few minutes later.
“He’s making a special green juice concoction for broken hearts.” Titus almost kept his voice steady the whole time, but ruined it by breaking into a laugh.
I didn’t feel much like laughing. Making something healthy like that just made me think of Hazel and her gross cookies that I missed like crazy.
“So no beer?” I was rethinking going along with this bonfire plan.
“There better fucking be beer,” Bain muttered, surly as ever.
I liked that guy more and more.
Bain pulled off the road and we all tumbled out of the truck to head down the path to the bonfire. I left the guys to haul the cooler, wood, and chairs out of the back of the truck. One of the perks to being kidnapped: you didn’t have to haul all the supplies. I kicked the remains of two charred logs in the firepit. On closer inspection, I saw six or seven of the same color buttons lying in the sand, blackened wood pieces all around.
“Whatcha looking at?” Charlie walked over, a pitcher of something that looked like it was dredged from the bottom of the sea in his hands.
I looked around. “Where’d you come from?” His truck hadn’t been up at the top of the cliff.
He smiled like he was high, which was a total possibility. “I walked here. Want some juice?”
Well, shit. The guy walked what, ten miles or more to get to the bonfire? The least I could do was pretend to drink his juice. He gave me a red cup and filled it to the brim with green sludge.
I’d gotten a couple sips down the hatch by the time the other guys arrived and we all got comfortable. With Charlie distracted by the conversation, I was able to pour out a sip or two of juice into the sand. I noticed Titus doing the same thing, though he poured out half the cup. Jayden, on the other hand, chugged the whole thing down and burped. No wonder Hazel wanted nothing to do with me. Guys were disgusting.
“Okay, Rip.” Bain clapped his hands together and everyone hushed. The fire danced in the breeze and warmed up what promised to be a cool fall evening. “It’s time for your dare.”
