Page 65 of Bedding Rose
“Do your worst,” he challenges.
“Oh, I will. Have your Kleenex ready because you’re going to be crying like a baby,” I quip, lining up my feet and squaring off against the dartboard hung on the far side of my living room, which is at most, twelve feet away.
I’ll never get back my deposit on this place because the cream wall behind the board is riddled with missed shots, but I don’t give a fuck. This one-bedroom hole-in-the-wall has only ever been a waypoint while I decided on my next move.
Now, I know what that’s going to be.
It’s all centered on that pretty girl who’s the subject of every other thought I have.
I pinch the dart carefully and exhale. Just as I get ready to lob it, Quique calls out, “Dick cheese!”
I was expecting his outburst though, so I follow through smoothly, and the dart lodges firmly into the board, just missing the target I was aiming for. Crap. “You’re so predictable,” I tell him, shaking my head scoldingly as he straightens up and gets ready for his own throw, grabbing his blue-tipped dart from the counter.
“I’m not predictable. I’m a damn enigma,” he jokes, turning to face me and lobbing his dart over his shoulder. “Betcha you weren’t expecting that, huh?” His throw goes wide of the board and lodges in the wall.
“Great aim, Enigma,” I troll.
“You know, the board’s overrated anyway.”
I chuckle and grab my beer as his phone buzzes in his pocket and he snatches it up. Taking a sip, I don’t notice he’s frozen until afterward. That’s when I realize my best friend’s face has hardened, his cheeks are paler than normal, eyes glued to his phone.
“Everything okay?” I ask, my gut immediately knotting, wondering if something’s happened to his family. To Rose. Disasters flick through my mind, one after the next—car crash, fire, shooting—
“You bastard!”
Before I can blink, Quique’s fist smashes into my cheek, and beer splatters from my mouth. Pain smears across my face in one fell swoop, my entire jaw screaming. The bottle drops from my hand and spills foaming suds everywhere as it rolls across the counter and clatters to the floor.
“My sister!”
I swivel my face back to look at him and realize I’ve never seen my best friend’s eyes this wide, his teeth clamped together so hard they look like they might crack.
Shit.
Fuck.
“You fucking touched Rose!” He’s livid. That’s why, even though I see the second punch coming, I don’t back away. I’m no stranger to pain. And he deserves this. It’s no less than I’d do for Tatiana.
The second blow glances across my nose, leaving a new throbbing ache there and ensuring I’ll need to ice my face. Even my gums pulse, the pain spreading down into them and taking root. But still, I just straighten and look at him. Letting him get it out.
“That was for keeping it from me. And this—” He rears back, a right hook getting ready to swing through the air.
I don’t step back, don’t lift my hands to defend myself. But I do say, “She’s the one.”
I don’t apologize, because I’ll never apologize for anything associated with my Rose, even the fact that I lied to my best friend about it. I’ve loved every damn second of stalking her and making her mine. And I kept things from him knowingly—with the full understanding that this might be the final outcome. He’s my best friend, my brother. But she’s my soul.
Quique pauses with his fist in midair before he clenches his jaw and squeezes his eyes shut. I watch him swallow hard, almost as if he’s swallowing down his fury, before he drops his hand, shaking it out. “Pinche cabrón. Fucker, I don’t know whether I should strangle you right now or … ” He trails off, uncertain what to say.
“I’m gonna go with or,” I reply wryly as I gingerly touch my jaw and give it an experimental swivel.
That draws an unwilling chuckle from his lips. “I hate you.”
“I’m a hate-able guy.”
He sighs and walks around me, stepping over the puddle made by my beer and opening the freezer door on my fridge. He grabs a bag of frozen corn and lays it over his hand. “What the fuck is your jaw made of, granite?”
“Same as your hand,” I say, reaching for a dish towel and dropping it onto the ground. I swirl it around with my boot to sop up most of the mess. I didn’t bother changing after I got home from work today, since Quique had wanted to come over and hang. Following him into the tight space between countertops, I grab my own bag of frozen carrots and thump it onto my face before asking, “Who texted?”
Of course, the moment I ask the question, I’ve already figured it out. Rose wouldn’t have messaged him, not after we decided to wait to tell our families. Someone else must have seen us or figured it out.
