Page 19 of Enemies to Prom Dates
“So he’s the head dog,” Locke said, his chin nodding in Fitz’s direction.
“In his own mind,” I snapped. Because I was still shaking with that feeling. Like I was nervous and anxious and mad and excited all at the same time. I never wanted to speak to Fitz again and I wanted to follow him and tell him so right now.
That seemed like a contradiction.
I even took a sip of beer and reminded myself why I thought it was disgusting.
“What are you doing?” Reen asked, as I took a second, then third sip.
“Trying something new this year,” I offered.
5
Fitz
Never is a long time.
Geezus, did I read that in one of Gi’s romance novels? Seriously what the fuck was I thinking? More importantly, if Reen hadn’t shown up, what had I been about to do?
Bennet was just under my skin. Like a splinter I couldn’t extract, pinching me at odd moments. Reminding me of its presence. Like her sitting on my lap in Chas’s car, the way she smelled of fresh rain drops.
Annoying!
“Fitz, over here.”
I turned at the sound of Heath calling me. Walking toward him, I saw that he had a cup in each hand. One might assume he’d gotten one for himself and me, but I knew him too well. They were both for him.
Also, he knew I didn’t touch the stuff. Being at a teenage party where there was underage drinking was one thing. Pictures of me actually drinking while underage would be damaging to my mother’s reputation and her political career.
We didn’t mess with the Darcy image. None of us. Which meant I never drank or smoked publicly. And the only people I trusted with cell phones around me when I was doing those things were Ed, Chas and Heath.
“I’m supposed to say something now, like great game. Or whatever.” Heath said.
He put down one of his cups and pulled out what appeared to be a dark thin cigarette. Not a joint. Something with a strong smell to it though.
“Thanks. Since when do you smoke?”
“Since I’ve been introduced to the cigarillo. Smells amazing doesn’t.”
“If you think so,” I said.
“Really, well done with all the touchdowns and whatnots.”
He sounded almost reluctant in his praise, but I knew that was how Heath engaged with the world. He was bitter about most things all the time, which left him in a foul mood when he wasn’t drinking. And an even darker mood when he was.
Sometimes I think if we hadn’t been friends since we were kids, we would barely acknowledge each other’s existence. But we had been friends. I’d been the first friend he’d made and desperately needed. And it was my parents who’d been responsible for giving him the help he needed to change his circumstances for the better.
There were times I thought he should be more grateful. Not to me, just about his circumstances in general. Yes, he’d been abandoned by his father, his mother had died, but look at everything good that had happened to him since then. He was being fostered in a town where he was getting an amazing education. He’d already qualified for a scholarship program for college.
Heath needed to get over the circumstances of his birth and look to the future.
I called myself out internally for this thinking because I had no clue what it felt like to be abandoned by my parents. I’d been both loved and wanted from my conception so it was hard to know what the absence of that would feel like.
“You seen Ed?” I asked.
I’d looked for him since I arrived but hadn’t been able to spot him among the crowd. I wondered maybe if after he’d left the game, he’d gone to see Bee. Which was never a good time for him. Why he continued to torture himself that way, I didn’t know.
“Nope. You know him. Sometimes he just likes to take off. Do his own thing. Any word on Chas?”
