Page 9 of Spyder
He laughs. “You’re such an ass. It’s done though, man. I’m in. You guys are my brothers and I’m not turnin’ my back on any of you,” he tells me. “And it’s not peer pressure. It’s because I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I bailed on you, boys.”
“You’re a fuckin’ idiot,” I tell him. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do. Ashley makes sure to remind me at least once a day.”
“Good woman. Like I said.”
“She keeps me humble.”
I smirk at him. “Somebody has to.”
A moment later, she arrives with our breakfast. A blueberry short stack with over easy eggs and bacon for him, and a Denver omelet with hash browns and a side of toast for me. She tops off our coffee and gives us a smile.
“Anything else I can get for you, boys?”
“I think we’re good,” I say.
Domino nods. “We’re good. Thank you, my love.”
“I’d give you a kiss, but Kenneth is watching me like a hawk today,” she says. “Doesn’t like me being too friendly with the customers, he says.”
“Want me to drag him outside and kick the shit out of him?”
She screws up her face. “Tempting. Maybe tomorrow.”
We both laugh as she subtly blows him a kiss and takes off to see to her other tables, leaving Domino and me to tuck into our meals. We eat in silence for a few minutes, fueling up before the job we have to do today. It’s not enough that we’ve got assholes on the outside making life difficult for us, but now, we’ve got one inside city limits making trouble. Asshole should know better. Now, he’s got to be taught a lesson. At least it’ll let me blow off some steam by taking my frustration out on him.
“Speaking of things worth living for,” Domino starts.
“Pretty sure that conversation was like ten minutes ago,” I say. “Statute of limitations is up, and we can no longer discuss that subject.”
He laughs. “Go fuck yourself,” he says. “Guess who I ran into when I dropped Cole off at school today?”
“If I refuse to answer, does this conversation die right here?”
“Yeah, not how it works.”
Just hearing the tone of his voice tells me exactly where this conversation is going to go. It sounds a lot like the tone of voice Ashley gets when she tells me she’s got this friend I just have to meet. The last thing I need is for Domino to start trying to fix me up too. I mean, outside of Ashley, who I’m convinced was just a fluke, as his taste in women is horrible. Like, really horrible.
I take another bite of my omelet, studiously ignoring him as I go about my breakfast. He chuckles to himself, finally tipping wise to my game. Clearly, it’s not going to deter him.
“Bellamy Young,” he says. “You do remember Bell, don’t you? I mean, I’m sure you do. She was the sole deposit in your spank bank throughout high school.”
I pause with my fork halfway to my mouth, trying to resist the urge to look up at him, but my eyes rise anyway as if moving on their own accord. And as expected, he’s got a big ol’ shit-eating grin on his face. I force myself to take the bite, though I might as well have just shoved a spoonful of sawdust into my mouth for all that I’m tasting. But I chew gamely and swallow it down before chasing it with a long pull of coffee.
“Wow,” I say when my mouth and throat are clear. “That’s a name I haven’t thought of in, literally, years.”
“The callouses on your hand say otherwise,” he says and laughs.
Bellamy Young was my ideal woman back in high school. She was everything. The whole package. Beauty. Brains. A good sense of humor. Razor-sharp wit and usually had a scathing retort at the ready. I love a woman who can sling a good comeback. Always have. She was very much the gold standard in women for me and I really think the reason I’m alone is that I’m forever comparing every woman I date to Bellamy. She was what I’d always wanted. Probably what I still want.
The problem was, we existed in two different social spheres. She was part of the hip, popular crowd. Her friends were the jocks and the cheerleaders. The elite of our high school. My crowd was the burners and slackers. The rough crowd. We were the kids from the wrong side of the tracks and were the social misfits of our school. The outcasts and pariahs.
Max was somehow able to bridge that gap and walk between the two worlds. Kind of. I know he and Bellamy had something of a friendship. At least in classes, with the occasional acknowledgment in the hallways. I seem to recall he onetime dumped a cup of juice in his own lap and dared anybody to say something. He did it because Bellamy was already having a rough go of things and had accidentally spilled her juice in her lap, touching off a firestorm of heckling. After that, they were friends. Or at least, friends-ish.
Which, of course, was a hell of a lot more than I ever was with her. I’m half convinced that she never knew who I was or that I existed. There were never any friendly greetings in the hallways. No acknowledgment of each other in classes. I mean, we would once in a while catch each other’s gaze and exchange a smile, but that was pretty much it.
I remember having a class with her once. We were working in groups at one point and it hit me that she didn’t know my name when she kept calling me Donny. Even after I corrected her several times. It was Donny for the rest of the year. But that was fine with me back then. At least it was an acknowledgment of sorts, I suppose.
