Page 14 of Knock Knock

“Like a drunken hookup?” Nate scoffed, already grabbing his pants.

“Yes! You wanna fuck me or you wanna fuck each other?! Get out. I’m sick of you two and your bullshit. No wonder you can’t move forward in life when you’re so obsessed with each other. Grow the fuck up.”

“Yeah, we’re fucking losers, right? At least we know what loyalty is.” Nate picked up the rest of his clothes and left, completely pissed off.

“Loyalty?” Kaylee scoffed. “To each other, maybe. You treat everyone else like shit and then wonder why you’re both the butt of all jokes.”

Simmering in anger, I started getting dressed, wanting to follow him to make sure he was alright, but Kaylee grabbed my arm with an apologetic look on her face.

“Look, I’m sorry. You guys are great, but I don’t think you understand what a relationship is.”

“Thought this was a hookup? Didn’t you already break up with us?” I pulled my shirt on.

“Yeah, because you two won’t let it be anything more. You never do. You hold everyone at arm’s length because you can’t fathom the thought of leaving each other. It’s weird, and honestly, I’m getting sick of it. Everyone is getting sick of it.”

It was no one else's business, and I hated that we were talked about like that.

I thought she left our asses because we weren’t taking life seriously enough. I thought I disliked her because she made me feel pathetic for maybe wanting a kid. What were we even doing here? The sad part was, everything Maddox said came back to me. We were in it as an excuse to get close to each other. Kaylee didn’t even matter, and that made us assholes, but assholes who were too afraid to admit the truth.

I slipped my feet into my slides. “Well, there won’t be a next time. This is clearly done. But if you ever make him feel like shit about himself like that again…” Murderous rage that didn’t come out too often riddled me, and I didn’t hate the way it felt.

“Oh my god, Xavi. I tried dating you two for a year! It’s not my fault you’re stuck as teens and don’t want to grow up. Get out.”

“Gladly.” I grabbed the hat Nate forgot and left her trailer just as Nate ran out of Old Man Hank’s shed with a stolen bottle of something.

He beamed at me, the mood of the night doing a one-eighty yet again. “I got—”

Bang!“Get the fuck off my property!”Bang!“You shits better run!”Bang!

Oh, we ran. We ran like the motherfucking wind. Ain’t nobody want a shotgun shell in the ass after a tiny chick already handed you yours.

It was a long walk back to the shop from Garron Park, and by the time we found ourselves swaying down a dirt road, half the bottle of moonshine was gone.

The hat Nate wore must have come from the business welcome packet we got because it had ‘Garron Township’ on the front. He pushed the brim up high on his forehead, his dark blond hair sticking out the front. I liked the way it looked, and he caught me staring. But he was either too drunk to notice, or he was still stuck on what Kaylee said. He was also squinting because his night vision was shit. Pretty sure the guy needed glasses, but he’d never had his eyes checked.

“Are we jokes, Xavi?” He walked at an angle, and I tugged on his shirt to keep him out of the ditch.“I feel like the punchline to a joke I don’t get.”

Guess we were ignoring that whole staring contest thing we had back there. “Probably,” I admitted. “Never really cared before.”

“You do now?”

“Well, I’m kinda getting fucking sick of hearing it so much. I’m starting to believe it.” I took a pull from the bottle. This moonshine was shit, but I didn’t regret it. I already had a weird concoction of shitty alcohol in my stomach, so what was one more? “She treated us like kids. Like scum.”

“Yes!” Nate shouted. “She fucking mommed us.”

I laughed. Okay, wait. I giggled. A straight up man-giggle. I covered my mouth because I felt so ridiculous about it, and then I studied the green bottle, wondering what the fuck this brew was.

“It’s like she got annoyed at herself for hooking up with us.”

“Yeah, and she’s not the only one. We’re… something is different, right?” I stumbled along with Nate at my side, and if that wasn’t a metaphor for our life, I didn’t know what was.

“Yeah,” he admitted with a blush, stealing the bottle from me. Okay, man-giggles and blushing? What the fuck was going on?

I tugged him to a stop. “What happened back there?”

“She kicked us out.”

“Before that.” I met his blue eyes, all glossy and big in the moonlight. “We’re drunk enough to talk about it.”

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