Page 47 of Knock Knock

I felt him sink behind me.

CHAPTER16

XAVI

After the clusterfuckat the park the other night, I wanted to protect someone. Naturally, that fell on Karen, but she didn’t want me to go all dad on her, and Nate wasn’t accepting my protective mode because he thought he needed to protect me from my own damn mom, andugh! I needed to blow off some stress and not be a dick to everyone.

But a dick was exactly what I was being. Because my mom was in that trailer. Because my dad had gone there to take her home, putting himself at risk in that environment. Because, once again, someone was all up in my fucking face about shit that was none of their business.

“Seriously, Xav?” my buddy, Clark, asked. “When you gonna find someone?” He wrapped his arm around his skanky girlfriend. I wasn’t just calling her skanky because I was in a bad mood. She really was. Earlier in the night, I saw her flash her tits at Clark’s brother, and immediately after that, she spit her shot of tequila into Clark’s cousin’s mouth. That was pretty skanky.

I shrugged, swallowing a shot of rum.

“Want me to hook ya up with Trisha’s sister?” Clark asked.

Fuck no. Trisha’s sister was even more of a skank than Trisha. This was the shit I didn’t understand. Why did all these assholes think they were better than me just because they were in a relationship? A relationship that was full of fighting, cheating, financial problems, hostility, and a big ol’ heaping of codependency?

“Nah.” I poured myself another shot, getting grumpier by the second.Grumpy about the questions, Karen being dirty with bird nest hair because I was pretty sure she was afraid to shower at her home, the boy at the park not having a safe place to go home to, and my fucking mother being there to party. At first, I was worried my dad was on his way there to get high, but we sat in those weeds and listened to him yell at someone, pull Mom out of there, and then stay silent as he carried her kicking and screaming body across the park to their trailer. What was up with her lately? If she didn’t pull it together, I’d make sure my dad was always supported. Especially in his sobriety.

“You gotta ditch Nate, man. He’s holding you back.”

I turned into Maddox for a second. My first instinct was to knock Clark out and call his girlfriend a bitch.

“That guy’s gonna end up dead like his dad,” Clark laughed.

The bottle of rum was made of plastic, but I still wanted to bash it over his head. No one talked shit about Nate without me doing something about it, so when Clark opened his mouth again, laughing like he was some fucking comedian, my fist balled.

“Or beat half to death like his brother.”

I dropped the rum and wound up for a punch, but Maddox came out of nowhere and did it first, stealing my thunder. Clark’s nose busted and spurted blood, and he fell right out of his chair to the muddy ground.

“Hold my beer,” Trisha the skank said, standing up.

“Fuck you, bitch.” At least I got to do that part. When Clark sat up, cupping his face, my knuckles ended up hitting his eye socket and he went back down. “Talk shit about Nate or Devon again! Try it!” I hadn’t seethed this badly in forever. I wanted him to open his mouth so I could completely unleash on him. I had a lot of frustrations to take out. Maddox stood to my side, radiating something as sinister as I was. I had a few triggers: someone shit-talking Nate, someone shit-talking my brother, and someone asking me when I was gonna get my shit-talking self figured out.

Clark stayed down, but Trisha didn’t shut her mouth. “Fucking Kane brothers,” she scoffed. “Think you’re hot shit even though you’re both stuck with Sawyers. You bring this town down with your filth.”

Iwantedto hit a girl. Considered it. Felt Maddox put his hand on my wrist to keep it steady. Thought about Karen instead. If I got myself arrested for hitting a skanky meth head, I wouldn’t be able to run to the grocery store for the list she gave me.

“Your tit is literally hanging out the side of your tank top, Trisha. Not sure you got a whole lot of ground to stand on.” I glared at her, honestly just glad I never turned out like them. I was a mess, but at least I wasn’t a meth headed mess with no standards. I glared at both of them, daring them to talk badly about Nate one more time.

Maddox tugged on my wrist, tilting his head to tell me to walk away. So I walked down the beach with him, still gripping the plastic bottle of rum.

“Why the fuck everybody gotta be all up in my business about Nate and relationships?” I vented. “What makes them better than us?”

“The delusions in their heads,” Maddox said, shaking out his fist. “Cool off, Xav. Don’t let people like that get to you. Not even Mom.”

He was one to talk, but I appreciated it anyway.

“So, how’d it go?” He changed the topic.

“What?”

“The blowie. Devon said Nate’s been going on about it.”

My anger dissolved, and a bubbly sense of energy took over instead. Wow, my switch flipped fast.Way to change the subject, Madd.He hated sex chats, so I wasn’t going to waste the chance to spew my thoughts.

“Going on about it, how? In a good way? Like, a ‘Xavi knows how to control a blowie’ type way? Or you mean he’s talking about the night I sucked him off? Seriously, Madd. I don’t know what you were going on about way back when with the dick tripping chat. This shit is easier than you two made it look. I can be gay in my sleep. Am gay in most of my dreams these days.”

---