The Love Story (The Things We Can't Change Book 4) (8 page)

He must be even drunker than he appears, because he actually has the nerve to poke me next. I have the sudden vision of breaking my tray over his fat head and it helps me stay calm.

“You don’t fucking scare me,” he slurs. “In fact, I could take you on, pretty boy.”

I can’t hold back an eye roll. “Pretty boy? Isn’t that my line?”

“Come on.” Josh actually manages a few shuffles as though he’s gearing up for a fight, but the drink in his hand ruins the seriousness of it. “Come on, Quain. Don’t they teach you rapists and women beaters how to fight in juvie?”

In an instant, my blood boils over and the glasses on my tray are rattling. It tests every shred of my self-control to hold steady and not jump him right then and there.

“You watch your fucking mouth, asswipe,” I say quietly. “And don’t talk shit when you don’t know the whole story.”

He gets into my face, eyes bloodshot but steady on my own. “You stole my best friend’s girl and almost got him killed. I’ll be waiting for you, Quain. Just wait for it.”

He waits just a moment longer, trying to prove a point, before finally backing down and stepping away. I watch him go, my chest heaving quietly, the stupid tray still clutched in my shaking hands.

A hand settles on my shoulder and I almost jump, then Alex’s voice says, “I’m proud of you, Zeke. I know that wasn’t easy.”

“Yeah, whatever.” I jerk away from his hold and head back to the kitchens, visions of pounding Josh to a pulp dominating my mind.

When he said he would be “waiting for me,” I’d thought Josh was talking abstractly. That they’d cook up a nasty new rumor to pass around or maybe try to get at Evie to get back at me. I thought he meant it figuratively.

What I hadn’t expected was to be leaving the club that very night at two AM with Dominic and a few other employees and catch movement out of the corner of my eye. And then my right cheek explodes in pain.

For just one moment, the world tilts sideways and chaos reigns. Dominic and the guys with us are shouting and the lone girl screams and I double over in pain. I almost fall down in shock before the world seems to right itself and I come back into myself. I straighten, one hand over my cheek, and meet Josh’s crazy eyes.

“The
fuck
?” I growl, my face hurting like a bitch. He caught me directly on the upper cheekbone. My hand comes away with a smear of blood, albeit a small one. The asshole actually broke skin.

“Come on, Quain!” Josh shouts, fists up, no drink this time and also a little more limber on his feet. That’s when I remember he’s on the wrestling team.

It doesn’t matter. I have three inches on him, I’m sober and I’m pissed. And he hit me first.

Before I even take a single step toward him, the club employees have made a circle around us, with a few of the cooks and other servers that heard the commotion. They’re all jeering and Dominic is yelling that he’s got my back and I advance on Josh.

He goes left but it’s a feint and I walk right into a right hook to the belly. I take it in stride because with such slow, drunken reflexes, Josh leaves himself open and unguarded. I put all my rage and force into my right arm and plow a fist into Josh’s left eye.

Bone connects with bone and Josh howls in pain, backing off immediately. I follow him, going at him with both fists. He’s doubled over, clutching his face and defenseless, but I still give him a good belly and rib pounding.

No one pulls me away. This isn’t that type of crowd. Most of us have rough edges and backgrounds. Besides, he’s a club member. This is practically a daily dream turned into reality.

I don’t stop until Josh trips over the curb and falls onto his ass, moaning and cussing. The crowd cheers as I back up a step at last.

“I’m gonna sue your ass!” Josh screams from the ground. “You’ll regret this!”

I stand over him, breathing heavily and sneering at him. “Really? Because you hit me first. I’ve got ten witnesses. In fact, if I ask, they never saw me lay a hand on you. Isn’t that right, guys?”

Everyone is laughing now and murmuring, “Nope! Didn’t see a thing, did you?”

Dominic claps a hand on my shoulder. “Come on, Zeke. Poor bastard must have been hit by a car or something.”

The crowd laughs harder and disperses slowly, all of us leaving Josh in a heap on the ground.

Dominic and I get into his car and rehash the fight, talking loud and chaotically from our adrenaline high. We even stop at the bridge and smoke a cigarette as a final fuck-you to Cameron’s memory, just because it seems like a good idea. At last, he drops me off at Alex’s apartment.

I walk inside quietly. Alex’s bedroom door is closed and no light is coming out from underneath. I also don’t want him to come out and discover me reeking of smoke. I open the fridge to grab something to drink and an envelope on the kitchen table catches my eye as the fridge light illuminates the small room.

Plain white, printed label on the front with my name on it.

A strange, fluttery feeling goes through me at the sight of it, my fingertips going numb. I already know what will be inside, for the most part. But it still makes me feel strange, prickly. And slammed with guilt.

Propping the door of the fridge open with my foot for light, I reach out and take the envelope. Single sheet of paper, big capital letters, just like before.

MAYBE YOU SHOULD TELL EVIE THE TRUTH ABOUT THAT NIGHT BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE DOES FIRST.

Evangeline

91

I get a call early on Monday morning from Koby telling me about the fight at the club and stomp on the gas pedal as soon as I hang up. I curse myself three times for oversleeping this morning, of all mornings, and even Zeke for not telling me. Surely I would have heard by now if something truly bad had happened to him, if he was really hurt? Wouldn’t he have called me, or told someone to?

If he didn’t call, it means you need to show him better how much you care,
I scold myself as I pull haphazardly into a parking spot at school.
What if he thought you didn’t care? Try harder!

I throw myself out of the car and practically sprint across the lot and up the first few steps of the school. I come to a hard stop when I see Zeke is already here, leaning against the brick wall of the school. He looks just as he did all last year; baggy clothes, hard face, completely untouchable and scary. He’s even smoking, which I’d thought he’d quit for good. The only difference is the cut on his cheek and the slight pinkish swelling around it.

For just a flash of a second, for one small, horrible moment, he feels like a stranger to me. Then I tell myself firmly that clothes and cigarettes and facial expressions don’t change a person overnight. They don’t change a person at all. It’s what’s on the inside that counts, and that’s where Zeke and I are alike, where we understand each other. That hasn’t changed.

I hope. Desperately.

Forcing myself to walk up and stand in front of him, I wait until he meets my eyes.

“Are you all right?” I ask, unable to keep the worry from my question. “I wish you’d called me. I just heard about it from Koby this morning. He said he thought I’d know already.”

Zeke exhales a long stream of smoke straight up into the air before looking at me again, his beautiful eyes hidden by his heavy lids. “Call you so that you could freak out and hover over me?” he asks, sounding bitingly sarcastic. “Thanks but no thanks.”

I take a step back before I can help it, stung. “You don’t have to make it sound so horrible,” I mutter, cowed by his attitude. Then I say more loudly, “I thought you’d quit smoking.”

“I don’t recall ever saying that I actually quit,” Zeke points out, and I’m even more put off balance because I can’t recall him ever actually saying it. He just… stopped at some point over the summer. I’d thought he realized he didn’t need to hide anymore, didn’t need that old image of himself and all that went with it. But he’s right. He never said he was
quitting
, not in so many words.

“Well…” I say awkwardly, wondering what the hell is going on.

Where is our easy camaraderie? The silent understanding and mind reading that we’ve always shared?
Where the hell is it?
I get the sudden, horrible thought that maybe this is it. Maybe I’m really, actually, truly losing Zeke here. Maybe he just doesn’t want to be around me anymore. Maybe the whole thing—our magic, the way we helped each other, the way we
loved
each other—is gone now. The thought sends me into a panic.

“Okay,” I say quickly. “Okay. Well, I guess… I guess you can do what you want. I just wanted to make sure you were all right. I-”

“Shit, Evie, I’m
fine
!” Zeke explodes suddenly. He comes away from the wall in a quick movement, standing before me with his arms crossed over his broad chest. There’s a hard look on his face that had never been directed at me before and I’m quaking all of the sudden.

“I’m fine and you can lay off, all right?” he continues, his voice just as hard as his eyes, which are now wide open in annoyance. “I can smoke if I fucking want to and you can’t say shit to me about it, okay?”

I stare at him openmouthed for a long minute and then, cowardly and pathetic as I am, my eyes fill with tears. I know Zeke sees, because his expression turns exasperated almost instantly. I don’t want his version of comforting, which in this current mood will probably end up being just as nasty and condescending as this conversation.

Part of me is railing to talk back to Zeke, to tell him not to treat me like this, but the other, stronger part is saying that if I want to keep even the small bit of Zeke that I have right now, I need to do exactly as he says.

“Okay,” I say, my voice thick with tears.

I spin on my heel and walk as quickly as I can through the doors into school. People press in on me from all directions and for the first time in a while, I feel panic race through me whenever someone accidentally brushes or touches me.

“Evie! Hey, Evie, wait a sec!”

I can hear Zeke’s voice behind me and it only makes me walk faster, telling myself furiously that I need to knock it off and stop being so dramatic. I fight through the crowd, wishing my locker wasn’t so far away from the front doors and that Zeke wasn’t so tall that he could probably see me over everyone’s heads.

Tiffany’s face suddenly appears in my vision, a fake, cooing sympathetic smile on her lips. “Awe, look, it’s the crybaby!”

I have to stop or I’ll run right into her and she’s backed up by the usual gang. Chantal and Grace are just behind her with Josh and Aaron. Josh is sporting a black eye and looks in much worse shape than Zeke does. My shoes squeak on the polished floors as I come to a hard stop, but before anyone can say another word on either side, a big hand grasps my bicep. I don’t panic because I know exactly who it is.

“Is there a fucking problem here?” Zeke asks, the hard glint back in his eyes as he faces down all five of them. “Because if there is, we can handle it the way we did on Saturday. I’ve got no problem picking up where we left off.”

They all stare at him in silence for a moment and then, unbelievably, they turn as one and leave us alone. I’m so shocked that I don’t start walking until Zeke gives me a little prod. Then all my prior problems come rushing back and I begin to walk away from him again. I want to give him space, and moreover,
I
want space from
him
.

“Evie, come on, wait up!” he calls after me, giving chase once more.

His words echo over and over in my mind and I find myself battling tears once more, though I keep my head well down this time and make it to my locker unscathed. I’d hoped he would give up and just go about his own day, but a moment later Zeke is standing next to me as I spin my combination with trembling fingers.

“What the heck was that?” he asks, leaning his left shoulder against the wall of lockers.

“You sounded like you wanted some space.” My voice is actually trembling and I wish I could just die right there on the spot. I jerk my locker open instead. “I was just trying to give it to you.”

“That’s bullshit,” Zeke says, though without real anger. “Look, I’m sorry-”

A piece of paper flutters out of my locker and I catch a glimpse of familiar handwriting that makes me feel sick inside. Zeke stops talking and reaches for it but I frantically snatch it away before he can see what it says. There’s a moment of silence between us where Zeke stares at me curiously, and then his eyes narrow in suspicion.

“What is that?” he asks, nodding toward the hand with the paper.

“Nothing,” I say much too quickly, crinkling the paper in my fist. “It was nothing.”

“If you won’t let me see it, it must be something,” Zeke says, stating the obvious. “Let me see it.”

“It’s nothing,” I insist, knowing it’s useless. Zeke always has a way of worming out my secrets. This will undoubtedly be no different.

Sure enough, he reaches over and tries to take the paper from me. I pull away, resisting and evading but it lasts all of twenty seconds before he overpowers me and snatches the paper away. He flattens out the wrinkles and I dare to read it with him.