Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
“If you say so. Just save the man the emotional turmoil.” She thumbed toward the group of girls. “And the STDs.”
“Are you telling me you want him to be with Weirdo? The girl who took a shit all over his heart like some cheap litter box!” Hendrix scratched his feet over the floor. “Just like that.” Hendrix grabbed my shoulders and shoved me forward. “Go forth and spread your stumpy seed. Earn those pimp stripes back, you Quasimodo-fuck!”
Stopping Hendrix when he was on one of his rants was as likely as stopping a metric ton of shit from rolling down a hill. “Yeah. Okay.” I turned toward the kitchen. “But you know I’m not into blondes.” My gaze drifted to Lola. “No offense,” I said, then headed through the kitchen onto the back porch.
People crowded the small space. I couldn’t handle one more person asking me why I wasn’t at the game—everyone from around here knew I played for State, knew I shouldn’t be here on a game day.
I grabbed a beer from one of the coolers strewn around the porch, then made my way down the steps, toward the rickety old trampoline.
The rusted springs underneath the faded protective padding groaned when I hopped my ass onto them. From there, I could see the party. People I had gone to school with, drinking and laughing. All of them stuck in Dayton and not seeming to mind. Like they’d accepted their fate and settled with it. Zepp had. Hendrix had. Tipping my drink back, I wondered how the hell I’d manage if I ended up back here in this shithole, living, if I was lucky enough, paycheck to paycheck.
Another sip, and I lay back on the still-warm-from-the-long-gone-Alabama-sun trampoline, staring up at the night sky through the thicket of pine trees overhead. Peace. My dad said all a man needed in his life was peace, and it was easy enough to think about the peace money could bring. Get a degree. Get drafted and…peace. But some part of me was starting to think that maybe there was more to that serenity than cash.
“Money can’t buy happiness, but poverty can’t buy anything.”
A burst of laughter drifted from the party, and I turned my head in the direction of the porch. No one here had a pot to piss in, and yet, when I looked at them crowded together, swaying in beat with the music and smiling…they seemed happy.
I had been happy here. Happiest with Jade. That thought snuck in without permission, and damn if it didn’t make my drunk mind wander. If I got myself straightened out and got drafted, what were the possibilities? A house in The Hills, a Lamborghini parked up front. First class to Tahiti, Paris—places I’d never heard of… Money could buy all of that pre-packaged, forced-down-your-throat happiness. Until last week, I’d believed that would be enough to make me happy. Now, the only person I saw in that house, those cars, the airplane seat beside me, was Jade. Take her out of the equation, and well—another swig of beer—it didn’t seem so damn happy. Just lonely. Like I was right then. Like, if I were being honest, I had been since I’d lost her. I thought about Jade, sitting alone in her room after her parents had gone to bed. I wondered how her dad was.
She’d never blocked me, hadn’t cut me out, which made me feel like less of a pussy when I took my phone and shot off a text, asking her what she was doing.
Watching the news
Why the fuck are you watching the news?
Dad still refuses to pay for cable. It’s this or Married With Children.
For as long as I could remember, Jade’s house only had five channels on the TV. My dad wasn’t rich, but we’d even had cable.
I typed out How’s your dad, deleted it, typed it out again, then made myself press send.
He’s okay. How is the party?
Okay never meant okay. I knew that, but I took the hint. She didn’t want to talk about it.
Boring as fuck.
Hendrix hasn’t serenaded you and forever ruined a childhood song yet?
Thankfully, no.
Tell him I said he’s losing his touch.
I stared at that thread, ignoring the party on the porch and warring with myself long enough to finish my beer. We’d both avoided each other for the past few days, which was probably why the ride to Dayton felt tense. We’d driven most of the way in silence, every once in a while Jade commenting on my “crap taste” in music. The more I’d thought about it, the more guilty I felt for stopping her the other night. Not because I shouldn’t have, but because I knew her well enough to know I’d hurt her feelings. I figured she’d taken it as some kind of rejection. That whole drive, I’d tried to find some way to bring it up but failed.