Chapter Six
There is an inherent problem with lying about your location. You either have to invite everyone around you into the secret or you look like a psycho. Given that I didn’t want to admit to everyone I knew that I was supposed to be sweating with a nail gun in the backwater, I was just coming off as a raging bitch.
So not only was I not giving of my time freely to help others, I was being nasty to my friends.
Yay, Jessica.
“Don’t check in!” I snapped at Robin as we settled down into our lounge chairs at the water park.
“Why the hell not? Maybe someone can meet us here.”
“I don’t feel like dealing with people today.” I slapped sunscreen on my arms and tried to think of a better reason, but my brain wasn’t firing at full capacity after my stupid, ridiculous night of crap sleep, where Riley buzzed me in an erotic biblically inspired flyby. Effing disturbing. It was like I’d fallen into a B horror movie. I had half expected to wake up and find WHORE OF BABYLON scratched into my skin with a needle.
“Are you hungover? Because you’re acting like a whole lot of biotch.”
I sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m exhausted. I think I’m getting a cold.” Lie. Yet another lie on top of the already existing lie. Robin was my friend, and frankly I didn’t have that many tight friends. With Rory and Kylie gone for the summer, I was going to be lonely if I didn’t treat Robin just a little bit better.
As Robin tied up her dark hair into a bun and readjusted her sunglasses, I squirted more sunscreen on my knees. “Okay, the truth is I totally lied to my parents about staying here this summer. They think I’m building houses with a mission group in West Virginia.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you shitting me?”
“No. Unfortunately. I just couldn’t go home, but I didn’t really think about how hard it is to hide your whereabouts with social media. My parents aren’t exactly checking my profile page, but my brother does. I tried blocking him, but he told my mother and she made me re-friend him.”
“You tried to block your brother?” Robin looked amused by the very thought. “I should have thought of that. My brothers like to post pictures of obese hairy men on my page and tell me that’s what I’m going to look like at forty.” She studied her arms ruefully. “It’s the Latin genes. I spend half my life waxing hair off my body.”
Relieved that she didn’t seem horrified by me, I said, “So you won’t tell? And you don’t think I’m an evil human being?”
She shrugged. “No. I mean, who hasn’t wanted to avoid their parents at one point or another? And I was raised in a huge Latino Catholic family, and everyone is always up in your business. It must be nice to turn that off for a few weeks. I’m kinda jealous of you.”
“I guess everyone has their family drama.” I adjusted the yellow bikini top I was wearing, slipping the straps off so I wouldn’t get weird tan lines and tucking them into the cups.
“Yep. My grandmother is furious that I got a D in Spanish. She doesn’t seem to get that listening to her speak it and being able to understand it for the most part is totally different than writing it grammatically correct. I actually feel like I have a disadvantage because I had all this quasi-background info. But to her, it means I’m spitting on my heritage.” She sipped her water bottle. “It gives me a headache.”
“That does suck.” We were at the edge of the wave pool, and a million kids were tearing by, moms hollering at them to slow down. I picked up my fashion magazine and flipped idly through it, trying to find an article that grabbed my attention.
“Hotties, eleven o’clock,” Robin murmured.
I glanced up. I saw a lot of hair gel and mirrored sunglasses. There were three of them and they were checking us out. It was hard to distinguish one from the other with their bulky muscles and giant floral swim trunks. “I’ll let you take this,” I told Robin. “I’m not in the mood.”
“You’re not in the mood to flirt?” She sounded scandalized.
I had to admit, it was a rare occurrence that I didn’t want to meet new people. I liked hanging out, moving through a crowd, demanding that I be entertained. But today I just wanted to hide behind my sunglasses and scowl. “No. I’m not. Hey, when can you get me the typography piece?”
“Tomorrow. It will only take me an hour, then it has to dry for another hour or two.”
“Cool. Thanks.”
“Sure. Oh, here they come.” Robin sat up a little straighter, her red bandeau bikini top standing at attention.
“Hey, wassup?” Douche #1 said.
“Ladies,” Douche #2 said.
“This chair taken?” from Douche #3.
Yeah, so not in the mood. Which is why when Douche #1 said, “Want a beer?” I nodded.
So I was risking getting busted for open container. This was the only way I was going to get through the day without being consumed by thoughts of Riley Mann, the swarming bastard. I had a terrible feeling that for the first time in well, ever, I was suffering from the insanity of an unrequited crush. It sucked. Hard.
Fortunately the Douche Trio was smart enough to have their beer disguised in travel mugs. While Douche #2 assured me they were twenty-one, they didn’t want to get kicked out.
“I’m not even twenty-one,” I told him. “So you’re really flirting with danger here.”
“Is that your name?” he asked with a wink. “Danger?”
Oh, God. “Yes. Jessica Danger.” Hell, it kind of suited me. Much more appropriate than Jessica Sweet. We all knew that was an ironic name for me.
Six hours and I’m not sure how many beers later, I let him give me a groping, wet-tongued kiss in the parking lot and I hated myself for it. But I was tired, drunk, confused by my own feelings toward Riley, and it seemed easier to just allow it than to work up a protest. But I did shove him off when he got too enthusiastic.
I felt nothing. I looked at him and I felt absolutely nothing. No attraction. No memory of what his name was or a single word he had spoken to me throughout the day.
“Can I get your digits?” he asked, holding his phone out for me.
“No,” I said shortly, climbing into Robin’s car and slamming the door shut. I locked it and shut my eyes, hot tears behind my lids. What was I doing? And I didn’t cry. I never cried.
He knocked on the window, looking pissed, but I ignored him and he wandered away, probably calculating how many beers he had wasted on a girl who wasn’t going to blow him. My heart wasn’t exactly bleeding for him. I had given zero encouragement and half-assed conversation all day.
Robin got in a second later and threw her beach bag in the backseat. I was wearing denim shorts over my bikini bottoms, but Robin hadn’t even bothered with that. When she turned the car on and the AC cranked on, she flicked it off with a shiver. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You seem totally upset.”
I sniffled, annoyed. God, crying stung my eyes. How did chicks do this all the time? “I’m hungry,” I told her. “Can we go to the gas station? I want a candy bar.”
“Sure.”
Too much sun. Too much beer. Too much time with douchey guys that I wasn’t interested in while I snuck glances on my phone of the picture of the guy I
“You didn’t actually like that guy, did you?” Robin asked, startled, pulling out of the water park. “I thought you just drank too much beer.”
“I did. By the way, should you be driving?”
“I only had two beers and the last one was like three hours ago. You dusted me with the drinking.”
“Oh, okay. And no, I did not actually like that guy. I don’t even remember his name. I’m not sure I ever heard him when he told me, that is how little I gave a crap.”
“I think it was Rico.”
I snorted.
“Then who do you like if it isn’t Rico?”
If I hadn’t been buzzed, I never would have admitted it. But I was, so I said glumly, “Riley.”
Robin made a choking sound of horror. “Oh, shit. That’s probably not good.”
