I roll my eyes. Come on, man. Get with the program.
Me: Shit with Sarah. I need a lift to Roman’s.
Aaron: Fine. I’ll drop everything I’m doing and be right over.
I grin. Fucker thinks he’s funny.
Me: Sounds good, friend.
I shove my phone in my back pocket and cut across the lawn, grateful for once that he lives next door. If I wait on the porch for Aaron to show up, Sarah will just follow me and do the whole begging then yelling then begging again thing, so I make my way to the back gate and take a seat on one of the patio chairs.
Aaron’s place is nice. He lives in one of those cookie-cutter gated communities where all the houses look the same and they have to deal with HOAs that tell you exactly how long your grass is allowed to be. His parents do well enough if memory serves. He went to private school for a while before he started kicking it with us. Then he convinced his parents to let him go to Sun Valley High so he could be with his friends.
That blew up in his face. Well, sort of. I guess it's working out now, what with Allie around. Henderson and Roman made some sort of deal I don’t have all the details on. All I know is that he helped Roman win Allie back and Roman decided to drop the beef between them. Personally, I’m not that forgiving. He fucked up and we all got hurt because of it.
We might tolerate him these days, but I sure as shit don’t trust him.
My phone dings and I glance down at the screen.
Aaron: Where you at?
Me: Backyard.
A few seconds later the back door opens, and Aaron walks outside. He’s wearing his usual emo shit. Black pants. Black shirt. Black beanie pulled low over his blond hair. He looks like Justin Bieber had a baby with Machine Gun Kelley. No wonder the dude is still single. “You could use a little more color in your life,” I tell him.
He frowns. “Are you on something?”
“Nope. That’s your MO. Not mine,” I say with a grin.
His scowl darkens.
“Really, man. You wanna go there right now?”
I shrug. Why not? I’m already having a shitty day. But Aaron decides to flip shit around. Smooth fucker.
“What happened to smoothing shit over with Sarah?” he asks, taking a seat in one of the chairs beside me.
“Decided the pussy wasn’t worth the effort. She’s getting too attached.”
He snorts. “You’ve been staying the night at her place almost every night for the last month. What did you expect?”
“You’ve been tracking me?” I ask, remembering he’s hooked up with her, too. “Jealous it was me in her bed instead of you?”
He snorts. “Hardly. I try not to repeat my mistakes. And no, fucker, I’m not tracking you. But you’re not hard in the mornings when you do the walk of shame to your car early enough to get your sister to school.”
I shrug, not meeting his eyes. I don’t like that he knows how often I’ve been here. Aaron’s not an idiot, and he demonstrates that even more with his next question.
“What’s really going on, Emilio? Why don’t you wanna be home?”
I jerk my gaze to his. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” It comes out angrier than I intended, but fuck, he’s got no right prying into my business.
“It means, I’m not stupid. I know you have issues with your dad. Why haven’t you said anything to Roman or Dominique?” Because Roman’s got Allie now. I’m not about to crash in on their happy little life. And Dom… I shake my head. Dom’s got his own problems. Neither one of them needs to worry about mine.
“It’s not a big deal.” I push to my feet.
“Stop fronting. What’s going on?”
“Drop it,” I snarl.
