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I panic. “My aunt’s here early. You have to go.” Then, yelling loud enough for her to hear, “It’s me. I’m sorry. I’ll clean it up in a minute.” I turn back to him. “Come on, you can sneak out my bedroom window. It used to be Kendrick’s room. He did it all the time.”
Haze is as overwhelmed as I am, but he doesn’t budge. He throws his wet shirt back on and follows me. I unlock the window with a shaky hand and open it.
Our eyes meet. We’re thinking the same thing. Should we say something? Probably. But we don’t have time.
“Go.” I whisper.
Then, without a word, he exits through my window, hustles down the vines growing on the side of the house, and disappears into the pitch-black night.
Seconds later, Maria comes up the stairs, complaining about the trail of water Haze and I left all the way from the kitchen to the second floor. I apologize and tell her that someone pushed me in the pool, which technically isn’t false.
I refrain from telling her that it wasn’t at the party but in a public pool that the town’s bad boy and I broke into. I don’t think she’d like that part very much.
She says to clean it up and hugs me good night, exhausted from her day at work. I sit on my bed, my skin burning where Haze’s fingers used to be.
I almost kissed him. I almost kissed my cousin’s worst enemy. He’s the one who made the deal. He is the reason Kendrick is hurt. I should be crippled with guilt. I should feel awful. I stare at the window that Haze just escaped out of, and I hate myself.
Because I don’t hate myself at all.
E L E V E N
The New Girlfriend
“Guys, I’m begging you, just drop it. It’s not too late to turn around.” I shift in the back seat, staring out the window at a neighborhood I’ve never been to before. None of the boys reply, bumping their heads along to the music playing on the radio.
“Fine, ignore me. But when Kendrick finds out and kills all of you, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I put my hands up in surrender, gently pressing my forehead to the tinted glass.
“He told us to do whatever it took to fix it. That’s what we did. We fixed it. He’ll give us his blessing. You’ll see.” Will says, his eyes locked on the road.
“We’re talking about hiring Kendrick’s ex-girlfriend, which was a very messy breakup, may I rem
ind you, to play his new girlfriend in front of his mother. The only thing I see him giving you is a broken nose.”
“Well, he’s going to have to deal with it because the dinner’s tonight and Nicole’s the only girl who said yes,” Will retorts. He claps like an overexcited child to spite me. “Look, we’re here.”
I glance out the window. He’s right. We’re in front of her house already. We got this far—might as well get it over with.
Alex furrows his eyebrows. “Remind me why they broke up again?”
“Don’t know.” Blake frowns. “Will?”
Will snickers. “No idea. Kendrick’s not exactly big on talking about his feelings.”
Then, as if they can read each other’s minds, they turn their heads concurrently and gaze in my direction.
“Don’t look at me. I don’t know any more than you do.”
“Yeah, right. Spit it out,” Will says.
Will might be a complete jerk sometimes, but he’s right about one thing. Kendrick rarely talks about his feelings. Everything I know I heard from Kass after she bugged him for days.
I give in. “He wouldn’t tell her about the fights. She dumped him because she felt he was hiding things from her.”
Alex nods. “Dating her wasn’t a walk in the park either. Last I heard she was needy, controlling, and a bit crazy.”
Will makes a face. “Aren’t all girls?”
I roll my eyes so hard I see my brain.
