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“That’s not fair,” he says, following behind me despite my attempt to make it clear I have no interest in talking to him.
“Not fair?” I growl.
“We were friends,” he says, his tone sad.
I angle my head to the side. Is this guy for real right now?
“We were,” I agree. “I’d even go so far as to say that we were best friends. That is until you realized I wasn’t going to fuck you and then all of a sudden I wasn’t worth your time.”
He clamps his mouth closed.
“I just wanted to check on you,” he says rather than arguing what I know to be the truth. “There was talk about some scary tattooed man leaving your dorm last night.”
I stare at him, wondering what his fucking motive is right now. He’s gone months without speaking to me, and now all of a sudden he pops back up?
“It was Donavan,” I confirm. “But he won’t be coming back around.”
He doesn’t perk up as if he thinks he has a chance.
He stares at me as if he’s asked a question and is waiting for an answer. I have no more to give him now than I did when he was falling over himself to please me. Maybe I abused that friendship. Maybe I took too much and didn’t offer enough in return. But at the same time, I’m never going to feel obligated, like I owe someone something because they’re nice to me, especially when they’re only being nice to get something in return. Conditional friendships don’t interest me.
“It was nice seeing you, Blaine,” I tell him before walking away.
Tears sting the backs of my eyes when I hear his sigh of relief.
Chapter 18
Donavan
I can count on one hand with five fingers left over how many times I’ve made a decision and then went back on it. I stopped living my life for others after the car crash. I had to. It was the only way I could walk away from my family. It was the only thing that kept me sane.
Shutting down all my emotions was for the very same reason. If I thought about what could’ve been happening to my little sister, I would’ve gotten myself killed trying to protect her.
I went five years without giving a shit about anything or anyone.
If my sister’s abuse from the Severino brothers and my mother’s death weren’t enough to make me step back into the light, I have no fucking clue why this snotty brat is somehow managing it without so much as opening her perfect fucking mouth.
The issue tonight is that I don’t think she’s prancing around fucking Austin, near the university, because she’s trying to force my hand. I followed her from campus, and the Uber that carried her an hour away didn’t seem to have any clue that I was behind him.
I wasn’t going to intervene, but she fucking clocked me when I was circling the block, looking for a place to park. I spent fifteen minutes looking for her after she disappeared around a corner.
My blood boils watching her stop to talk to an obviously homeless man who blocks her path. Not once has she looked over her shoulder. This isn’t a tease. She’s not trying to force me to act on her behalf. It seems she legitimately doesn’t care.
She climbed into that fucking Uber, looking like a million bucks, wearing a skirt that made me want to force the driver off the road just so I could drag her out and fuck her on the side of the highway. By the time she climbed out of the Uber, her feet were unsteady and her eyes were glassed over, making it apparent she spent the drive drinking something she must’ve had in her purse.
Her laughter catches up with me on the wind, and I hate the way the homeless man notices the sleek column of her throat when she tilts her head back. He’s got a hungry look to him that speaks of needs more on a carnal spectrum than one having anything to do with his empty stomach.
“Watch it,” someone slurs when I bump into them as she starts walking again. They shut up quickly when I turn my head and glare at them.
For good measure, I punch the guy who’s still staring at her as I pass by him. He’s lucky that’s all he gets, but as I continue to shove my way through the crowd of people, I haven’t completely ruled out the idea of finding him later and gutting the motherfucker.
Austin isn’t exactly familiar to me, but I’ve been down here a couple of times. Alessio brought Marcello and me down here before we were even out of high school. I spent a lot of my time disappearing into the crowds, and purposely getting separated from the Severino brothers so I could call Maya. It was pretty bad then, but it’s even worse now. Before, there were crowds of drunk college students. Now, the street is overrun with the homeless begging for cigarettes and lost souls looking for trouble.
