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BILLIE
Where Were You - girlfriends, Travis Barker
Lik releases a loud laugh as Xi’s face falls. We all explode into giggles, following Lik.
“Do you want to fucking die?” Xi snaps as he gets up from his seat. We’re having dinner all together, and Lik just ate the last Moroccan meatball on Xi’s plate while he was in the bathroom. The one Xi said looked the best and that he was saving for the end.
“Ziad,” their mom snaps. “Sit back down. Dinner isn’t over.”
“I’m not leaving the table,Mama. I’m killing your son.”
Our laughs double as Xi tries to grab Lik, and he gets up to go hide behind Aisha.
“Mama, save me,” Lik cries out.
Xi grabs him by the back of the neck and shoves him against the wall. Sam lifts an eyebrow silently, not enjoying his boyfriend being manhandled but unable to get in the middle of a sibling fight.
“You fucked up. Mom can’t save you now.”
“It wasn’t me!” Lik screams. “WAllah, I don’t know what happened. You left, and it just disappeared off your plate.” Emma is crying from laughter as Lik blurts out his lie.
“Malik!” Aisha snaps loudly. “Don’t lie swearing on Allah,ya h’mar,” she calls him a donkey like always. She gets up, taking her time, and grabs both her sons by the ears, dragging them back to the table. One by one, she sits them back down. They don’t do anything to defend themselves. They would never.
As soon as they’re all at the table and settled back down, Xi can’t do much more than stare daggers at his brother. I grab my plate and scoot my meatball onto his.
“Here, have mine. I’m not hungry anymore.”
Stabbing into it with his knife and fork, he keeps staring. “Learn,” he tells Lik. “That’s what love looks like.”
Because I’m sitting on his left, he easily leans over and drops a kiss to the side of my head. It’s a friendly kiss, I know it. A normal peck step-siblings would have. Since I told Xi I didn’t reciprocate his feelings for me, he’s been respecting our platonic relationship—the one we should have had all along.
After dinner, I run to my room to grab my phone and send a quick message to Caden.
Billie: I miss you tonight.
He’s hanging out with his friends tonight, which I’m not used to. He always chooses me over anyone else. I’m trying to be okay with the fact that sometimes he’ll be with his friends, and that said friends hate me because I’m NSC.
And because I gave Jade a pathway of tears. I guess that really didn’t help.
He doesn’t reply, and I’m about to put my phone to the side when it rings. An unknown number appears on the screen, and my hand comes to my chain, playing with it as I pick up.
“Hello?”
“This is Sawyer.”
I sit up in my bed and look around my room as if he’s hiding somewhere in here. Whenever this man talks to me, I feel uneasy.
“What do you want?”
“We need you to do a move for us tonight.”
My hand grabs my comforter, twisting it until it’s cutting off the flow in my fingers. “I don’t do moves for you anymore. Caden knows.”
“Well, you’re back at it, sweetheart. Caden’s order.”
“He didn’t say anything to me.”
“He’s busy tonight. He can’t always be on your case. He needs to do things he cares about sometimes. Or dopeoplehe cares about,” he adds with a mocking snort.
