“What the hell was that, Tatum? Are you just trying to make sure I never ask you to come to one of these things with me again?”
“What… now you’re talking to me? Now that there’s no one around to see you doing it?”
He stares at me with a look of disbelief and gives me a sad smile. “You know what I hear from people just about every day of my life? Tatum Austin… that girl is smoking hot but damn is she a handful. You’re about the only one who can handle her, Carter. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard those exact words. And they’re right. You are hot. And you are a damn handful and most of the time I don’t mind. Most of the time you’re worth the headaches. But I’m starting to wonder if I can handle you. If you even want me to keep trying to handle your ass.”
“I’m a grown woman, Nash. I don’t need anyone to handle me.”
“Maybe that’s my mistake. Thinking you need someone. Entertaining the idea that you have it in you to care about someone enough to want them to stay by your side. Sometimes I wonder if what you really want is to just be left alone by everyone. Including me.”
“I’m not gonna beg you to stay here with me.”
“I don’t want you to beg me. All I want to hear is that you give a shit. That you even want me here with you. I’ve always thought that what the two of us have is different from what you had with all those other people that I’ve watched you push out of your life. I never thought I’d be one of them… but maybe I’m wrong. I need you to tell me I’m not wrong.”
“You’re not wrong, Nash. You know you’re all I have outside of my family.”
“Can you at least act like you care then? Is that too much to ask?”
“What the hell did I do to you?”
“When you’re on a date with me maybe you can have enough respect for both of us to not let Reggie grope you in front of a room full of people? And, if you don’t want to be part of all this football shit, that’s fine, but can you at least make an effort to act human around Brandon?”
“I didn’t realize you and Brandon are so damn sensitive,” I mutter.
“Not everyone has a heart of stone like you.”
“I don’t have a heart of stone, asshole. It’s just thick from all the scar tissue.”
“So… what? You’re gonna make sure everyone gets hurt just as bad as you have? ‘Cause I hate to break it to you, Austin, you’re not the only one in this town whose been dealt a shitty hand.”
“Maybe you should be little more cynical.”
“Maybe I’m trying damn hard not to be.”
I let out the breath I’ve been holding in my gut and rest my head against the seat. Despite all the shit I pull with Nash, rarely do I manage to piss him off. In fact, sometimes I wonder if it’s even possible. Clearly, it is. I’ve never heard him contemplate leaving me. Walking out of my life. It’s a scary thought. “I really managed to fuck this night up for everyone, huh?”
“I don’t know. I think Reggie had a pretty good time,” he says, laughing.
The corner of my mouth lifts at that. “I take offense to you having a problem with me flirting with another guy. You don’t even know how to talk to a girl without sending her every signal in the book.”
“But I managed to lock down all my God given charm tonight didn’t I? Because I was on a date with you.”
“I really couldn’t say, Nash. I was trying damn hard to ignore you. I’m sure you had Summer flustered more than once.”
“Didn’t even check her out. Was she wearing one of those sweet little sundresses?”
“Yeah. A pink one.”
“I’d say it was more purple than pink.”
I slap him on the arm without bothering to open my eyes. “So is our date over or are you still gonna bring me to the river?”
“Yeah, I’ll take you. I’ll even drive your ass- seems like you could use a couple drinks.”
“Well ain’t you just a gentleman,” I tell him, opening my eyes a rolling my body on top of his. I run my fingers through his hair and down his neck, a feeling of appreciation and longing that I don’t often feel flowing through me. I lean down and take his lips in mine. Nash and I have been screwing around for so many years that we rarely just kiss for the sake of kissing anymore. But right now I want to savor him. Right now I want to feel his lips connecting to mine and relish his tongue as it drags across mine like he’s living for this kiss just like I am. Eventually I pull out of his moth and enjoy the drunken look on his face.
“They’re all right, Tatum,” he tells me with a lazy smile. “You are such a pain in the ass, but totally worth it.”
9
By the time we pull down the dirt road that runs along the river, the alcohol that I’ve been pouring down my throat has me forgetting about all the banquet drama. Even when I see Brandon by the fire with sweet little Summer on his lap I have no desire to rain on their little love fest. Even as the whoops and hollers break out at Nash’s arrival I don’t feel the urge to turn and run.
We make our way to the keg and I run my nails up his shirt and my tongue along his ear as he fills up our cups. When he hands me mine he smiles down at me and I can see the happiness in his eyes. It feels good to make him happy. “Come on,” he tells me, “let’s go play nice.”
“I’m like a big ray of sunshine,” I tell him as he leads me over to the fire and takes a seat by Brandon and Summer, pulling me down on his lap.
“You’re looking like yourself again, Austin,” Brandon tells me.
“That prissy dress and tight ponytail had me acting like a bitch. I’m sorry about that, Eastman.”
He raises his eyebrows at me. “Did you drug her?” he asks Nash.
“Something like that,” he says, dropping his head to kiss me. I latch onto him and don’t care about the spectacle we’re making even when his hand finds its way up my shirt and under my bra.
“Alright you two. We were here first. If you want to get each other naked, do it somewhere else,” Summer says through her laughter.
I push Nash’s hand out of my shirt and rest my head against his chest.
“I’m hard to resist, Summer. Seems like you would have figured that out by now,” he tells her.
“I’m the only girl in this town who doesn’t want a taste of Nash Carter, huh?”
“Summer Brooks, you have a dirty mouth on you,” I say with mild shock.
“That’s right she does,” Brandon says leaning over to kiss her. I’m totally amused by the way she kisses him back. Maybe she’s not as uptight and prissy as I thought she was.
“See what I have to put up with all the time? And might I add that it’s about a thousand times more annoying when I don’t have my girl with me.”
“Jesus, they’re sickening,” I agree.
“Oh, shut up, Nash,” Summer says, prying herself out of Brandon’s mouth. “Like we haven’t had to watch all kinds of indecency from you….” She stops abruptly and everyone is dead quiet.
I laugh at their guilty silence. “You think I don’t know what Nash does when I’m not with him?”
“That’s not what I meant…” Summer says, trying to backtrack.
“It’s fine. You don’t have to cover for him. We might be on a date, but we’re not dating. Nash can do whatever the hell he wants to do.”
“Really? I mean, it really doesn’t bother you?”
“If it did she would let me make an honest woman out of her. Don’t think I haven’t tried.”
“You’re more secure than I’ll ever be, that’s for sure,” Summer says with a coy smile. “If this guy ever even looked another way I think I’d damn near lose my mind.”
“You’re lucky,” I tell her, chancing a glance at Brandon. “You got a good one. I’ve never met anyone as good as him,” I say, trying hard not to sound condescending. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Brandon has never been anything but good.
“Should I be offended by that comment?” Nash asks.
“Unlike you, I
know exactly what I want and you know that ain’t no good boy.”
“I think I’m pretty damn sweet,” he says, pinching my side.
“You are sweet. You’re just no good.”
“I’m good for you.”
“That you are,” I agree, giving him a peck on his lips before laying back down on his chest. “This is almost nice.”
“Kind of feels like old times,” Brandon says.
“The gang is back together,” Summer says with a huge smile.
“Let’s not get carried away,” I mutter.
The night passes by effortlessly and I find myself smiling at just about everything. I even got in on the football conversations that are unavoidable in situations like these. I might not go to the games on Friday nights, but you can’t grow up in a town like Carver with Brandon and Nash as your two best friends through your entire childhood and not have a fairly firm grasp of the game.
When Summer and the rest of her friends get up to dance and Nash gets sidetracked at the keg, I find myself alone with Brandon. I’ve spent hours of my life talking to him but now with so much time between us and me trying not to be sarcastic and defensive, I don’t know what to say. We get caught in some awkward staring contest and then he cracks a smile and shakes his head. “I don’t know what to say to you anymore, Tate.”
I recoil at his easy use of the nickname that only he was allowed to call me when we were kids. We no longer have the kind of relationship where he gets to use cute little nick names for me. “No one calls me that anymore. I’m not a little kid, Brandon.”
“Hey,” he says, holding his hands up in an act of innocence. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I don’t want to fight with you anymore. It slipped out.”
“Sorry,” I tell him. “It’s fine. I mean, don’t call me that, but I forgive you. This once.”
“Thank you,” he says through his laughter. “You know, you scare me. I’m terrified that you’re gonna turn and run from me if I make a wrong move.”
“Why would that scare you? Since when do you care where I’m running to?”
He stares at me for so long, it’s uncomfortable. “I was pissed off at you for a long time,” he eventually says with a sad smile on his face. “When we were growing up, it was the two of us. I mean, Nash was always there and then after you and Summer became inseparable, she was always around too. But really, it was the two of us, wasn’t it?”
“What’s with you lately? You don’t talk to me for years and now suddenly every time I see you, you want to take a trip down memory lane.”
“You’re not answering my question, Tatum. I love Nash, he’s always been like a brother to me, but it was us. You were everything to me and I was the same thing to you.”
“Yeah. I mean, we were close when we were kids.”
“We were more than close. We had something special. You were always the one person I could be myself around. You were always the one place I could go where nothing else mattered.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at Brandon.”
“I miss it. And I was too pissed when you took it away from me to admit that to myself. I miss you. I miss us. I’m willing to admit that now.”
“I’m sorry… did you just say I took it away from you? Because, not that any of this matters anymore, but you were the one who stopped talking to me when I was no longer good enough for your new highbrow neighborhood and your rich little friends.”
He furrows his eyebrows and shakes his head at me. “Is that what happened? Is that what changed the summer before eighth grade… me?”
“That’s exactly what happened and you know what, maybe you’re right about us. You were kind of the center of my world when I was a kid. You were the one friend I was pretty damn certain I’d never lose. I mean, we both know Nash was a selfish little bastard that neither of us could count on, but you were different. You were always there for me. So you know what, Brandon, maybe I’ve been a little pissed off all these years too. Maybe part of me still resents you for walking out of my life without once turning around to see how I was doing.” I stop and laugh because this is all so surreal and a little ridiculous. Brandon and I haven’t had a real conversation for years and now we’re rehashing crap that happened before eighth grade. “It’s almost ironic, isn’t it, that Nash ended up being the one who never walked away from either of us? I’ve been let down by just about everyone in my life, but never, not once by that boy. I guess I used to be a bad judge of character.”
“How is everything going over here?” Summer asks, bounding back over to us and into Brandon’s lap.
“It’s great, Summer. How was your dance party?” I ask, aware that my bitchiness is creeping back in.
“Pretty damn fun. You should join me some time. If I recall you’ve got some pretty spectacular moves.”
“Well I was taught by the best of them. There is a long, proud legacy of strippers in my family. We get taught at a young age how to shake our tits.”
Summer lets out a shocked laugh and Brandon glares at me.
“I should probably go make sure Nash didn’t drown in the river. I’ll catch you guys later,” I tell them, standing and walking away; my buzz completely killed, my willingness to let go and have a good time lost.
I make my way into the crowd, assuming Nash is at the center of it like he always is. I’m not surprised that he’s flanked by two cheerleaders, one of them being Jolee. When he sees me he finagles his way out of their grasps and comes to me, picking me up and wrapping my legs around his hips. “Are you having fun?” I ask him.
“Always. I didn’t want to interrupt you and Brandon. Looked like you guys were actually talking.”
“I’m pretty sure that boy has lost his mind. It’s impossible to have a normal conversation with him.”
“Let me guess, he wanted to talk about his feelings?”
“Something like that.”
He laughs. “He’s been one emotional bastard lately. It’s shocking that the two of you were so close for so long. You guys are polar opposites.”
I didn’t used to thinks so, but Nash is probably right. “You ready to get out of here?”
“You want me all to yourself, huh?” he asks with a cocky grin.
“Take me home, baby,” I gladly tell him.
10
“Hey,” Angel says, coming to sit by me in last period. “You got the interview you did with Nash?”
I forgot all about that little interview I did since it was really just a side effect of the argument we were having. “Where were you yesterday?” I ask, trying to distract him. The entire Observer staff, including Mr. Lawrence, was MIA yesterday and Angel wasn’t at the library this morning.
“What? The whole school wasn’t talking about it? There wasn’t a pep-rally to get you guys all pumped up about it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“We were in Delton for the Word Master finals. We won… yay. You are looking at the captain of the two thousand and sixteen Word Master state champions.” He cups his hands over his mouth and does a pretty good imitation of a cheering crowd. I stare at him blankly. “No? Doesn’t work in this situation?”
“I don’t know what the hell a Word Master competition is, but congratulations.”
“Thanks. We actually worked our asses off for the title. Not that it means shit to anyone in this town, but Brown might care.”
“Brown, huh?”
“If all goes well and I get a scholarship.”
“That’s great, Angel.”
“Are you being mordant?”
“Mordant?”
“Adjective. Expressing harsh criticism especially in a way that’s funny. Because I am a Word Master I could have alternately used the words acerbic, caustic, sardonic, acidulous, sarcastic or smart ass.”
“Ah, I get it. You’re being satirical.”
“Good one. You’re smarter than you look, Austin.”
“You’re just as bizarre as you look, Ivy.”
<
br /> “Thanks,” he says, smiling brightly. “Hand over the Carter interview.”
“I haven’t written the article yet.”
“That’s okay. Lawrence and I looked over your proposal; it looks good, but I think we should run him second to last. We’ll start with August; Lawrence got you permission to pull him out of his art class so you could get that interview over with and have the article ready for Monday. So you focus on that and I’ll focus on the angle I think you should take with Carter. I’m not so sure you have the ability to be partial with him.”
I grit my teeth and pull the tape out of my recorder and hand it to him. “The interview got a little unprofessional towards the end and I forgot to hit stop. Just know that if you choose to jerk off to it, God’s watching and he’ll make you burn.”
He snatches it out of my hand. “I’ve been pondering Atheism lately.”
“Seriously. Don’t.”
“Seriously, don’t flatter yourself. Contrary to what you and your friends think, the entire school isn’t lusting after you. You and your pretty, mainstream friends are not my type. Plus, I have better material than an audio recording of Nash Carter.” He stands and starts to walk away.
“I’m re-writing the article about Brandon, by the way. I’ll get it to you after I get the other guys done.” I handed it into Angel on Friday and haven’t heard what he thought about it but it was bad. I mean, well written, but full of low blows.
He stops in his tracks and turns to me. “Hell, no. That article was brilliant. A God in Carver… it’s gonna be the perfect punctuation point at the end of this series. Why would you change it?”
“I made him sound like a complete arrogant asshole and that’s not who he is.”
“Umm… according to that interview he gave you, that’s exactly who he is.” He narrows his eyes at me. “What the hell happened to you, Misses Brandon Eastman can burn in hell? Having a change of heart?”
A God in Carver (Carver High #1) Page 6
