by Emma Hart
He catches me with the skill of a man who knows what I’m doing. “I can’t believe I’m carrying you up to the roof.”
“I can’t believe we’re getting drunk on the roof. We haven’t done this in years.”
“That’s true.”
“Then again,” I muse, “We haven’t had to escape assholes in years.”
“Not true,” he says, grasping the handrail with his right hand as I hook my ankles together in front of his tight stomach. “I try to escape you on a regular basis.”
I drop my foot to his groin. “Say it again, fuckhead.”
“You’re wonderful and I love you,” he chuckles.
I know it’s just a throwaway line, but my stomach flutters all the same. “You’re safe. For now.”
“You want me to drop you?”
“Fuck you!” I grip him tightly as he pushes open the roof door. “If you drop me and I die, I’m haunting you forever.”
“Oh Jesus Christ,” Carly says under her breath. “She made you carry her? What is she, sixteen?”
“Yes! I am at heart,” I tell her, unhooking my legs and sliding down Cain’s back until my feet hit the floor.
“At heart?” Cain peers down at me over his shoulder. “At heart and every other way possible.”
“Are you calling me a child?”
“Are my balls still in danger?”
“The fact you have to ask that means they are.”
“I have no idea how I put up with you two.” Carly grabs the unopened tequila bottle and grabs the cap. Her knuckles go white as she twists and turns her hand around it desperately. “Cain. Open this.”
I have no idea how she can’t open a bottle of liquor. Honestly, it’s a complete mystery. You know how some people can’t open jars to save their life? That’s Carly and alcohol. She can drink it like a fish, but she can’t actually open it in the first place.
I’ve seen her call Cain and ask him to put up a shelf, only to have him open all the alcohol in her apartment and then send him home.
And you think I’m the needy one, huh?
“I have no idea how I put up with you two, she says,” Cain mutters, taking the bottle. “As she hands me a bottle of tequila she can’t open.”
“Cain Elliott, are you sassing me?” Carly stares at him, her dark eyes glinting.
“I don’t sass,” he answers, handing her the bottle with the seal broken on the cap. “I screw with you. I’m not a teenage girl.”
“You’ve been whining like it today.”
“I’ve had a shitty day.” He drops down onto the roof and stretches his legs out in front of him. He leans back on his hands, his biceps flexing before tightening.
I kinda wanna trail my nail down the curving indent of his muscle. No, not kinda. I do. I totally wanna stroke it.
What is wrong with me?
I sit down next to him as he reaches over and grabs a bottle of beer. “Did you bring a bottle opener up?”
Carly pauses. Then without answering, swigs from the tequila and shudders.
“Of course she didn’t. She can’t open tequila, B. Why would she think about opening beer?” Cain shoves the bottle into my hand and delves his into his pocket. His keys clink as he pulls them out, and he selects a bottle opener key chain.
Of course he has that on his keys. That’s totally normal. Cue eye roll.
Cain pops the cap off the bottle while it’s still in my hand with a half-grin. Butterflies the size of elephants thud around in my stomach, but I still manage to shoot him back a smaller smile.
“Do you think they’ll notice we’re gone?” Carly asks, passing the tequila bottle to me over Cain.
He shrugs. “Probably. Nina will probably decide I’ve run off with the two of you for a threesome.”
Carly and I both shudder.
“Really? She’s that crazy?” Carly asks. Unnecessarily. Nina clearly proved that point tonight already.
“Probably.” Cain shrugs. “Then again, she’d have to be talking to me to accuse me of doing that.”
“That’s a reason to talk to you again.”
“I know that. You two ignore me all the time until you get mad at me again.”
“Female prerogative,” I say, my gaze fixed on the label on the tequila bottle. “But at least we buy you beer to say sorry when we yell at you.”
“Useless argument.” Carly leans forward and meets my gaze. “She probably gives him a blow job. We can’t compete with that.”
Damn. She has a point there.
Cain snorts. Then he swigs from his beer. “You’re kidding, right? She only apologizes for being a bitch when she wants something from me.”
“That’s unfair.” I hand Carly back the bottle. “I already have that job. She can’t be that person too.”
Cain looks over at me, another grin on his face. “Exactly. The needy bitch position in my life is occupied by you. I don’t have the time or patience for another one of those.”
I gasp and punch him. “I’m going to push you off this roof.”
“No, you’re not. If you did that, you’d have nobody to help you unpack on his day off next week.”
“Maybe I’ve already unpacked.”
That causes both of them to start laughing. Into their hands. Because, you know. We’re in hiding and all that.
“Yeah, all right, B,” Cain says through a couple of low chuckles. “And I’m next in line to be the King of the Underworld. We both know you’ve barely unpacked a thing. You’re probably still getting dressed out of trash bags.”
I run my tongue over my top lip. Damn him. Damn them both for knowing me so well. “I’ve been busy,” I lie.
“Vegging on the sofa watching Jerry Springer reruns is not busy,” Carly says, leaning forward again, her eyes glinting with silent laughter.
“It’s totally busy when you’re watching them too and we’re texting each other,” I argue.
That is seriously time consuming. She knows that! Did he cheat? Is he the daddy? Who stole the cash? All very strong discussion points. Plus my thumbs get a work out which totally counts as exercise.
If only I burned ten calories for every text message I sent watching that show…
“Shut up and give me that,” I mutter. I lean right over Cain and snatch the bottle out of her hand. I swig from it while they both laugh again. If I didn’t love them so much, I’d hate them. Honestly. Sometimes it’s a real fine line—like now. This is definitely one of those times.
“Cain, can I ask you a question?” Carly swings her legs around to the side and props herself up on one hand.
“Uh, sure?” he answers and turns to her, uncertainty all over his face.
She glances at me before staring at him. “Why do you stay with Nina? She clearly doesn’t make you happy. If she did, you wouldn’t be up here with us.”
Whoa, Nelly. That came outta nowhere!
“To be fair, part of the reason I’m up here is to stop you throwing stuff at people.” He smirks.
Okay. So we did that once. At Zeke’s twenty-first. That was five years ago. Pish. Seriously. You throw water bombs at people from the roof one freakin’ time…
“She has a point,” I say quietly, putting the bottle down in front of me and gazing out at the yard. The sun is fully down now, and the moon is creeping up behind the trees at the end of the yard. The air is full of laughter and music and the distinct underbuzz of happy chats.
Cain sighs heavily and drops his head forward. He twirls his bottle of beer between his finger and his thumb. “I don’t know,” he says after a long moment. “She’s not a bad person, and I guess I understand her uncertainty about my relationship with you two.”
“That doesn’t give her the right to be a raging bitch,” Carly says, skipping over the bullshit. “Cain, you’re having to sneak around to hang out with us just so she won’t yell at you. You admit she doesn’t want you to hang out with us and loses her shit when you do. That’s not uncertainty, dude, that’s fucking crap.”
He sits up, crossing his legs, and rubs his hand through his hair. “I dunno, Car. Can’t you just leave it alone?”
She raises her eyebrows. “When have I ever left anything alone?”
Good question. She’s like a horny dog with a leg when she wants to know the answer to something.
“It’s not that simple, all right?” Cain’s voice is edged with something I’m not used to hearing from him—uncertainty. Vulnerability. “She’s not like it all the time.”
“Oh my god,” Carly breathes. “She’s controlling the shit out of you and you can’t even see it. Let me guess, when it’s good it’s good, right? But when it’s bad it’s bad.”
“Leave it.” Now, his tone is harsher. “I don’t need to justify my relationship to you, Carly.”
“No, but you do need to listen when your friends are telling you they’re concerned about it.”
“In case it escaped your notice, I’m capable of handling my own shit.”
“In case it escaped your notice, I’m only caring about you,” she snaps.
I take a deep breath, slam down the tequila bottle, and grab my shoes. I get up and walk along the railed edge of the roof to the door. Neither of them say a word as I step through the door and onto the stairs.
I don’t want to hear that. Not because of how I feel about Cain, but because I simply don’t want to hear it. He rarely talks about his actual relationship with her, and now I know why. He just explained it without meaning to.
And you know what? Carly’s right. Completely and utterly right.
“He can’t even see it!” Carly slams the mug down in front of my coffee machine. “He’s so goddamn dense when it comes to her. After you left and went home, he did the same thing. He texted Zeke to get him to tell Nina to leave and went to bed.”
“Mhmm.”
“Why can’t he see it? She only apologizes when she wants something? She’s not crazypants all the time? Oh, well, then, I guess that’s all right.” She shoves the mug into the coffee machine and jabs the button. Then she turns toward me, her dark hair billowing around her shoulders. “Because as long as she’s nice to him some of the time, who gives a shit if she’s a manipulative bitch the rest of it?”
“Mhmm.”
“Goddamn it, Brooke!” She throws her arms out. “How can you not be angry about this?”
I shrug, resting my head on the side of the sofa as I look at her. “Because I can’t do anything about it? I don’t know, Car. He’s right. He’s a grown man and he can make his own dumbass choices.”
She takes a deep breath and slumps back against the kitchen counter. She doesn’t say a word until the coffee machine sputters the last of the coffee pod into her mug. “I just… It frustrates me so much,” she says, much more quietly. “I’ve literally watched you quietly fall in love with him for years, and he’s so blind he’s stuck with someone who treats him like crap.”
“Maybe that’s just how she is. Maybe she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it.”
She raises an eyebrow. “You’re making excuses for her?”
I shake my head and run my hand through my hair. “No. I’m trying to understand it. Cain isn’t a bad guy. He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place already, and she’s…I dunno, Car.”
“She doesn’t even try, B. Neither does he anymore. He ran away from her last night? Are you kidding me? He’s twenty-five, not thirteen. He doesn’t need to hide under the bleachers to avoid the girl with a crush on him. I don’t care what kind of hard place he’s in—he needs to make a decision about his relationship. He’s either with her or he’s not. He can’t run away with us every time she pisses him off.”
Okay…She has a point there. I guess.
I sit up properly and hug my knee to my chest. I lean forward and rest my chin on my knee as I smack my lips together.
“What if he is trying to break up with her? If she’s really that manipulative, it might not be that easy.”
Carly points her teaspoon at me. “He ain’t tryin’ and you know it. If he were, he’d have done it already. She’s obsessed with herself and I’m amazed Cain’s handled it this long. She is literally the person the Biebs wrote Love Yourself about.”
“Whatever. We can’t make him do something he doesn’t want to do just because we don’t like his girlfriend. You know that.” I sniff and glance at the TV. “I wish we could, but we can’t.”
She sighs and perches on the arm of the sofa. Spinning, she clasps her mug tightly and rests it on her knees as she props her feet up on the cushion. “This is more than dislike, B. His excuses yesterday were cat shit and you know it.”
“Bird shit,” I say. “Bird shit is worse than cat shit. You rarely know when a seagull has shit on your back.”
She tips her mug toward me.
“But it still doesn’t matter,” I go on. “Let’s face it: You’re never going to like his girlfriends because you think they should be me, and I’m never going to like his girlfriends because I can’t shake the way I feel about him. This is going to go around and around and around until I get over myself and get over him.”
“You need to get under someone else. It’ll solve the problem for a good ninety minutes.”
“Yeah, right. Find me someone who isn’t battery operated and can last ninety minutes and you’ve got a deal.” I roll my eyes. “Clearly he won’t listen to you, so there’s nothing we can do.”
“So, you’d be happy to let him marry the manipulative bitch?”
“I’m not happy he’s fucking her, so I’d hardly dance on a bar if he said he was marrying her.” I scratch my neck and consider my next words. “As much as I hate it, and as obvious as it is to us, we have to let him make his own mistakes. How many times has he warned you off a guy you’ve dated and you haven’t listened to him?”
She pauses. Her eye twitches, and I know I’ve got her. “That’s totally different. That’s guys I dated, not got in a relationship with. And not one of them ever had an issue with my friendship with him, because if they did, I’d have kicked them to the curb.”
I will not roll my eyes. I will not roll my eyes.
There’re four knocks at my door, and I stand up. “It doesn’t matter if it’s different,” I say, walking toward the front door. “The fact is, we can’t make him do anything. We only have to be here when he ultimately realizes what you said to him was right.”
She huffs in response.
I open the door and still. “Mom. Hi.”
Mom pushes some of her dyed, dark hair behind her ear. “Hello, dear. Can I come in?”
“Dear?” I ask without moving. “Who died?”
Her lips tug to one side. “Can I come in or not?”
Okay, so nobody died. Maybe she’s been drinking Kool-Aid? Or she got drunk last night and is still a little hammered?
“Carly,” Mom says, sweeping in past me although I still haven’t moved. “How are you?”
“Oh, hey, Louise. I’m good, thank you. How’re you?” Carly peers over at her.
“Better now my daughter let me in.” Mom shoots me a disapproving look.
“Technically,” I say, closing the front door. “I didn’t let you in. You brought yourself in.”
Carly disguises a snort with a sip of her coffee, only to cough on it. Mom thwacks her between her shoulder blades, and Carly wheezes, giving her a thumbs up. “Helpful, thanks,” she manages.
“Brooke, would you make me a coffee, please?” Mom asks, taking the armchair and gracefully sitting down.
“I…Sure.” I will not argue. I turn to the coffee machine and pull a mug out of the cabinet.
“I see you still haven’t unpacked.” The hint of disapproval in Mom’s voice seems to scream despite her best efforts, and I just know she’s casting a look of disgust around the room.
“So, Mom, what brings you by for the first time?” I say cheerily, slotting a latte pod into the machine. “Come to discuss with me my outfit yesterday and lament why I couldn’
t have dressed more like Billie?”
“Actually, despite the length of your dress,” she hesitates, “I thought you looked lovely.”
I still, my hand wrapped around the mug handle. Slowly, I turn my head so I’m looking over my shoulder, past Carly’s wide-eyed expression, to my mom. “Oh, well, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Mom smiles.
Yep. Someone slipped her Kool-Aid. I bet it was the blue one.
I pull her latte from beneath the machine, stir it quickly, and then carry it over to her in the front room. She takes it with a thank you before setting it on the coffee table and putting her feet down by her purse.
Awkward silence is saved only by the low hum of my guilty pleasure TV show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians.
Don’t fucking judge me, okay? Sometimes, it’s nice to watch someone else’s train wreck of a life instead of lamenting my own. Plus…Khloe is kinda funny.
“I don’t know how you watch this,” Mom says, staring at the TV. “Their voices are highly irritating.”
“I dunno,” Carly says. “Their lives aren’t all that. It’s drama after drama after drama.”
“Yeah, but at least they’re rich through the drama,” I point out. “I’d be able to deal with drama much better if I had a few million dollars in the bank and could shoe-shop my way through it.”
“Good point.” She tilts her mug toward me again.
“Goodness.” Mom blinks and shakes her head, turning away from it. “So. I met Cain’s girlfriend last night.”
“Lucky you,” I say dryly. “I hope you gave her my love.”
Carly snorts, and even Mom—holy shit, even Mom suppresses a smile.
“I would have if I believed for a second I could have made it sound genuine and not like an insult,” Mom says.
“Aw, Mom. You’re underselling yourself. You insult me all the time and I don’t realize it for a couple of hours.”
“That,” she replies with raised eyebrows, “is because you don’t pay attention. And I prefer the term constructive criticism, Brooke.”
I cross my legs beneath me. “Yeah, well, I’m sure Gordon Ramsay thinks telling people to get the fuck out of his kitchen because they’re a fucking moron is constructive criticism too.”
