I had told him I was out with a friend. I hadn’t said date. I started to reply, when I was cut off.
“She does,” Linc said as he set my Coke on the table and slid it over in front of me. “I’m Linc, her date,” he said to Krit in his ever-polite tone of voice. “You must be Krit, the neighbor.”
Krit’s happy smile was gone. In its place was an annoyed frown I had seen before. “Her friend,” he corrected Linc.
Linc seemed unaffected by Krit’s clipped tone. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. She hadn’t mentioned you before tonight,” Linc responded.
What? Did he really just say that? I swung my eyes to Linc and noticed the sudden change in his demeanor. He wasn’t calm, cool, and collected. He was tense, and the smile on his face was fake.
Krit’s hand moved from the back of my chair to rest on my back. “How did you like the set?” he asked me as if Linc hadn’t just been rude.
“I loved it. You sounded amazing. I had no idea you could sing so well.” I was gushing. I knew it, but I couldn’t seem to help it. There was a reason why women threw themselves at Krit. He was like a magnet, and it was hard to pull away from him. When he got close, you just wanted to get closer.
Krit lowered his head until his mouth was at my ear. “I’ve missed you,” he said softly.
I hadn’t gone anywhere. I wanted to point that out, but then Trisha was watching us with undisguised interest, and Linc had given up the nice-guy smile. I was here with Linc, and I had to remember that.
I picked up my Coke and smiled at Linc. His frown eased some. “We’re glad we came. It’s a great way to end the evening.”
Trisha ducked her head and covered her mouth, but her eyes were dancing with laughter. She then composed herself. “Come on, Krit, you’re ignoring everyone else. Let these two enjoy their date. You can talk to Blythe later,” Trisha said, standing up. To me, she said, “Tuesday at eleven fifteen, meet me at the Pickle Shack. It’s less than a mile from the college, so you should find it easily.” She reached for her brother’s arm, tugging him away from me. “Come on,” she said in a stern whisper, and led Krit to her table.
Krit didn’t say good-bye to me, but then, Trisha might have caused a scene if he had. I tried to block out the laughter behind me and not listen to what they were all saying. I could hear the dreadlocks guy saying something about being shot down, and I winced, wondering if he was talking to Krit. They misunderstood the situation. I didn’t want to hear Krit correct them. That would just have been embarrassing.
Couldn’t they look at me and tell I wasn’t Krit’s type? He was completely out of my league. Glancing over at Linc, I realized he was too. Yet there he sat.
“I didn’t realize you were so tight with the lead singer of Jackdown,” Linc said, then took a slow sip of his soda while studying me.
I shrugged. “He lives above me and when I first moved in, we did talk a lot and stuff, but then he just kind of stopped coming by. I haven’t even seen him in a couple of weeks.” I wasn’t going to tell him about our dinners together, the ones that had stopped with no explanation.
“He’s bad news, Blythe. I don’t know him, but everyone has heard of him. Jackdown is pretty big around the southeast. Krit is . . . well, for lack of a better word, he’s a male whore,” he said quietly, so the table beside us wouldn’t hear him.
I nodded. I already knew Krit slept with a lot of girls. “I know what Krit is like. We were just friendly. Nothing more. I’m not his type anyway.”
Linc nodded in agreement. “No, you’re not. I’m glad you realize that.”
The ache in my chest couldn’t be helped. Hearing Linc confirm that I wasn’t tall and beautiful like the girls Krit brought back to his place was painful. Knowing it and hearing it from someone else were two different things.
I wasn’t in the mood to stay. I wanted my apartment and my pajamas. I wanted my silence. Taking one more drink of my soda I stood up. “I think I’m ready to go home now,” I told Linc.
He looked relieved, which only made me feel worse. Our date had started out nice, but it hadn’t ended well. I wasn’t the only one ready to escape it.
“Of course,” he said standing up. “Let’s go.”
KRIT
“I like her,” Trisha announced as I watched Blythe walk away with that guy. “She’s gorgeous and really sweet.”
“Linc’s a really nice guy. He was always friends with everyone in high school. I can’t think of one person who didn’t like him,” Amanda added to the conversation.
A pair of tits pressed against my arm. I wasn’t in the mood. My head was somewhere else. Shrugging off the unwanted female, I turned to look at Amanda Hardy. “You know that guy?” I asked. I didn’t want to let this bunch know I gave a shit that Blythe was on a date. They would all misunderstand and harass me about it endlessly.
Amanda nodded and bit her bottom lip nervously.
“She’s right. Guy’s nice,” Preston said. “He always did that Christian teens group thingy in the mornings. But he wasn’t like the other religious kids. He even stopped one night when Marcus and I had a flat tire. I didn’t have a spare or some shit like that, and Marcus wouldn’t call his dad because I was so hammered. So Linc gave us a ride.”
This wasn’t something I wanted to hear. Preston Drake liking someone so completely different from him meant this Linc guy probably was f**king perfect for Blythe.
Shit.