mouth shut.
“She ream you out too?” Stryker said, leaning on his elbow.
“Sort of. It was more gentle than a reaming. More like a few words of caution.”
“I wish my sister knew anything about the word gentle,” he said as I sat next to him on my bed and he put his arm around me.
“Is she that upset about us being together?”
His eyes flicked back to the TV. “No, not really.”
“Then what is she so upset about?”
Lottie looked away from the show and at Stryker too.
“I told you, she’s pissed that I didn’t tell her before I told you.”
“But she’s happy, right?”
“More like bitter that she’s still alone.”
“Why is it different than when we were together but not really together?” For a guy who was pretty smooth normally, he was having a hard time coming up with a story.
“It’s just different.” He rolled over so he couldn’t look at me.
“Yeah, sure.”
As soon as I could, I was going to text Trish and get to the bottom of this. Consuming myself with Stryker’s secret was much better than thinking about Dad or his ashes or the fact that I still had all of Zack’s gifts under my bed. Stryker kept kicking them whenever he could, but he didn’t know what they were. I’d made some vague excuse.
Zack.
I’d thought about him a few times today, but only in contrast to Stryker. When Zack told me he loved me, it was only because he thought he should, like it was an obligation. When I said it to him the first time, I’d been drunk, and I couldn’t really take it back. He always followed it with “babe.” “I love you, babe,” he’d say. I hadn’t realized how much I absolutely hated him calling me that until after everything had happened.
He still sent me a text here and there, but they were fewer and farther between. Maybe he was finally getting some help. I thought about asking Zan, but he said he’d cut ties with his family and wasn’t keeping up with Zack’s comings and goings.
“You guys ready to go?” Lottie said, as there was a knock at the door.
“Yup,” I said, grabbing my coat. Stryker jumped up and helped me put it on.
“Where are we going?” I said as Lottie opened the door to reveal the rest of the crew. They all stared at Stryker and me.
“Okay, okay, you can stop staring,” Lottie said. “Nothing to see here, just two crazy kids in love.” She gave me a wink and Stryker took my hand.
I heard a weird noise and looked for the source. Trish was lasering the evilest of evil eyes directly at Stryker. If looks could kill…
I knew Trish well enough to know that it wasn’t mere jealousy that was making her look at Stryker as if she wanted to reduce him to a pile of ash, like a vampire in the sunlight.
“Let’s go,” Simon said, giving Brady a look. “I’m starved.”
We all trooped down the hallway with Trish still giving Stryker a death glare.
“Where are we going?” I asked the group in general.
“Caroline’s?” Simon said.
Caroline’s was one of the nicest places in town, more of a lounge than a bar. It wasn’t cheap, either. I always thought of it as a grown-up place.
“Uh, can we all afford that?”
“We’re just planning on ordering a shit ton of appetizers and sharing,” Will said. “I also have a friend who’s a busboy who could bring us some scraps from other people’s plates if we get really starved.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
“You okay with that?” I said to Stryker, hoping no one else would hear.
“As long as I’m with you, I don’t care where I am.”
“Ditto,” I said, and I squeezed his hand, but one look behind at Trish’s angry face was all it took to remind me that there was something he was keeping from me and the sooner I figured out what it was, the better.
Chapter Twenty-six
Stryker
I really wanted to tell Trish to put her angry face away, because she was making everyone uncomfortable, but I couldn’t really do that without making Katie suspicious, so I had to put up with her glare for the entire time we were at Caroline’s. While we sat at the fancy tables that had long tapered candles and pure white tablecloths, while soft violin music played in the background. As soon as we all saw the entree prices, and put our eyes back in after they’d fallen out because of how expensive they were, we ordered two