Fighting for Rain - BB Easton Page 0,54

game.

Wes loosens his grip and leans against the counter, lazily rubbing the back of my neck.

Carter stops right in front of me and glances down at my split cheek. From here, I can see that he must have taken a pretty good hit during the food court scuffle too, because one side of his jaw is definitely swollen. His eyes flare behind his well-placed mask, but us getting smacked around by the runaways isn’t what he came here to talk about.

“I just wanted to be the first one to tell you, happy birthday.” He grins triumphantly, first at me and then at Wes, as he hands me the bouquet.

I accept it mechanically and stare at it in disbelief.

“It’s May?” I ask quietly and to no one in particular.

“Yep. May 3.” Carter puffs out his chest.

“I …” The flowers blur as my eyes look past them and focus on the floor. “I didn’t think I was gonna have another birthday.”

I blink and look up to find Carter watching Wes with smug satisfaction on his face and Wes watching me with thinly veiled concern written all over his.

“Thank you, Carter,” I whisper, giving him a one-armed hug while my free hand grips Wes’s bicep. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

I’m sure Carter and Wes are glaring at each other over my shoulder, but Wes won’t give him the satisfaction of acting like he gives a shit.

“A’ight, Rainbow Brite,” he says, shooting me with a finger gun and a wink as he walks backward toward the door. “Come by later. My folks wanna tell you happy birthday too.”

I don’t respond, and the second Carter’s six-foot-three-inch frame is out of sight, I feel Wes’s whole body tense up beside me.

I set the flowers down and turn to face him.

“Please don’t freak out. Carter and I are just fr—”

“It’s your birthday?” Wes’s eyebrows lift and pull together.

“Oh. Uh … yeah. I guess it is.” I smile, still trying to process the fact that I lived to see twenty after all.

“Fuck.” He tucks his damp hair behind one ear and stares out into the empty hallway. “I didn’t know.”

I laugh. “If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t know either.”

“It doesn’t,” Wes deadpans.

Then, without warning, he leans over and seals his lips to mine. My thoughts scatter. My heart pounds. The lights behind my closed eyelids glow brighter. And the switch in my brain that once produced joy creaks and groans until it finally breaks loose from all the rust and cobwebs and begins dumping glitter into my bloodstream again.

I touch his shoulders, his face, his hair—anything I can get my hands on that will help me believe that he’s really here.

He’s really here.

Wes angles his head as he deepens our kiss, attacking me with a passion I haven’t felt since …

No. No, no, no.

The glitter switch turns back off.

The lights dim.

My heart sinks like a cinder block, pulling my thoughts down with it.

Breaking the seal of our mouths by no more than a quarter of an inch, Wes tells me what I already know is coming.

“I gotta go.”

“But … you just got here,” I whisper, feeling the long fingers of despair beginning to wrap around my throat.

“I’ll be right back. I promise.” Wes gives me a determined stare and one last peck on the lips, but I’m too stunned to return it. “If I’m gonna get Q’s shit while it’s still light out, I gotta go now.”

And, before I finish nodding, the best birthday present I ever got walks right back out the door.

Wes

“Of course it’s her fucking birthday. Why would the day I show up empty-handed after disappearing on a weeklong bender not be her fucking birthday? God, I’m such a fucking asshole.”

I stomp across the empty parking lot, talking to myself out loud and gesturing with my gun, not giving two shits who might see me. The only people who travel these streets anymore are Bonys and people too stupid or desperate to be afraid of them.

Looks like I just joined the second category.

The ground is wet from the storm last night, and the sky is still cloudy and gray. The wind blows my unbuttoned shirt around like a cape as I approach the intersection in front of the mall, and I like it. I like the electrical charge in the air. It feels like any-fucking-thing could happen. It feels like I could march right the fuck down this street into that pharmacy and take down anyone or anything that stands in my