didn’t see it, just so I could have another day without having to face him or the repercussions of what transpired here.
I don’t do feelings right.
I never have.
Touchy-feely shit is just not my thing, so I’m not exactly ecstatic for putting myself in a situation where I have to be someone’s support system. I mean, I suck at it. I’m not that guy. I might look all approachable and shit, with my light eyes and messy blond hair giving me that homecoming-king vibe, but five minutes in my presence, and everyone knows I’m a fucking insensitive prick.
I don’t hide it either.
Why would I?
I have no one to impress but myself.
But when life gets real, and I’m expected to talk about feelings and shit, I almost break out in hives. I don’t do heavy. The only weight I can deal with is clashing against the adversaries on the football field. Or better yet, when I have a hundred-pound jersey chaser on my lap, getting me off after a win. That’s as heavy as I’m willing to go.
Call me shallow.
Call me crass.
I don’t give a fuck.
But this is different. This is a whole other level of a clusterfuck. Worst of all, this is Linc, my best friend since we were in diapers, for crying out loud. I know the asshole needs me, needs all of us. Not only for support but also to keep our fucking mouths shut or face the consequences. And no way is that even an option. I’m too fucking pretty to go to jail. I’d be a hot commodity in the big house. Not exactly the kind of assplay I’m down with. Not judging or anything, but I like firm, hairless, peach asses in my grip, not the other way around.
“Shit!” I grunt again under my breath, this time throwing my phone on the passenger seat.
What if Linc wants to talk? What if he expects to hash out what happened that night? What if he’s having second thoughts and wants to go to the police?
“SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!”
I punch my steering wheel twice with my clenched fists, my frustration getting the better of me. This is so fucked up. Our lives did a one-eighty with just a mere snap of a finger. Because of one lousy night, our futures are now left hanging by a thread. I spent all summer in fucking denial, just so I didn’t imagine all the ways this one macabre incident could end up ruining and uprooting our lives so completely.
So mercilessly.
But it already did. It happened, and as much as I try to ignore it, there is no way around what we’ve done. And as a result, my best friend became an orphan.
Hmm.
Can you still be considered an orphan at twenty-two? I mean, technically he’s a grown-ass man. The orphan title always reminds me of those old movies Grandma had playing on her TV when I was a kid. Especially the one with the curly, red-haired girl that, for some reason, always felt the need to break out in song when she was getting herself in all sorts of trouble. What was her name? It’s on the tip of my tongue. What was it?
Fuck it.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Lincoln is the one with no parents now. We buried them right at the end of our junior year. Going back to Richfield tomorrow and trying to finish college with that boulder on our shoulders is not going to be fun. Not one bit.
A pound on the hood of the car makes me jolt in my seat, throwing me back to the here and now. My heart drums hectically in alarm and only settles when familiar, devious, gray eyes stare back at me from the front of my car.
“You break it, you pay for it, motherfucker!” I yell at Easton, who just shrugs nonchalantly, unleashing his best cocky-ass smirk, as if I were one of his late-night booty calls, ready to be fucked on his doorstep.
I’d roll my eyes at the asshole if I weren’t already so wound up from being here. I watch him lean back against the side of my car while lighting a cigarette, as if it were the coolest thing in the world, and not the cancerous instrument that is shortening his lifespan.
It’s a filthy habit. And I’m not saying this just because I’m one of those jocks that believe their body is a temple or some nonsense like that, but because my intellect is very aware of all the lethal chemicals