The Heartbreakers

13.

Not My Type

Lenley

THE ENVELOPE WITH Papà’s last letter to me is like a thousand pound weight in my purse as I open the fire door at the back of the office and walk outside.

I inhale the warm air, surprised by how hot it is. I guess this is going to be an exceptionally hot summer if it’s this hot before noon.

I can’t wait to be home and to have some time to decide if I want to read that letter right now; I’m tempted, but at the same I want to wait, because it’s like once I read that, that’s it. Those are the last words my papà will ever say to me. So I kind of want to wait for the right moment to have that last conversation with him.

But at the same time, I want to know what he was thinking in the final weeks of his life. He probably wrote that letter thinking that I would never have to read it. After all there was no real reason for him to believe that he wouldn’t be around on my eighteenth birthday.

I’m so lost in my own thoughts that I don’t see the hand closing around my wrist until I’m pulled around the corner and against the hangar’s wall.

“I told you to stay the fuck away from them!” Darrius is immediately in my face, his brown eyes blazing with barely contained fury.

His fingers are closed around my wrist in a vice-like grip and when I try to shake him off, I only manage to get him to close the distance between us, flattening me against the wall with his much larger body.

“Good morning to you too!” I say, defiantly.

“Lenley, I fucking mean it! Whatever the hell you think you’re doing, you need to knock it off right now!”

I grind my teeth, pulling to get free of his grasp, until he eventually lets go of me. “What are you talking about?” I challenge him.

He raises his voice, his fists clenched so tightly at his sides that his knuckles are turning white. “If you want to play fucking dumb, then I’ll treat you accordingly. Remember last year, when I took you out for your birthday? Remember what the fuck I told you at that party? I told you to stay the fuck away from the Cove Devils! I told you that they aren’t good guys. Or have you forgotten that everyone in town calls them The Heartbreakers? From the moment they set foot in Star Cove, they’ve fucked and dumped pretty much anything that will spread their legs for them! They’re in this sport for the money and the groupies, for the parties and the fame and I don’t want you anywhere near them! I thought I was very clear about it, so imagine my surprise when my girlfriend told me that she was attacked by one of those assholes yesterday. And said asshole was with you!”

I’m at a loss for words at how what happened yesterday between me and Kiara can be my fault. “Maybe you should check your facts before you react, Darrius!” I snap, feeling blood roar into my ears as my temper rises. “It’s very convenient that Kiara told you the end of what happened but not that I was trying to buy a drink at the bar, minding my own fucking business, and she verbally attacked me. She called me a selfish asshole for being hurt over you two dating and basically admitted that she’s resented me and hated me this entire time. When I tried to defend myself verbally, she tried to put her hands on me and that’s when Channing intervened and got her to cool off.”

Darrius snarls, obviously still believing whatever twisted version of the truth Kiara decided to feed him. “What were you doing there with Channing Ford? I told you to stay the fuck away from them!”

He’s pressing me against the hangar wall and I realize that I’m trembling against his larger, harder body. But it isn’t lust; or at least, it isn’t just lust. It’s mostly fury.

“You have no fucking right!” I bite out, my chest heaving in labored, harsh breaths. “First off, I wasn’t there with Channing! He just stepped in when your girlfriend started yelling abuse at me in the middle of the water park. Second, even if I was fucking him, that would be none of your business!”

Just like that, he steps back from me, letting go of my wrists. “I’m not saying you’re fucking him,” he says with a chuckle. “Just stay the fuck away from those guys, Len.”

Something in his tone rubs me the wrong way; it’s as if the notion of me having sex with Channing was too ridiculous to even entertain. “I don’t care what you think, Darrius. I do whatever I want, with whoever I want!”

“Right.” He sniggers. “I guess you’re telling the truth after all.”

Again, what the fuck is he implying? “I am telling the truth! I just don’t get what’s so fucking funny.”

His smile widens, a cold, derisive light in his dark brown eyes. “Nothing. I guess for a second I forgot myself. Those assholes wind me up so much that I didn’t stop to think that if you aren’t my type, you really aren’t theirs.”

The amusement in his tone pisses me off and hurts me at the same time. “How do you know whose type I am?” I say, folding my arms over my chest to put distance between us.

“I don’t know, Len. I just should’ve thought about it before accusing you. Guys like The Heartbreakers? They’d chew you up and spit you out without you even realizing what’s happening. You have nothing to offer to them, so I worried about nothing.”

I know I should probably walk away, but the patronizing smile on his face makes me see red; it’s the same smile he had when we were kids and he was going somewhere I wasn’t invited. The reason was always that I was too young or that I was a girl. “How do you know what I have to offer to them? Or to any guy?” I challenge him.

Darrius shrugs, that derisive smile still curling his lips. “Oh come on, Len! Those guys wouldn’t be into holding hands and collecting seashells on the beach. Trust me, you’d be completely out of your depth. Who knows, maybe college will help you grow up a little. But trust me, you need to expand your interests beyond Jane Austen and the school paper.”

He walks away with some infuriating parting words. “Just remember, don’t swim with the sharks if you don’t want to be eaten. And stop being a bitch to my girlfriend, Len. Vindictive and bitter doesn’t suit you, I know you’re better than that. I need my best friend, my sweet, supportive Len back if I want a chance in hell to win Nationals and Worlds.”

I watch him disappear back into the hangar, vibrating with fury. He thinks he has me all figured out and that I’ll do what he says like I always have. That I’ll fall in line like an obedient puppy and watch him date my best friend while cheering for him from the sidelines. Like I’ve always done, too in love with him to even notice how selfish he is. Waiting for him to finally notice me and love me like I was in love him.

Darrius was my sun and I was so caught up in his orbit that I never even saw that there’s a whole universe outside of that orbit.

I’ve saved myself for him because I didn’t even see other guys, so I don’t even know if another guy would’ve noticed me.

But he’s wrong if he thinks he can hurt me over and over, date my best friend and keep me there, waiting.

Like he’s wrong that guys like The Heartbreakers, the Cove Devils would never look at me.

Peyton’s right. Once I’m done with Darrius Penn, he won’t know what’s hit him.

***