“Straight up answer,” I begin. “Why are you being such a fucking bitch to him?”
She raises her eyebrows like she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, but I laugh in her face.
“Cut the crap, Carrie, we both know you’re freezing him out. You want to humiliate him for giving a shit about you. Why?”
“You’re fucking mad.” She taps the side of her head. “You’re seeing shit that isn’t there.”
“You’re fucking mad if you think I can’t see right through you,” I tell her. “I just want to know why.”
She shrugs. “Because he’s a fucking dick.”
I shake my head. “Nice try, sugarplum. We both know the guy’s not a fucking dick. Just a couple of days ago you were desperate to confess your undying devotion to him in my living room. Now you act like he’s the biggest loser piece of shit you’ve ever met.”
“He treated me like the biggest loser piece of shit he’s ever met.”
I take another swig of beer. “What do you mean?”
She folds her arms.
“Carrie, what do you mean?”
She groans. “Why can’t you mind your own fucking business?”
I’m not going to let this go. No fucking way.
“It’s hard to mind my own fucking business in my own fucking house, Carrie.”
“Yeah, well, it’s hard to be nice to a guy who says he doesn’t want you.”
I raise an eyebrow. “He said that?”
She nods. “Friends, that’s what he said we can be. Such fucking bullshit.”
“Friends isn’t the same thing as saying he doesn’t want you.”
She kicks my stool with her boot. “’Tis as far as I’m concerned. He can go fuck himself.” She tips back her drink. “I don’t want him anymore anyway. I don’t give a fuck that he blew me out.”
I know she must be lying, but my hands feel clammy all the same.
“You don’t want him anymore?”
Her eyes aren’t just piercing tonight, they’re dangerous. Her guarded stare gives me the fucking shivers.
“So, what do you want?” I prompt.
“I want you to shut the fuck up,” she snaps.
But I won’t, because she’s sucking her bottom lip as she spins her bottle in her fingers. I won’t, because the sight of her sitting there makes my cock twitch in my pants.
Because I don’t want her to want Michael, not anymore.
I want her to want me.
I want her to look me in the eye and ask me to stay the night, even though it would be crazy.
And I think she knows it.
“He cares about you,” I tell her.
“He can fuck off,” she says, and this time she looks like she really means it.
I can’t fucking keep up with the girl.CarrieI know Jack and Michael both think I’m being a lazy bitch who doesn’t give a shit, not for all the advice they’re trying to give me, and not for the way they sigh and shake their heads and try to work me out. I tell them nothing about the work I’m doing on the fences while they’re busy in their day jobs. I tell them nothing about the way I leave Jack’s place every morning and dig around the outbuildings for supplies as soon as his big fancy car pulls off the driveway.
I keep my mouth shut because I’ve never done this kind of shit before and I don’t want to look like a total fucking idiot for getting it wrong. I’ve never hammered in fence posts and strung wire fencing, and trimmed back overgrown hedgerows and measured out planks before. I check out videos on my phone through Jack’s Wi-Fi whenever I’m grabbing a quick sandwich for lunch, and I may not have any swanky grades from school, but by the end of the first week of sorting out Jack’s neglected grounds, I think I might be okay at doing this stuff.
I think I might even be good at it.
My fences don’t look half bad, and they’re strong, too. I’ve tested them out by vaulting them and clambering over them and trying to wiggle them in the ground. My muscles are aching and I feel like I’ve run a marathon by the time Friday afternoon comes around, but there’s a weird glow in my belly.
I did something good.
Something I’m actually proud of.
And although I’m nervous about showing them, just in case I’m wrong and they tell me I’ve made a right mess of it all, I’m excited about surprising them. I’m excited about proving to them I’m not just some loser who’s watching daytime TV in Jack’s house every day.
It still hurts that Michael doesn’t want me. It still hurts that he blew me out when I thought there was really something between us.
It’s been days now since he told me he’s not interested. He’s still kind but he’s guarded, and when he’s trying to talk me through whatever crappy agency he’s working out my fate with next, all I can think about is the way he’s so tense. It’s like he thinks I’m going to jump him any second. Like I don’t know what I’m not interested means and stand a chance of making more of a tit out of myself than I already did with him.