Fuckin’ girl.
It shattered against the wall above her head, and she turned her face to the side, barely flinching as she let out a quiet laugh.
She was hardly afraid of me anymore.
“Call or text Banks,” she instructed, ignoring my tantrum. “She’s worried about you.”
“She’s not.” I lit another cigarette and refilled my glass. “Banks knows me best. She knows I take care of myself first.”
“And Will?”
I walked for the couch, tossing her a look.
“He has an alcohol problem,” she told me.
But I just smiled to myself. “For men, it’s not a problem.”
Every man I knew or grew up with drank. You held your liquor and you got shit done. Women were the lightweights, which is why I never let Banks drink.
“And he has a drug problem,” Rika continued.
I leaned back on the couch, tucking an arm behind my head and staring at her.
And she was telling me this because…?
I brought the cigarette to my lips with my other hand and took a drag. I met Will at the beginning of high school, and he’d played around with drugs for as long as I’d known him. Weed, X, pills, coke… It all ran rampant in our school. The only reason we didn’t have the heroin epidemic the inner city did was because we had the money and access to good shit from the town M.D.
And Mom’s medicine cabinet.
It was almost the only thing Michael and I ever agreed on.
We didn’t do drugs. We were the drugs.
“I’m sure you all will take care of it,” I told her.
“You whined earlier because you weren’t there for him in jail, but you can be there now.”
“Go home,” I said.
For someone so smart, she was good at stupid. I was the last person Will wanted or needed help from.
She paused a moment, as if waiting for me to say someth
ing or still holding out hope maybe, but then finally turned around and headed her ass for the door.
But something caught her eye, and she stopped, lifting up a small black box off the sofa table and inspecting the contents.
My heart thudded a beat, recognizing what she was holding. I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw ached, and then I was up, dropping my cigarette into the ashtray and charging toward her.
Ripping the box out of her hands, I slammed it close, hearing the contents jingle inside as I tossed it on the sofa again, and then grabbed her collar, backing her up into the wall.
Her blue eyes glared up at me, all tough and ready, but her little panting gave away the small amount of fear she still held of me.
“Keep me in this perspective.” I stared down, towering over her. “At any time I could snap you in half and shut you up for good. You need me. I don’t need you. We’re not friends.”
Stay out of my place. Stay out of my shit. No more chit-chat.
“Glad you know that,” she replied, her voice surprisingly steady.