Crushing On The Bully (Crushing on You 2)

The woman’s voice sounded huskier. Clarissa cringed and said a silent thank you that she had never been tempted to take up smoking. She didn’t want to sound like that when she was an old lady.

“I have things to do,” Clarissa said as she tore open her car door.

“Sweetheart, you might not be able to help him,” the blond said.

“So I shouldn’t even try?” Clarissa said her fists balling at her sides.

“I didn’t say that,” the older woman said, “Can we talk, sweetheart? Girl to girl?”

“Fine,” Clarissa sighed.

“Sweetheart, there’s a lot you don’t know about Skull,” the woman said.

“No, duh,”

“Now don’t get that way with me, missy, I’m not the boy whose breaking your heart, now am I?”

“Sorry,” Clarissa muttered and rolled her eyes.

“Like I said there’s a lot you don’t know about Skull and it’s his place to tell you not mine, but I can tell you this, he got himself in trouble tonight. I don’t know what you think but not Hugo or me or Lobster or anyone in Starless asked him to go,” the blond said.

“Where did he go?” Clarissa asked.

“To talk to some shady figures,” Lilac frowned.

“Like?”

“Now that’s not important, but I want you to know if we can help him we will,” the older woman said, “That’s what Starless does. It helps kids your age,”

Clarissa rolled her eyes.

“Oh, don’t you roll your eyes at me, Miss Thang, I know you don’t think of yourself as a kid, but when your forty-seven looking back, you’ll understand me then,” the woman laughed, “But no, we do help them or at least try to. Hugo and I founded Starless after we lost our son to a drug deal gone bad. He was young and just trying to find somewhere to fit in and hell, we didn’t know what to do for him. We figured he’d grow out of it, but he never got the chance. We laid our Garry to rest when he was only seventeen. Seventeen, sweetheart! Afterward, both Hugo and I took to drinking, but eventually we came to our senses and Starless was founded.”

“So Skull is doing drugs?” Clarissa asked.

“We don’t know that for sure, but I hope not sweetheart,” she said, “He reminds me so much of my Garry, but of course a lot of the kids we work with do. The little girl next door just adored Garry, she wanted to marry him and she pined away for years after Garry died. Eventually, she moved on and married, but he took part of her to his grave with him. He took part of us all.”

“What do we do now?” Clarissa asked.

The bar door swung open and Lobster walked out, helmet in hand.

“You gals just wait here,” he said, his mouth twisted into a grimace that he tried to pass off as a grin, “I’m going to take a ride over and see what I can do for the boy. Hugo wanted to go, but I didn’t think it would be a good idea, Lilac.”

“You’re right it wouldn’t be,” Lilac shook her head, “He’s too involved already. Too emotionally invested.”

“See you gals in a bit,” Lobster said as he straddled his bike, “Hopefully, I can bring him back to you.”

Clarissa not trusting herself to speak merely nodded and watched the trail of dust that his bike left behind.

“Let’s get back inside,” Lilac said, wrapping a friendly arm around Clarissa’s shoulder.

Clarissa wrinkled her nose and held her breath as she walked back into the AlleyCat Pub. Lilac smelled of perfume and cigarette smoke and the combination was making Clarissa dizzy. She glanced up at the clock and sighed. It was only one o’clock. She had only left work an hour ago. How had so much changed since then?

Lilac insisted that she join her and Hugo at their normal corner table. The older woman nervously chain smoked cigarettes and after the fifth Clarissa broke out into a coughing fit that shook her hard.

“Can you please quit smoking those damn things around me?” she asked standing up and heading to the bathroom, “It’s killing me.”

Clarissa washed her hands and face before returning from the barroom. She didn’t rejoin the others, but sat on the other side of the bar resting her head against the table. Her eyes darted from person to person, as she tried to keep an eye on where everyone was. She didn’t want any of them to catch her off guard. They might be trying to help Skull, but she still didn’t trust them.