Now she was watching me closely in a way that didn’t say girlfriend-ticked-her-best-friend-didn’t-share-about-a-hot-guy. Instead, the way she was watching me made me feel funny, not with guilt that I hadn’t shared, in a way that was strangely scary.
“When did you two become an item? And while we’re at it, how did you two become an item?” she pressed. “You’ve been living in a world of Sip and Save ambition, not around long enough to say hello much less find time to flirt with shady characters.”
I found it odd that Maria would describe Tony as a “shady character” when, okay, he kinda was with the company he kept, but he was a super nice guy outside of that. And anyway, it seemed she dug hanging out with Lars and if there was a shady character to beat all shady characters, Lars was that.
I lifted a shoulder, trying to shake the feeling I was getting from her. “We had a thing and I think he feels sorry for me.”
“What kind of thing?” she asked.
I licked my lips and rubbed them together, sliding my glance away.
I hadn’t shared about Tony, which meant I hadn’t shared about The Trench either.
“Cady,” she prompted impatiently.
I looked back at her. “I got in a situation in The Trench when you guys were hanging with the Chaos guys. It wasn’t good. Tony showed and helped me out. I kinda lost it on him because my parents were being my parents, my landlord evicted me, my car was acting up, then that happened in The Trench and I was just done. I needed to unload and he was the closest one so he got it dumped on him. And now . . . well now . . .” I glanced back down the hall. “Well, now I think he’s worried I’ll fall off the deep end if he doesn’t look out for me.”
“He wants in your pants.”
My eyes shot back to her and I felt my heart start racing. “He doesn’t want in my pants. He’s just a nice guy.”
“He’s not a nice guy, Cady. I don’t know what he is but he’s not a nice guy,” she stated. “But first, you got evicted?”
I gave her a stretched-mouth eek look, which pretty much was my way of putting my hands up and saying caught in the best-friend-not-sharing gig.
“Babe, what the fuck?” she snapped.
“I need to look out for myself,” I defended. “Shit is always going wrong for me. You and Lonnie have been there loads but I have to learn that I can’t lean on other people all the time.”
“Wait, let me get this straight,” she started sarcastically. “You lookin’ out for yourself and not telling your best girl you got fuckin’ evicted is you leanin’ on some dude you don’t even know?”
I moved closer to her and lowered my voice. “Maria, in The Trench he dropped two guys who were being seriously uncool with me.”
“Good,” she shot back. “I’m glad. I’ll buy him a beer some day for helpin’ my girl out, a girl I’ll say right now didn’t share any of that shit with me. Her best friend. But just because he shows he might be one of the few decent ones who has a dick doesn’t mean you should trust some dude you barely know.”
“He found me a place to stay while I’m sorting out my home situation.”
She rolled her eyes to the ceiling, mumbling, “Totally wants in your pants.”
“I don’t know what kind of guy he is really,” I admitted, and her eyes rolled back to me. “I just know he’s nice to me and it isn’t like what you think. He hasn’t made a move. He may hold my hand and a couple of times he’s touched my cheek but he’s not into me. He just, I think he’s just one of those guys who’s protective of chicks. Maybe he has a little sister or something and I remind him of her.”
Though I was a little sister and my brother never held my hand and not only because he was an arrogant ass.
“You know, you really need to clue in,” she returned, a flash in her eyes that seemed catty but it looked like it was chased with some kind of pain and that made my stomach lurch. “He wants to fuck you. Period. Dot. The end. And if you want that, then cool. Go for it. I bet he’s good. But, babe, you need to get with the program. I don’t know where your head is at half the time, but shit is happening all around you and if you don’t start lookin’ out for yourself better, Cady, I don’t see good things.”
Once she’d landed all of that on me, she took her beer and weaved through the crowd.
I lost sight of her only to feel the back of my neck tingling, so I looked again down the hall to see Tony’s eyes on me. When his caught mine, he lifted his chin and shot me a small grin before he returned his attention to Lars.
My gaze drifted from him because my attention was on what Maria had said, and not just the fact that I’d missed Lonnie was into me and she was pointing out that maybe I was missing Tony was into me too, but mostly the other stuff she said.
She warned me to start looking out for myself better but it wasn’t me who wanted to be here. I came with Tony. If he hadn’t said he was picking me up to bring me here, I would have found an excuse not to come at all. And she was there and it seemed she liked being there, more it seemed like she liked all of these people just as much as Lonnie did.
But maybe she didn’t. Maybe she had worries and doubts about who Lonnie was hanging with too.
And that catty, pained look? Did that mean she’d already noticed Lonnie had a thing for me and she was blaming me?
I had no opportunity to sort through all of this or weave through the crowd to get to Maria to have a clearly much-needed chat with my friend.
I was in a headlock, which made it fortunate I was sipping from a bottle of beer, because if I’d taken a cup from the keg in the kitchen rather than the beer Tony pointedly handed me from a case he’d pointedly brought and promptly hidden in the back of Lars’s fridge after he gave me one, with the headlock, I’d have beer all over my hand.
“Where you been?” Lonnie asked, curling me around so I was forced into a full frontal headlock.
I lifted my eyes to him. “Jeez, Lonnie. I might want to drink a full beer one day.”
His arm tightened and I noticed he wasn’t being good-natured Lonnie, playful in a pretend-like-she’s-your-little-sister way to hide you dig her.
His regard was serious and maybe even ticked.
“I asked you a question, Cady. You’ve like, totally disappeared. You get that big job then you say you gotta work all the time but you show up here with Wilson? What’s up with that?”
Assistant manager at Sip and Save was hardly a “big job.”
Then again, Lonnie didn’t have a job that I knew of, how he and Maria got their money I had no clue, and in that very moment I realized I didn’t have a clue not because I was clueless.
It was because I didn’t want to clue in.
“Lonnie,” I pushed at his hold on me with my neck as well as with my hand in his chest, “loosen up.”
He didn’t loosen, he tightened, and between my pushing and him tightening, I felt pain at my neck.
“Cady, I asked you a fuckin’ question.”
“You’re kinda hurting me,” I told him. “Please, loosen up.”
“I will when you answer my fuckin’ question,” Lonnie returned.
I opened my mouth but I didn’t have the chance to get anything out.
“She said loosen up.”
Oh boy.
That came from Tony and I could see Lonnie wasn’t happy, but now I could hear Tony wasn’t.
Shit!
Lonnie’s gaze slid to the side right before mine did and we saw Tony standing close.
Eyes locked on Lonnie and yes . . .
Totally not happy.
“You’re not in this,” Lonnie declared.
“She said loosen up,” Tony repeated.
“And, man, I said you’re not in this,” Lonnie reiterated, his hold on me getting tighter.
He may have backed down in that backyard months ago, but me walking in holding hands with Tony, drinking the beer Tony brought, Lonnie wasn’t backing down now. Lonnie was making a statement it wasn’t his to make ever, but especially not at a party where Maria was.
“Lonnie,” I whispered calmingly.