Chapter 20

Andrew

Gina looks so sad as she tells me about how mean she apparently was to Jake’s new girl. Then she tells me how much of a dick I was to her when she first started school.

I feel so fucking embarrassed when I realize I was the main reason she felt like she had to change so much. I was the reason we spent the last four years hating on each other.

What an asshole!

She starts to tease me a little, and without really thinking about it, I pull her close and wrap my arms around her slight frame. She smells like vanilla and apples.

We move apart slightly, and I can’t help but watch her tongue as it slowly moistens her naturally pouty lower lip. I swallow hard and move my head forward slightly.

~Was I actually gonna kiss the fucking ice queen?~

~

Someone clears their throat behind us, and we spring apart like we’ve been electrocuted.

“No, no! Don’t let me interrupt, please.” Jake stands in the doorway, grinning widely at us.

Gina flips him off and pushes past him back upstairs.

“And what, pray tell, were you just doing with my best friend?” Jake chuckles and pulls himself up onto the counter next to me.

I shake my head. “It was nothing.”

“Nothing.” He repeats, swinging his leg so it bumps into my hip. “Yeah, right that was fucking nothing. I could taste the chemistry in the fucking air when I opened the front door.”

I groan and run my hands up my face and through my hair, letting it flop back onto my forehead.

“She told me how much of a fucking douche I’ve been to her since she moved here.

“And especially after now knowing why she moved here in the first place…Fuck! Dude, I feel so fucking bad.” I sigh deeply, frowning down at the floor. “I’m surprised she talks to me at all.”

Jake jumps off the counter and stands in front of me, his hands resting on my shoulders, forcing me to make eye contact with him. His deep green eyes flash with emotion.

“Andy. I know both of you guys better than any other fucker, and if you like her like I think you like her, you have to tell her. Be straight. But be prepared to take it slow.”

I nod, feeling a smile spread across my face as I realize he’s giving me his blessing to make a move on Gina.

“And also be prepared to feel my fist meet your jaw again if you ever fucking hurt her, okay?” He grins, tilting his head to one side. I pull him in for a hug, slapping his back.

“I know, man. If she wants me, I won’t hurt her. I fucking swear to you.”

***

Drew groans and bangs his head onto the library desk, which is currently covered in college application forms. “Why the fuck do we need to do this now?”

PJ laughs, trying to push him back into an upright position. “Dude, I done told you not to get fucked up last night.”

“Yeah. Rookie mistake getting hammered on a school night.” Jake smirks. After Gina rejected him, Drew hooked up with one of last year’s seniors.

But as she was now a college student, that meant he had been, very easily mind you, persuaded to go to a party on a Wednesday night.

“I feel like my brain is trying to crawl out of my eyes.” Drew’s voice is muffled by his arm.

Jake rubs his hand up and down his face, tucking his hair behind his ears then untucking it again like he always does when he’s stressed.

His pen lid is so chewed I barely recognize that’s what it is. “I feel like my brain has already fucking left.”

“It’s not that fucking hard.” I lean back in my chair. “I can help you guys with your essays and shit. Just fill in the rest of it.”

“It’s okay for you, mister brainiac. Probably got your scholarship to Yale all ready set, right.” Drew squints at me. “Follow in daddy’s footsteps.”

I scowl. “Fuck you, dude,” I snap, pulling together all my stuff, pushing it angrily into my bag.

“Hey, man. Calm down. He’s a hungover dick. Ignore him.” PJ puts his hand on my arm. I pull it away, shaking my head. Drew does have the decency to look sheepishly at me as he realizes his fuck up.

“Nah, man. You can sort your own fucking applications out. I’m done.” As I stride out of the library, I hear my friends call out for me to come back, but fuck them.

I make my way to my next class and sink down in the chair next to where I know Gina will be sitting. I pull out my Yale acceptance letter and stare at it for the remainder of my free period.

I’m not aware of anyone else until Gina pokes me in the side. I quickly shove the letter into the pocket of my hoodie, hoping she didn’t see it.

“So…Yale huh? Early acceptance, right.” ~Fuck!~ ~She had seen it. I glance over at her. She’s leaning over toward me, a smile on her lips.

“Yeah. Pissed you haven’t got yours yet?” I smirk. There was always somewhat of an expectation for one, if not both of us, to be accepted to an Ivy League school.

Gina scowls and sits back in her chair, pushing her headphones into her ears.

“Fuck you, McGabe.”

~I really wish you would.~

~

***

“So, what the fuck was up with you earlier?” Jake pulls himself into my Jeep and slams the door shut.

“Dude!” He raises his hands apologetically.

“Sorry. Don’t know my own strength, obviously.” He chuckles. “But seriously. I’ve never seen you go off like that at ‘cha boys before.”

I sigh, leaning my head back on the headrest. “Two things Drew said pissed me off. Firstly telling me I’m going to follow in daddy’s footsteps…”

I glance over at him. Jake winces. My friends are well aware my real dad is a fucking loser. He got my mom pregnant when she was only fifteen.

Because he was twenty, my grandparents pushed for him to be charged with statutory rape. He found out and fucked off back to Puerto Rico to escape any charges.

Unfortunately, my genetics are all him and none of my mom, hence the black hair and brown eyes. Last she heard from him, he was in prison over there for auto theft.

My mom met her now husband, Mark, at Yale where they both studied medicine. He is the only dad I’ve ever known. “Secondly, I would love to go to Yale but…”

“But what?” Jake leans over. “I know you got in, dude. I saw the fucking letter.”

“I can’t leave my folks, my sisters… If I was across the country… I mean, who would look after them? My folks both need to work full time, especially if I was to go somewhere like Yale…”

I try to swallow the lump which has formed in my throat.

Jake pats me on the shoulder. “So, what are you gonna do instead?”

~That, my friend, is the million-dollar fucking question.~

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