Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
“But you want to go to church?” he said.
“Why do I feel like you’re judging me, Kyle?”
His cheeks turned red. “I’m not.”
I snorted, and it was only when a beat of silence passed between us that I noticed Robert and his friends had stopped arguing over which Marvel hero had the best powers. In fact, the entire cafeteria was quieter than normal.
A palpable tension hung in the air as though everyone was afraid to speak or breathe too loudly. And fear in this place usually stemmed from one person…
My gaze drifted back to Hendrix’s table and the vacuum of space around it, vacant of the usual girls trying to cozy up to Dayton’s bad boys.
Hendrix sat in front of his untouched food, shirt still bloodied and ripped, jaw ticcing, bandaged knuckles rapping over the tabletop. He looked like an agitated cat, tail swishing back and forth in warning. Even Wolf darted nervous glances at him.
Suddenly, Hendrix shoved up from his table.
Every muscle coiled as he grabbed some poor kid’s lunch tray, crossed the aisle, and swung it at the back of one of the jock’s heads so hard the plastic broke.
The football player collapsed onto the dirty cafeteria floor. “How’s that for sucking Taylor’s dick like a champ? Keep her name out of your fucking mouth.”
A collective “oh” echoed around the lunchroom. I felt my cheeks heat when gazes shifted to me. Whatever had happened earlier in the day seemed to be having a trickle effect.
Coach Todd rushed over, snatching Hendrix by his collar, and herding him out of the cafeteria.
I couldn’t help but feel guilty that Ethan was using me to get to Hendrix. Or was he using Hendrix to get to me? After all, I was the one who had gotten his dad sent to jail.
* * *
I looked for Hendrix at his locker after every change of class, and when I didn’t see him, I could only assume he’d been suspended. Kyle drove out of the school parking lot while I shot off a text to Hendrix asking if he was okay.
He wasn’t mine to worry about, but I couldn’t help myself. Hendrix was irrational at the best of times, and given whatever altercation he’d had with Ethan that morning, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d gone to Barrington.
The last thing he needed to do was mess around with Ethan again.
With each ignored text message, I grew more and more anxious, and as I took a seat in the back pew of Parkway Church, I couldn’t deny it felt kind of wrong coming here without him.
I guess one could say sin and debauchery were our version of a date night.
The pastor gave his spiel about everyone’s damned soul while I tried not to let his monotone voice send me to sleep.
Then came the moment I’d been waiting on. The ominous notes of the organ filled the small sanctuary, and one of the deacons passed the offering tray to the lady in the front pew. It circulated through the crowd before it reached me. A fifty sat on top of the mountain of money.
Who knew people in Dayton were so generous?
For the sake of any prying eyes, I took a dollar from my pocket, placed it on the tray, then tucked the fifty into my sleeve. Hendrix and I had resorted to this many times as kids. I was ashamedly proud to say I’d become pretty good at it.
The man beside me took the tray and I pushed to my feet. The notes of the organ followed me out into the entrance hall, where I swiped a free box of pizza before heading outside to Kyle’s waiting car.
I tossed the pizza to the back seat and shut the door.
Kyle sped away from the church, frowning as I stuffed the cash into my pocket. “Did you steal that?”
“You shouldn’t ask questions you don’t want answers to, Kyle.”
“You’re going to hell, Lola.”
How was Kyle this sheltered? I’d been best friends with him since we were kids.
“Dayton is hell,” I said. “And churches give to the poor and desperate. I’m poor and desperate.” It wasn’t a lie, although stealing charity did seem like a pretty low low.
“I don’t think that’s what they mean,” he said, the engine of his little Honda coughing when it turned onto Hendrix’s street.
The car tried to stall a few more times before a terrible noise came from the hood. Then the engine cut out.
“The wheel locked up!” Kyle panicked before the front wheel bumped over the curb and the car came to a stop. “Fuck. It’s dead!”
Kyle never swore. “Now, who’s going to hell? Profanity.”
He took a puff of his inhaler, then another as he tried to crank the car. A disappointing click, click, click came from the hood.
“It’s fine.” I unbuckled my seatbelt. “We can push it.”