Chapter 8

Bella

As soon as I set foot in Daisy's, know I've stepped onto a minefield. It looks like your typical American diner: black and white checked floors, red and white vinyl booths, jukeboxes on every table, and walls crammed with pictures of the owner—you guessed it, Daisy —hugging legendary athletes and local celebrities.

The menu flashes in pink and green neon letters above the silver bar. Packed, noisy, and carrying the mouthwatering scent of deep-fried onions and burgers, this place is heaven for our semi-drunken asses. We slip into the guys' booth, but I can't shake off the feeling that something terrible is about to happen.

Everyone orders a milkshake. Knight's hair is so tousled and his lips are so puffy it looks like a bear has assaulted him. Guys are so weird. They can love a girl to death but still mess with other people. The guys order an obscene amount of food. The girls get Cobb salads and french fries. I decide to stick to my vanilla and chocolate milkshake.

Ariel makes a police siren noise, sprinkling it with a burp. "Yo. Loser alert at three o'clock."

We all twist our heads to the side and see the Las Jun football crowd sitting in a booth opposite to ours. The only person I recognize James who seems tight with Tyler , the handsome African-American dude.

Tyler is wearing a black shirt with a hole where the heart is and unintentionally baggy Levi's that're worn to death. His wallet chain is intact, and he is munching on an unlit cigarette he is never going to smoke, he is talking to the waitress who is taking their order. Adriana. Adriana.

"Are they still bitter about the loss?" Via cackles, slurping her milkshake. Luna is scrolling through the Instagram page of the Italian artist Lisa went to over the summer, and I know why.

"Dunno, don't care." Ariel snorts, and I know my instincts about the minefield were right. I don't want another altercation with Tyler. They don't know I told him what they did.

"Tyler seems over it. They don't call it the cave of wonders for nothing." Via raises her phone and snaps a picture of Tyler and Adriana laughing as she stands over him with the notepad.

"Here, Luna. I'm sending you a souvenir to the fact that you're pathetic." Via laughs.

"Are you still maybe pregnant?"

"Shut up, bitch." Luna goes eerily white. Marx, please don't let her be pregnant. It's like an ice pick in my chest, digging deep.

"Don't be sad, girl. You'll probably get a round on this stallion when he cleans your pool in oh, about five years or so." Sun yawns, examining her pink/tipped fingernails.

Ariel slurps his milkshake extra noisily. "What does Luna have to do with Tyler ?" Luna flips her hair and pretends to laugh.

I can see how badly she wants to cry, and it almost makes me feel sorry for her. "I may have taken him home after the fight. He was the next best thing after Knight." The next best thing.

Ash throws his head back and hoots, slapping the table. "Tyler and Adriana are, like, damn serious. The golden couple of Las Jun. Have been for about two years. Dude. They have a fucking baby together. Congrats, L. You were officially the other woman for half a minute." Have a baby together. I choke on my milkshake, spitting some of it back into the straw when no one's looking.

Ash delivers the news with such casual confidence, and I know he truly believes every word. I look back at Tyler and the waitress again.

Leaning on his table, she whispers something into his ear, and he lifts his thumb and chucks her nose playfully. He hasn't noticed me—or if he has, he hasn't made eye contact yet—but it's too late to play nice. The anger inside me is growing by the nanosecond, and I know I'm about to burst.

He kissed me. He touched me. My thigh even gave his dick a handshake. So many things a guy with a girlfriend and a baby shouldn't do. I glance at them again, and Adriana looks left and right, before settling in Tyler's lap. She has long, shiny, straight black hair and deep dark eyes. She looks exotic, her dark skin deeply glowing like honey.

Maybe we're the same age, but I get a feeling she is just...more. I'm so jealous I can't breathe. Looking away is a herculean task, but I manage. Somehow. Ash drums the table and howls like a dog.

"Yo, Addy," he yells. Addy? He knows this bitch?

"Are you gonna make another baby with this loser in the middle of the diner, or are you gonna give us our food? No jizz in my burger, please. There's enough protein in the meat." Everyone at our table laughs, and my gaze locks with Tyler. Adriana looks back and forth between us, and something floats over her face.

A dark something I know all too well. You have it, too. A Hulk of your own. "You know her?" I read her lips as she ducks her head down to Tyler, frowning.

"No" I read his lips as he tucks a hair behind her ear. "Just a chick from ASH."

There's a stiff ball inside my throat, and I think it might be my heart. Adriana stands up, flipping Ash the finger. They obviously know each other. Maybe the jocks frequent this place more than we do. I look away before I cry. I was so focused on Tyler's hatred of me that I forgot I hate him, too.

"So, Bella, how's Richard?" Knight asks, loud and clear, throwing extra swagger into his cocky smile. It takes me one second, in which his eyes swiftly dart to Tyler, then land back on mine, before I understand what he is doing. Getting back at my housemate for me. Saving my honor. Do I really look like I need this win? "A lady doesn't tell," I purr, flashing a smile and tossing back my flowered hair.

"I'd tap it." Via points at me with her straw, then sucks on its bottom tip. It is clear she has a dog in this fight. She needs to show that she gives no damns about him either. "I mean Richard."

"Not you."

"Right?" I laugh. "I love that he's a real man. Not some boy with a chip on his shoulder." I wonder if you can rot from within while still being alive.

A girlfriend. Tyler has a girlfriend. And a baby. He is such a filthy cheater. Adriana sways her curvy hips to our table with two trays full of food. She starts distributing them, a chirp in her voice. "Cheeseburger with avocado and blue cheese?" Ariel raises his hand.

"Prime hot meat with extra spicy sauce?"

"You can just call me Knight, baby." he takes the hot plate from her and winks. She actually blushes. Maybe she cheats on Tyler, too.

Too bad Jerry Springer retired. They'd make perfect guests. "Are you waiting for anything, sweetie?" She pops her gum in my general direction, I know she remembers me. I flash a syrupy smile, crossing my arms on my chest. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it.

"Just for you to take your trailer park ass away from me before I catch a disease." Everyone sucks in a collective breath, and the room goes silent. So silent. Too silent. I'm panicking, but no one can see that. I'm still smirking. Knight places his hand on my shoulder as everyone starts glancing at each other, absorbing my words.

"Excuse me?" Adriana's voice prickles. Her pupils are so big I can see myself in them. "You heard me. I'm not interested in eating somewhere the waitress is parking her ass on customers. I think you got it all mixed up. This is not your night shift at your local strip club, sweetie."

"Burn!" Ash cups his mouth with his fist and coughs.

"Bella" Knight warns. Normally, he'd drag my ass out and give me a piece of his mind. Not today. He and I both know he can't be that much of a hypocrite. If he saw someone hitting on Rose, he would rip them to shreds and dump whatever's left of them on the side of the road. I've seen him screw people up for less than looking at her.

The only problem is, Tyler is not my Rose. We don't have some long, elaborate, angsty childhood friendship that's dancing on the edge of more.

"Get the hell out of here." Adriana bares her teeth, and they are white, pearly, and a tad smaller than most people's. An imperfection I'm sure he admires. She is no longer chewing her gum. It's just hanging there, stuck to her bottom teeth. I yawn provocatively, staying put. Everyone is salivating over our exchange.

Everyone other than her boyfriend, who just stares at me from across the diner with murder in his eyes. Busted, jerk. I would tell her how good her boyfriend's tongue felt in my mouth if I didn't have my reputation to keep.

"I'm a paying customer. You're cum dumpster. Who do you think should leave again?" I flip my hair.

She lifts her arm to take a swing at me. I think this will be the day I finally get slapped for being a bitch. But before she can follow through, Tyler is standing behind her, holding her wrist in his hand. He lowers it slowly, his eyes hard on mine. "Get your ass out of the booth, Thomson." He flips the menu on my cell phone, which I'm pretending to study with interest.

"Sorry, I don't take orders from lowlifes." I suck the milkshake out of my straw, batting my eyelashes. My nose is probably red from the sun, and my hair is wild and wavy from the braid I had today.

His pupils dilate when he sees my messy, disheveled version. Tyler grabs me by the elbow and hauls me out of the booth. My skin rubs against the vinyl and creates a funny noise that makes me even angrier. I shake him off.

"I don't want to talk to you." I'd spit in his face, but I don't want to make a scene.

"Should have thought of that before you acted like a brat. Whoever follows us gets punched in the face. Guys. Girls. Wildlife. Don't fucking care." He hoists me over one shoulder and carries me out.

"Tyler! Wait!" Adriana lets out a shriek. I lift my head from his triangle back and watch Adriana jogging behind us before stopping, like she knows she shouldn't. Knight and Ariel stand to interfere, but Ash yanks them both down by the back of their collars. "Sit."

"Are they, like, happening?" Via whisper-shouts, her mouth agape. Ash snorts and throws a french fry at her. "Nah. Just an old childhood beef." He doesn't know anything—he is just covering for me—but he nailed it.

Tyler throws the door to the diner open and stalks me into the alleyway behind it, sandwiched between an auto shop and the diner. He puts me down and takes a step back, like he, too, can't control himself. I lean against a huge Smock Test sign with coffee stains all over it and fold my arms. He paces back and forth, waiting for me to say something. But I shouldn't be the one explaining myself.

"You need to apologize to Adriana," he clips.

"You need to apologize to me," I say, still tucked firmly in the role of the cold-ass bitch.

"You put your hands on me when you had a girlfriend. I'm not that kind of girl."

"You're definitely that kind of girl." He stops, staring at me through hooded eyes. A vicious smirk twists his lips as he sticks it to me.

"You're the type of girl who would fuck a married man without batting an eyelash just to prove she can. You let me put my hands and tongue on you, already knowing that I have a girlfriend, so don't play the fucking saint." For the first time since I learned how to talk, I'm at a loss for words. I know he actually believes that. He would always think the worst of me. He is slowly morphing into my mother, losing faith in me, too. I turn around and stomp my way back into the diner to get my phone and call an Uber. He clasps my wrist and jerks me back. I twist toward him and slap him in the face. It's a knee-jerk reaction, and he doesn't see it coming.

He stumbles back—not from the slap but from the shock. His eyes burn my face as they drink me in. There's a current dancing between us, and I'm afraid to move, knowing it could electrify me. "I will never touch someone who isn't mine to touch. But you did. Don't turn this around on me, Carter. You screwed around behind your baby momma's back with the ice princess because you wanted to prove you could. But you know what? You are right about one thing. I'm selling myself short. Kissing you. Humoring you. I'm done ghosting my wake-up calls." With that, I try to dart back to Daisy's, but he scoops me up from the ground like I'm a toddler, and this time, my back crashes against the wall. He grabs my throat and squeezes, kissing me so hard my lips bruise. I ball my fists and rain them on his chest, ripping his holey shirt farther and dragging my fingernails across his exposed skin.

"I hate you," I cry.

"God, I do. I hate you so much." His hands meet the back of my knees, and he hoists me up. I knot my legs around his waist. He cups my face and squashes it as if he is milking this kiss out of me. "Yet you're still fucking kissing me. With the girlfriend. And the baby. A whole fucking lot."

"Fuck you." My tears are unstoppable, raining down hard and fast. My body shudders violently as the sobs rip through me. We're swallowing each other's words and secrets and lies with our mouths. My body moves with his. He groans into my lips as though it's painful. As though he wants to pull away, but he can't.

"Well well well, not what I excepted but I'm surprised" I shove Tyler away when I hear Ash behind us.

"I didn't know you liked Trash Bella," he says smirking

"What the fuck do you want Ash" I say aggressively fixing my top.

"Tell lover boy here to lose the match on Monday or I post this fucking video"