Fighting Silence (On the Ropes #1)(9)

“Stop avoiding my questions.” He grabbed my arm to stop me. “What’s got you hiding out, crying in the dark?”

I let out a sigh, knowing there would be no getting out of this. Whether I told him tonight or not, I was sure he’d hear first thing Monday morning when the high school gossip train pulled into the station.

“Daniel hooked up with Crystal,” I stated emotionlessly, but my chin started to quiver.

“Bennett? No way,” he said in disbelief.

“Totally true.” I tugged my arm out of his grip and retrieved a can of ravioli and a fork. “Crystal confessed.”

He took the can from my hand but kept questioning me. “Wait. Your girl, Crystal?” Then he peeled back the pull-tab and shoveled a spoonful into his mouth.

“Yep. She called to inform me that they were star-crossed lovers. She rambled about some Romeo and Juliet bullshit then told me they had spent a night under the stars in the back of his car losing their virginity to each other.” I summarized her words with my own personal bitchy flare of sarcasm.

Till choked on a laugh, spraying cheap red sauce onto my face. With the night I’d had, I didn’t even have a reaction to having been covered with spit and ravioli. It was merely the brown icing on the shit cake.

Placing the can down, he rushed forward. “Shit. Sorry,” he chuckled. Lifting the bottom of his shirt, he wiped my face clean—including a few hidden tears that had managed to escape my eyes. “Did you tell her that Romeo was no virgin?”

My eyes snapped to his. “He wasn’t?”

“Um . . .” He stalled, nervously rocking to his toes as his eyes flashed around the room.

“Till?”

“It’s cool, Doodle. Bennett’s got one hell of a mouth.”

“What exactly is cool?” I narrowed my eyes, but my cheeks began to heat.

I was closer to Till Page than I was to anyone else in the world, but he was still a guy, and I was a seventeen-year-old girl who was still a virgin. This conversation was awkward.

“Ya know . . . You and Bennett. It’s none of my business.” Thankfully, he seemed just as uncomfortable. “I mean, you guys were together for, like, a year. Everyone kinda figured you were, anyway.”

“They figured we were what?” My embarrassment slipped as my blood began to boil. Unfortunately for me, I cried when I was angry and Till’s next words ripped open the floodgates.

“I mean, he . . . uh, told everyone that you guys were doing it.” He paused as my eyes grew wide. “Like, on the regular.”

“What!” I gasped even though I wasn’t really shocked. That was what teenage boys did right? They lied about sex. The only problem was that this lie was about me. Tears dripped down my face as I managed to croak out, “We never . . .”

“Fuck,” Till cussed, immediately stepping forward, dragging me into his chest. I could feel his heart pounding and his muscles tense as I unnecessarily ran my hands up his sides. “I’ll fix it,” he soothed.

“You planning to turn back time? Because I’m pretty sure there is no fixing this.”

Right then and there, I vowed to castrate Daniel Bennett. I’d originally intended for it to be a thought, but when I felt Till’s chest begin shaking, I realized I had issued my threat out loud.

“You’ll lie to the cops for me when I follow through with that, right? I’ll need an alibi.” I lifted my head to catch his gaze.

He barked out a laugh. “No, I don’t want to be the alibi. I’ll be happy to hold him down for you though.” He smiled, rubbing his hand up and down my back.

Till and I weren’t exactly touchy-feely, but we didn’t shy away from affection, either. When my mother had shredded the sketchbook she’d found in my backpack during our freshman year, Till had held me for hours as I’d cried. It was the first time I’d realized how much I had come to not only rely on him, but trust him as well. He knew my life and didn’t judge me because of it. We were two of a kind. We might not have been the only poor kids with screwed-up parents, but sometimes, it really felt that way.

“Oh, God. I’m going to look like such an idiot at school on Monday. Not only was I supposedly having monkey sex with Daniel, but it wasn’t even good enough to keep him from sleeping with my best friend,” I whined, stomping my foot for good measure.

“Monkey sex?” Till asked with humor filling his voice.

“Shut up. You know what I mean.”

He hadn’t yet released me, so I buried my head back into his chest. If he was offering, I was taking.

“You want me to kick his ass?” He made it sound like a joke, but I knew he was very serious.

“No,” I mumbled. My answer had far less to do with worrying about Daniel’s safety and everything to do with not wanting Till to get in trouble for doing it.

“Want me to spread some shit about Crystal?” He dropped his arms around my waist and rested his chin on the top of my head.

“No. What I want you to do is find a way to bottle chlamydia so we can give it to both of them.”

“Right. I’ll begin researching that tomorrow. I know a few girls who could probably supply us with a sample.”

“Ew. That’s disgusting. Please tell me Helen isn’t one of them?” I took a step out of arms, and his eyes danced with humor.