She glanced over at Dante and said, “I think he’s cute, why?”
“Because I heard he has a crush on you,” I drawled, waiting for her reaction.
Cece perked up, getting excited. “Really, who told you that, Caleb?” Hearing his name made me miss him more than I already did.
“Yep, he said Dante wanted me to put in a good word with you.”
“Consider the good word put in,” Cece responded, ditching me to go sit by Dante. The girl didn’t have a shy bone in her body.
With Cece gone, Jared took her spot. “How’s it going, Gigi?”
I gave him a fake, sweet smile. “Jared, why don’t you just ask what you really want to know?”
“Fine, are you still dating that loser?”
Scowling at him, I answered in the same rude tone, “Yes, I’m still dating Caleb.”
“Why isn’t he here with you then?” Jared asked, pretending to look around.
“We don’t have to spend every minute together. We can have separate lives, too.” Taking a drink out of my beer, I acted unconcerned.
“Uh-huh,” Jared said knowingly. “So, you invited him and he didn’t want to come?”
“It wasn’t like that. I sort of sprung it on him at the last minute.”
“If you were my girl, I’d want to be here with you, no matter how last minute the invite was.” Why didn’t he go find some other girl to date? Jared was hot and pretty girls were always flirting with him when we went to battles.
After Jared walked away, I drank some more and started feeling sorry for myself. I really missed Caleb. A part of me wanted to leave the camping trip early to be with him. Wouldn’t that seem kind of desperate, though?
Why hadn’t he wanted to come? What was he doing right now? He better not have been doing what he threatened to do and went out where there were a bunch of girls. I hated girls! They were all dirty whores after my boyfriend. I was going to drive myself crazy thinking about it.
CALEB
I woke up on Saturday around one o’clock in the afternoon at my mom’s apartment. She’d had to go into work today to finish up a project. Otherwise she would’ve probably been questioning me right now about why I slept on the couch. I didn’t want to have to explain that Hailey was sleeping in my room. She knew Hailey and I were just friends, but she also thought Hailey was a bad friend for me to have.
From a parent’s point-of-view, she was right. Hailey wasn’t the kind of girl any mom would want her teenage son to hang out with. Although, I wasn’t exactly a good kid myself. Sitting up on the couch, I rubbed a hand over my face, thinking about how Hailey got us kicked out of a club last night.
After she’d gotten into a fight with some girl, she’d cussed out the bouncer who broke it up. He’d ended up carrying her out of the place and depositing her on the sidewalk outside. I’d finally got her drunk-ass calmed down and brought her here to sleep it off. As entertaining as it always was, it was hard work hanging out with someone like her.
Needing to use the bathroom, I passed by my room and peeked inside. She was still asleep face down on my bed. Shit, there was drool on my pillow. That was going in a dumpster.
As I walked back into the living room, there was a knock on the front door. No one asked to be buzzed up so it was probably a neighbor. Going over to the couch, I picked up my jeans from last night, pulling them up as I went to answer the door.
It was a pleasant surprise to find Gianna on the other side of the door. “Hey, how’d you get up here?”
“Surprise! I couldn’t remember your exact apartment number, but someone buzzed me up,” she explained, looking sheepish.
She threw her arms around me, putting her head on my chest. “I missed you, Caleb. I know I’m the biggest loser ever, leaving the camping trip early to see my boyfriend, but I couldn’t help it. Being away from you sucked so bad. Especially with the way we left things. I don’t want to fight with you. I’m sorry for being a bitch.”
Enjoying having her in my arms again, I kissed the top of her head. “I missed you too, princess, and I’m sorry for being a jackass.” She peeked up at me with a smile and I stroked one blushing cheek.
“So, what’d you do last night? Were you totally bored without me?” she teased, leaning into my hand.
Crap. How did I answer that question? I didn’t actually do anything wrong. At least I didn’t think so. Boyfriends were allowed to have female friends, right? To be safe, I’d better not mention Hailey. She’d probably be passed out for a while longer and I could get Gianna out of here quickly.
“Nothing much, just hung out with Dante.”