Chapter 23

Darryl Nelson

As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted it. Why the fuck did I just admit I was a fucking virgin and worse than that, why did I just admit I wanted to have a memorable first time with the girl who I thought hated me as much as I hated her?

Stevie’s mouth dropped open. “But…but…you’re not…” She closes her mouth, looking blankly around her room for a second before fixing her ocean-colored eyes—one blue and one green—back on my face.

“But I’ve seen all those pictures on Instagram of you with all those girls…there’s no way you weren’t fucking them!”

I scoff, leaning back onto my elbows, picking up the plastic e-reader which jabs my back as I lay back. “They all wanted to, but I decided years ago I wanted quality over quantity.”

I scan the page she was reading, my eyes widening as I realize it’s a sex scene containing four people. She snatches it out of my hands, her cheeks bright red, clashing a little with her auburn hair.

We sit in tense silence for a moment, Stevie twirling some of her long hair around her finger pensively. “So…if I hadn’t been drunk, and you’d been sober…would you have stopped it going any further?”

She peeks at me from the corner of her eye, and I suck the silver ring which sits left of the middle of my bottom lip into my mouth, shrugging slowly.

“I thought you hated me?” I change the subject slightly, trying to figure out why she was so upset with the thought of me turning her down.

“I thought you hated me,” she throws back.

“True.” We sink back into silence.

“While we’re on that subject, I do think it’s a little hypocritical of you to suddenly start giving a shit about me after hating me for that same reason all these years.”

Stevie whips her head round towards me, a pucker of confusion between her eyes. “What?”

“That summer…I know you were there when my folks told yours about my issues. I needed you more than ever that year, but you left me to deal on my own.” Stevie shakes her head vehemently, her soulful eyes widening.

“I hated you because I loved you…I had the hugest crush on you, and I thought you liked me too. I thought that summer would be the summer we finally moved past being just friends…but then I watched as you went off with that girl with the big boobs.

“I saw you kissing her…touching her…I was sure you’d done it with her right there on the beach. My heart shattered into a million tiny pieces that day, Darryl.”

It’s my turn to shake my head. “No…Fuck! That’s not what happened at all! That girl was just there for me to take my frustration out on. Everyone expected me to be a fuck up, so I thought I’d start living up to my reputation.

“My folks were so down on me that year, I couldn’t do any-fucking-thing right in their eyes. But she wasn’t anyone special. She made me feel emptier inside, if that was even possible. Yeah, I could’ve fucked her, but she wasn’t you…I wanted to be kissing you that night.

“In fact, I finally got the guts up to come and tell you but by the time I came back to our hotel room you’d gone…just packed up all your shit and disappeared on me.

“I walked back to the beach, and I heard my mom and dad telling your folks that I was full of darkness, that I needed help, that I was broken inside.

“You were sitting right there, next to your mom…you heard how fucked up I was, and you dropped me like a piece of rotten meat for the flies to devour.

“You didn’t want anything to do with poor little fucked up Darryl, just the same as everyone else.” I’d lost a lot of my friends that year with my shitty attitude.

Stevie’s eyes glimmer with wetness, her bottom lip trembling a little.

“I-I didn’t know…I promise Darryl, I was so upset after seeing you with that girl that I wasn’t aware of anything else going on. If I’d known you were struggling back then I never would have left you! But you never said anything to me? You never told me you needed me?”

“I guess I kinda thought if I didn’t talk about it, it wasn’t real. Admitting to you that my head was fucked up and that I didn’t think how everyone else thought, was so fucking scary.” Her eyes scan my face as I blow out a breath.

“Darryl…you know I would never have judged you. You were my best friend, I loved you so deeply, even though we were only kids.” I lick my lips, my eyes falling to hers, tracking the movement of her tongue as she runs it along her bottom lip.

“Loved?” My voice is barely above a whisper. I straighten up, moving slowly towards her, the hitch in her breath cluing me in to the fact she’d clocked what I was intending to do.

As our breath starts to mingle, our lips just starting to touch, a loud bang from downstairs makes us both jump.

“Stevie! Darryl!” Grayson shouts up to us. “Are you coming over for dessert?!”

Stevie pulls away, giggling a little, her cheeks a warm pink color. “Yeah! We’ll be right down.”

I wait until she stands up with her back to me to adjust my junk in my jeans; the hint of a kiss with this girl making me rock hard in seconds. Cockblocked at the last fucking minute.

Everyone is still enjoying themselves when we walk into my backyard. My mom was laughing with her ex-bandmates, Mikey and Jerry, and her friends Derrick and his husband Chris, who owned a bar together that all our folks used to hang out at when they were at university.

My granddad and his wife, Helen, were manning the barbecue with Stevie’s granddad, Jimmy. Even Mr. McGee was here, sitting and talking to Stevie’s other grandparents, Noelle and Gareth.

My dad and AJ were lurking at the far end of the garden not so inconspicuously getting stoned.

From the looks of it, Vinnie had managed to talk Grayson and Stevie into some fantasy board game. Stevie’s bright smile makes something tighten in my chest.

“Hey, pipsqueak,” Stevie’s older sister, Carrie, nudges me with her shoulder. “What are you doing brooding over here in the shadows? Isn’t this impromptu party in your honor?”

“Hey, care-bear,” I sling an arm over her shoulders, pulling her in for a quick hug. “You do realize I’m like a foot taller than you now, I don’t think you can really keep calling me pipsqueak.”

“You’ll always be pipsqueak, pipsqueak,” she laughs. “So, what’s going on? Why aren’t you joining in with the festivities?”

I sigh, stepping back into the kitchen and taking a seat at the kitchen counter. Carrie follows, leaning her hip against the doorjamb.

“Do you think there’s ever a low point in a relationship which there is just no coming back from? Like, a misunderstanding so big there’s no way either of you can get over?”

“Fuck no! Just look at how both our parents met. Your folks hated each other at first because of a misunderstanding, and so did mine, and now look at them,” she gestures out the French doors.

My mom and George are practically in tears laughing at my dad and AJ who are both really fucking high, trying to pass a football between themselves.

My mom was actually looking more like her old self today, her skin less pallid and her eyes brighter. “Whatever has happened can always be undone.”

“What if you’ve lost too many years to some fucking misplaced sense of pride?” My voice catches at the end of my sentence, and Carrie frowns.

“What’s going on, Darryl?”

“I fucked everything up, Carrie. And I’m not sure I can put it right again.”