Page 59 of Never His Girl
We stare in the general direction of where Vin’s just disappeared on an elevator, dialing someone on his phone seconds before the doors close between us.
“So… to be clear, just the tow truck, right?” Nelson asks, sounding confused as hell by the show of dominance he just witnessed between my father and me.
“Yeah,” I answer with a sigh. “Have them drop it at the nearest body shop for now.”
He’s about to walk away when I call out to him again.
“Nelson?”
He faces me, looking like he wishes he’d called in sick today. “Sir?”
“This isn’t on you,” is all I say, but it seems to make a world of difference.
He offers a dim smile. “Thank you, sir.”
With that, he returns to his booth and gets back on his job.
Dane shakes his head, staring at the car beside me and Sterling. “Guess we don’t have to wonder what happens when you piss off a south side girl,” he jokes.
“No shit,” Sterling adds. “I wasn’t gonna mention it, but watching her and Rodriguez swing those bats was actually kind of hot.”
I glare at him from the corner of my eye.Hotisn’t exactly the word I have in mind.
“At least you have your answer,” Dane cuts in.
When I shift a questioning gaze toward him, he shrugs.
“You wanted to know if she still cares, if anything you’ve done has mattered,” he explains.
I look at the mess she made of my baby again and try to understand howthisis proof ofthat.
“A hundred bucks says this is Southside’s response to Pandora sharing that half-assed post about you and Parker. If she didn’t care, I guarantee she wouldn’t have flipped out and gone allGirl, Interruptedon your ass.”
His response has me patting both pockets for my phone. When I find it, I’m on the hunt for whatever this post is he’s talking about. I only scroll for a few seconds before the picture pops up.
“The fuck?”
Staring at the image, anger rises in me like the tide. If this hadn’t already been a shit night, it definitely is now. I go from wanting to kill Vin, to wanting to kill whoever the fuck Pandora really is.
I rush toward the Chevelle and unlock it
“You taking off?” Sterling asks.
“Just do me a favor and stick around until they take the car,” I call out, dropping down behind the wheel of the work-of-art I’m grateful Southside didn’t realize isalsomine. If she had, there’s not a doubt in my mind I’d be footing the bill to getbothcars fixed.
It’s still hard to believe she had the balls to come here—the building where I live—to ruin my shit. But maybe what Dane said is true, and this wasn’t just a random-ass act of destruction. If that’s the case, and this was Southside’s response to thinking something went on between me and Parker tonight, then this counts as a win.
I mean, it’s a fucking loss for my car, but in me and Southside’s twisted slice of existence, it serves as proof she’s not dead inside when it comes to me. Not like she tries to pretend when I walk her from class to class in silence. Not when she bailed on me after semifinals.
So, as I barrel through the streets of downtown Cypress Pointe, headed to the other side of the city, I have one goal in mind. Southside and I are about to own our shit. Whatever that means. All of it.
And no matter what happens, I’m not leaving until it’s done.
Chapter 21
WEST
Someone honks at a jaywalker as I move toward the front door, stepping through the dead leaves that’ve gathered in Southside’s yard. I’m not only anxious to get inside and figure out what the hell was going through her head when she swung that bat. I’m also kind of desperate to know if Dane’s theory checks out.