Sidekick (16 page)

“Not true!” Charlie says. “We need your prodigy chef brain for more awesome burgers.”

I laugh, but stop when Old Man Parker gets serious. You can tell the change in him. It’s small, like going from glower to grimace. He looks me straight in the eye and says, “If you wanna stay, we’d be happy to have you as a paid employee.”

My eyes go wide. “Oh.”

Charlie punches my arm. “The late night shift would be boring without you.”

Nobody works at Parker’s but, well, Parkers. It’s like he’s asking me to be part of his family, and that’s a huge honor. But at the same time, I don’t know if I can swing it. The hours have been killing me. And if I really did take it as a job, I’d have to admit to people that I flip burgers. The best burgers around, but still.

“Can I think about it?” I say. “With school and stuff, I’m just not sure.”

Old Man Parker nods. “The offer stands. Whenever you want to take it, it’s there.”

“Thanks.” I look down and swallow the lump in my throat. “That means a lot.”

The bell rings for a customer. I automatically head out, since Charlie’s covered in dough and Old Man Parker traditionally has the grill. It’s almost 3 a.m. anyway, so I should be safe. I push through the two-way door. “Sorry for th—”

I freeze.

Garret stands there, his arm wrapped around Keira.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I try to move, try to speak, but nothing comes. All I can see is Keira’s face, her wide eyes and open mouth. She doesn’t have to say anything for me to know what she’s thinking:
Oh shit, I got caught.

And I’m caught, too, but not quite like she is.

“Russ?” Garret finally breaks the silence. “You work here?”

I suck in a breath and try to contain the pressure building in my chest. “Not exactly.”

He and Keira exchange a confused look.

“Let’s just say I lost a bet with Trent.”

“Ah.” Garret smiles, but it cracks. “Um, sorry I didn’t tell you about us. We didn’t tell anyone. I just broke up with Mercedes, and with the…uh…”

“We wanted to ease people into it.” Keira hardly looks guilty, though she won’t meet my eyes.

“Yeah.” Garret squeezes her. “That’s it. I felt really bad about not telling you. We had to make it look like we weren’t together because we didn’t want everyone to freak out. I hope you’re not mad at me.”

I shake my head. No, I’m not mad at
him
. As much as it hurts, I have to ask, “How long?”

He winces. “That first night we met her here. Keira told me to come over, so we hooked up after I took you home.”

Hearing that is like a punch to the gut. I thought I had a chance, but I had no clue just how good my competition was. What was I thinking trying to beat Garr at this game? He’s a pro when it comes to girls, and I’m an amateur. I’m an idiot for feeling like I was anything more than the sidekick.

“Wow,” is all I manage to get out.

“I’m so sorry,” he says again, like that’ll help.

It’s all coming together now, how he used me. He made me think he was trying to impress her, but he’d already done more than enough of that. I was the tool they planned to use to “ease people into it,” and I did exactly what they wanted me to. I got Garr into anime night. I kept things in balance at school. I gave them their dance on Halloween. I covered for him whenever Dallas got suspicious.

“Don’t worry about it.” I just want to get them out of here as fast as possible. “I should probably take your order now.”

“Oh, right.” Garret orders his usual double meal, and then looks to Keira. “What do you want, babe?”

The intimate way he says it makes my skin crawl. I called her that. I held her that way. Earlier today, actually. How could she do that to me? She knows Garr and I are best friends, and she turned me into an even bigger traitor than I thought I already was. But maybe that’s why she took the risk. She’s knows I won’t say a word, both for Garret’s sake and my own.

“I’m not really hungry,” Keira says.

I’ll bet she’s not.

Garret frowns. “But you just said you were starving.”

She sighs. “I’ll have a single, then.”

“Are you sure you don’t want two? You could always save the other one for later,” I say.

For a second she looks hurt, but she brushes it off. “One’s just fine.”

I put in their order, get their drinks, serve them their food. They sit next to each other in a booth, not facing me. She laughs at something he says, like nothing’s wrong. And here I am, the burger boy that served them. In more ways than one.

Second best.

Late to the game.

A loser.

I take out my anger on the dough, kneading and pounding it as hard as I can. I can’t stop thinking about her, how she said I made things difficult, how she couldn’t stop thinking about me. She was already with Garret. She was the one who knew she was doing something wrong, and she did it anyway.

Not just once, either. How long would it have gone on if they hadn’t come in tonight? How
far
would we have gone? It’s only been a week, and she was already hinting that I should buy condoms. She was totally fine convincing both of us to keep it a secret. She used our friendship against us.

“Dude, you okay?” Charlie asks. “The dough would be crying for mercy if it could talk.”

“Sorry.” I stop, realizing that I’m breathing hard. “A lot of stuff on my mind.”

“No worries.” Charlie takes the dough and shapes it into buns on a baking sheet. “You want to talk about it?”

I shake my head. How can I explain that I unknowingly cheated with my best friend’s secret girlfriend? It sounds like a freaking soap opera. It also makes me sound pathetic.

When Mrs. Parker comes in for the early morning shift, I go home. Izzy’s Dork Squad is sprawled out in the living room. I don’t think I’ll be able to chill out with them again, and that hurts more than I expected. I didn’t have to be Russ Pearson the Football Player with them, but I don’t think I can stand seeing Garret and Keira together.

I head upstairs, even though Izzy shouts my full name. I throw my jacket and shirt on the floor and fall into bed. For a second, I wonder if it really happened. Maybe it was a dream and I’ve been in bed this whole time.

But then my phone buzzes. The text is from Keira, and for once I’m not racing to open it.
Sorry.

My anger flares up.
Sorry u got caught.

No. Shouldn’t have done that, messed up.

I hate that I want to believe her, that the thought of not being with her makes me feel empty inside.
Why, then?

Cuz ur so amazing and real and ur such a good kisser.

I close my eyes. Breathe slowly. I will not cry over this. It was only a week, and obviously I completely misjudged her. Trent was right—she’s kind of a messed-up bitch. I don’t know how he knew, but he totally called it.

Garret. Part of me is furious he didn’t tell me, but then I wonder how much of that came from Keira. When I think about it, he was giving me hints. Like when he said that he thought he almost had her. Maybe they were getting close to going public, but then she kissed me and came up with that crap about Izzy not approving of him.

I have to get him away from her. If she can cheat on him with his best friend, there’s no telling what else she’s capable of. Garr will get hurt eventually, even if he never finds out about me.

I open up a blank text and type my last message to Keira:
If u cheat on Garr again, I’ll make sure he knows what u are.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Russ?” Daphne says. “Are you okay?”

I groan in reply, pulling my pillow over my head to block out the sound. Too early. Too much crap in my life.

“Are you sick?”

I grunt.

“Okay…Izzy is making pancakes and bacon and she wants to know if you want any.”

My stomach grumbles. I had decided I wasn’t even going downstairs for food, but if someone else is cooking maybe I could manage to eat. Rolling over, I find Daphne hovering in the doorway, like coming into my room would be entering another dimension. Her hair is everywhere and her pinched brow says she’s worried.

“Can you bring it up here?” I ask.

“Sure.” She disappears, her footsteps pattering down the hall.

I force myself out of bed to pee. My whole body feels sore, and all the tackles I took last night come flooding back. It always hits the next day, when the bruises are fully formed. There’s a nice purple one on my hip. I’m back in bed long before Daphne comes with the food.

She knocks softly, like a warning.

“Come in.”

I sit up just as she takes a seat on my bed. She holds out a tray filled with food—pancakes, bacon, a banana, and orange juice. When I take it, she pulls two pills out of her pocket. “Here, for the hangover.”

“I’m not hung over,” I say, taking them anyway. I’m so tired of lying. I’m so tired of doing this alone, truly alone. Garret…I still can’t believe he didn’t tell me. Why didn’t he just tell me? Then I wouldn’t have acted so stupid. “I was working at Parker’s.”

Her dark eyes widen. “Oh.”

“Garr and Keira came in. Together.” I stuff a piece of bacon in my mouth to combat the bad taste of those words.

Her jaw drops. “Together? Like,
together
together?”

I nod.

“Wow. I had no idea they were dating. I mean, he obviously liked her, but she was so flirty with…” She winces. “You. I thought maybe you guys were—”

As much as I want to, I can’t tell her that much. She’d think I’m a creep. “I’m pretty confused, too.”

She’s quiet for a second and I can feel her eyes on me. It drives me crazy when she does that, like she can look right into my soul and know everything I’m not saying. “But you like her.”

I choke on the orange juice. Her eyes meet mine, and I can’t help but feel ashamed. Keira—what did I like about her again? It’s like I turned a blind eye to everything wrong with her just because I didn’t want Garret to have her. Keira never looks at me like Izzy or Garret do, like she actually cares. It was all a game to her, and I fell for it.

“I thought I did,” I finally say. “But that was a big mistake. I just…I can’t believe neither of them told me, you know?”

“That does seem kind of messed up.” She plays with her chunky neon green bangle. “How long have they been dating?”

“Since she moved here.”

Her eyes go wide. “Seriously?”

I nod.

“That sucks. They just let you think she was single? I’d be pissed.”

“Something like that.” It feels good to have some of it out, to know at least someone else agrees that this situation is jacked up. And it’s not all my fault.

She sits there while I eat, scanning the pictures on my wall. Not that I have many. A couple of old music posters. Some of Izzy’s school pictures she forced on me. A few of Garret and me when we were kids, one playing soccer at four, another at our joint eighth birthday party, one at our junior high graduation, and one from the school trip to Six Flags.

“You really have known Garret forever, haven’t you,” she says.

I gulp down a bite. “Yeah.”

She frowns. “Must hurt a lot, what he did. I knew everything about Izzy and Colin, even though it was a huge secret.”

I nod because I can’t get anything out without turning into a baby.

She sighs. “But you’ve been working at Parker’s? That’s really cool.”

“No, it isn’t.” I finish off the rest of the orange juice.

“It is!” She smacks my leg. “They don’t hire anyone outside of family, and that place is legendary. You must have really impressed Old Man Parker. How is that not cool?”

I try not to smile. “No matter how you spin it, it’s still flipping burgers.”

“So?”

I can’t explain it to her. She’ll just yell at me for caring too much about what people think, and I can’t handle it today. I’m more than aware of what a screw-up I am. “Just don’t tell anyone about this stuff, okay?”

“Do you even have to ask?”

I lean back, watching her play with her hair. She’s been in my life for years, and yet I’ve always thought of her as Izzy’s friend. I don’t know when it happened, but she’s not just Izzy’s friend anymore. She means something to me, too. She’s there for me, just like Garret has been. “You’re a good friend, you know that?”

She smiles. “I am, aren’t I?”

It’s kind of a miracle that she can make me laugh, considering the circumstances. “And so humble.”

“Always.”

I shake my head, still laughing a little. “Seriously, Daphne, thanks for being my friend. Doesn’t feel like I have many of those these days.”

“I’ll always be your friend. I don’t have many either.” Her eyes are mesmerizing, not because they’re full of mystery like Keira’s, but because they’re honest. Real. And right now that is the most beautiful thing in the world to me. She points to my empty plate. “Are you done?”

I jump, only just realizing I was staring. “Oh, yeah.”

When she bends over to grab the tray, I get an eyeful of her cleavage. Where did
those
come from? I immediately look up, only to find her knowing smirk. “Need anything else?”

“Nope. Just sleep.”

She heads for the door. “Sweet dreams, then.”

I run a hand over my face, trying to calm down. But holy shit, she has a nice rack. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of it. No. I shake my head. This needs to stop. I shouldn’t be thinking of Daphne like that. She’s Izzy’s best friend and I can’t mess with that. Except the image won’t go away, and if there’s any girl who gets me it’s Daphne. I finally give up because, hell, it beats thinking about the other crap.

Chapter Twenty-Four

On Monday the bomb drops. The cheerleaders see Garret kissing Keira by his locker. They tell anyone within hearing range. People keep asking me about it, and I have to smile and act like I knew all along. No one can believe it. A jock and a skater? Insane.