All Broke Down (Rusk University #2)(36)
Author: Cora Carmack

I scoff. “First, I doubt that. Dude has spoiled dickwad practically written across his forehead.”

“Silas, we’re not talking about this now.”

She steps away from me and up to a folding table where a teenager sits with a clipboard.

“Dylan Brenner,” she says. “And a guest.”

The kid pops her gum and looks over at me. “He’ll need to fill out a release form.”

She taps a stack of papers and holds out a pen. Dylan gives me an expectant look, and I hold back my groan. I fill out the damn form and pass it to the girl.

She blows a bubble, pops it, and then says, “Join the group. Greg will assign you your tasks.”

That out of the way, I start in again, “So . . . he’s nice. That’s really the best you’ve got? You give him four years of your life because he says ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ and you’re scared just to date me?”

“Silas . . .”

“Seriously. Help me understand. Is it because he’s rich?”

“Excuse me?” There’s a vague warning ring in the back of my mind that I should shut my trap, but I can’t let this go. I need someone to explain to me why guys like her ex get anything and everything they want just because they’re labeled “good.” What the f**k does that even mean?

“It’s a valid question,” I say.

“No, it’s not because he’s rich,” she snaps. “It’s because he doesn’t punch people who make him angry. He doesn’t drink or do drugs to deal with his problems. He cared about me. He didn’t just want to have sex with me for a little while.”

There are razor blades in my lungs, and when I suck in a breath, it tastes like fire. And I want it out, want to spit it back at her.

“If that’s all I am, why bring me here? Why do you give a f**k at all?”

Her perfect lips hang open like she’s shocked herself, and I can see something like regret blooming over her cheeks. I want to hate her. I want to storm off and walk the f**k home. I want to pull her to me, pry her lips open with mine, and take whatever that mouth will offer even if it’s only insults and sour words.

The thing is . . . she’s right. I know that’s who I am. She’s just the first person besides me to say it out loud. She starts to reply, but a voice from the front of the crowd calls everyone to attention. A middle-aged guy stands on a chair with a megaphone to amplify his voice.

“Hello. My name is Greg, and I want to thank you all for being here. Today we’re working on the house of this young lady here.” He gestures toward a tiny old woman standing on the ground next to him. Her skin is weathered and cracked like old leather, and when she waves, her flesh moves like it’s not attached to her body. “Mrs. Baker has lived in this house for forty-nine years, and this morning we’re going to be helping her make some repairs and renovations. She worked as a nurse at the local hospital until she retired ten years ago. She spent a lifetime giving to this community, and Mrs. Baker, we’re delighted to be able to give a little back to you today.”

“Silas,” Dylan whispers next to me. I ignore her and focus on the guy in charge. I don’t know why what she said makes me feel so shitty.

I am all of those things she mentioned. But I’m trying. Why else would I be here? But if that’s the kind of guy she wants, f**k it.

I think what bothers me most is the idea that those things are all I am to her. I’ve always thought football was the great balancer in my life. It makes up for all the other things I’m not. But Dylan doesn’t give a shit about football, and unless I get my act together, I won’t even have that.

And what am I then? Who am I then?

Greg moves through the gathered crowd, splitting people into groups for different tasks, appointing leaders. I get put in a group with Henry, which is f**king perfect.

I hope he steps on a nail and gets tetanus.

Dylan is put in another, smaller group, and I’m beginning to think this little experiment is going to end with me being even more irrationally angry than I already am.

At least I’m given a cool job. Me and a few other guys are tearing down some rotting and warped siding from the front porch and replacing it with new wood. I’m given a crowbar and a hammer and told to go to town. And I do exactly that.

There’s satisfaction in the creaking sound of the wood giving way. The nails groan as I use the crowbar to lever off the old siding. And when I encounter a few particularly stubborn boards I use the hammer to add some extra force.

I lose myself in the task, sweat beginning to trail down my back as I work. The sun glides higher into the sky, and pours light and heat down in smothering quantities. I strip away the bad wood piece by piece. Sometimes it crumbles in my hand, snaps or bends where it shouldn’t. Then I’m left using my hands, my hammer, my foot—whatever I can to tear the stuff away until finally, I can see the framework beneath. All that’s left are the studs to which we’ll attach the new siding. When I’m done with my section, I move over to the next, where Henry has barely done half of what I’ve managed.

For a while we work in silence, and I forget he’s even there. Then he asks, “So how do you know Dylan?”

I want so badly to say something to piss him off, some innuendo, but I know she wouldn’t like that. And what I say could make her look bad, and I get the feeling she’s one of those girls who are incredibly concerned with how other people see them.

Maybe that’s why the idea of dating me seems so ludicrous to her.

As satisfying as it would be to piss the guy off, it’s not worth pissing her off, too.

I shrug. “We ran into each other last week. Got to talking. Hit it off.”

Okay. So maybe I’m not completely above implying that there’s something between us. But it’s less to piss him off, and more to make very clear that he has no hold on her anymore. If he thought he could do better than a girl like Dylan, the guy is a f**king moron, and he deserves to have that rubbed in his face a little.

“Hit it off?”

“Yeah. She’s pretty spectacular. You don’t meet girls like her every day.”

Henry nods, pausing in his attempt to remove a stubborn board, and says, “Right.”

I look at this guy, and it makes my blood burn hot that he had four years of her life. That he’s had her, and I haven’t. And I let my mouth get away from me. “And just between us, that girl is smoking hot. At first, she seemed a little, I don’t know. Shy. Restrained. But when she loosens up . . . damn.”