Piece By Piece (Book #2)

Chapter Nineteen

We made it through the rest of the week without any incidents. Mrs. Flores was all for keeping an eye on the younger kids after she found out what had happened at the Leighton's party. She said it was the 'Good Catholic' in her that allowed her to still let Darcy even come to the party. I half hoped that she wouldn't show.

But her attitude in the locker room said otherwise. Miri was giving me the cold shoulder more than ever as the two of them talked about their outfits for the party. Danny was going to be a priest and they were both going to be nuns. It sounded like Declan was going to be an Alter boy.

Playing with Fire.

Mrs. Flores was deeply religious. I wasn't sure how Danny thought he was going ot get away with this one. The day before Día de los Muertos too.

Fucking idiots.

But it wasn't my horse or my rodeo so I was staying out of it. I just wished they would shut up about it when Jensen was around. Ari had been a nice distraction lately for her, but it had only been two weeks since really since Declan and her had split. He had obviously started seeing Darcy before the split and that hurt. It hurt Jensen and even Ari. He felt like a pawn in her game. It hurt me to see the two of them hurting. The only silver lining I saw was that the two of them had become closer because of it.

I had to give Ari props for that one. I wasn't sure I would have been so quick to forgive if I had been slapped in front of a room full of people. I think he felt partially responsible for it, since he had brought Darcy as his date.

I prayed that they had a good time together watching movies tomorrow night. We just had to make it through today and we would be home free for the weekend and the party.

Making it out of athletics had been the hard part. Everything should be smooth sailing from here hopefully.

I walked with Jensen and Cassie until we reached my English class. Cassie walked over to say 'Hi' to James and Jensen started making her way to class. Tyler was waiting for me.

"What's up, Buttercup?" I smiled as he pulled me off to the side.

"I wanted to know, what are your dad's plans for the weekend?"

I shrugged, "I think most of the parents are taking a shift inside the party and then hanging out outside."

"How late does the party go, like one or two?"

"They usually run until midnight and then the parents go that late. You know that already."

He looked at me like he was trying to lead me to water and I was too stupid to drink. "So your house is most likely going to be unoccupied until really late at night."

I was still confused, "So?"

"So, we can hang out, without everyone else around."

I was starting to catch his drift. "Tyler, are you saying you want tomorrow night to be... the night?"

He smiled shyly, "Only if you want to."

I felt a little taken off guard. I just wasn't expecting him to finally want to go that far with me and I wasn't sure if I needed more time than that to plan. Not that I knew exactly what I needed to plan for.

"Can I think about it? Not about the hanging out alone part, that's a hell yes, but the other part."

Tyler smirked, "Take all the time you need to think. Absolutely no pressure. I just wanted to throw the idea out there."

I leaned up and kissed him, "I love you."

He kissed me back, harder, "I love you too, Alex."

I tried to focus in class. We were reading the Handmaid's Tale. The author was actually Canadian. Last week was the Buddha of Suburbia. The week before had been Absolute Beginners, and next week was A Brave New World. I could connect that Handmaids and Brave New World were dystopian novels. And the first two were British novels about coming of age. I had a feeling that we would get hit with a comparative essay soon.