Tainted Love

⇸ Chapter 3 ⇷

The meet was much the same as every other one that Charley had attended in the past year. The various factions of people had split into the different cliques that always seemed to form at these things. At the old skatepark, someone had brought a rusted old bin to use as a fire pit, around which a plethora of teens gathered for warmth. Some used the old ramps, zipping back and forth, up and down out of the dips on battered skateboards. Ryan had already located the current object of his affection standing by the pit. Charley just hoped that he wasn't one of those meathead sporty types that would fuck a guy in private and then call him a slur in front of his friends to cover himself.

Charley watched as Alice sauntered over to the ramp, likely hoping to catch a go of some guy's skateboard. She often did this at skate meets which just as often led to her boldness being misinterpreted as flirting; Alice just liked to skate. Charley had tried a few times at other meets, but she could never get the hang of moving across the floor on a single plank of wood.

People all around her spoke, shouted, and screamed, creating a blur of pointless noise that radiated through her body like a cold shiver. Her head still pounded from the night before. Why did she even come?

As if on cue, one specific noise made its way through the throng of voices around her.

"Barely even saw you last night, Charls." An irritating muse came from behind her. She ground her teeth together and worked up the smug look to turn around and face him. Jack was dressed in his usual 'Lady killing 'fit'; a pair of beige cargos that looked about six sizes too big for him, his black tee and an old vans beanie that she remembered he'd started wearing after Christmas about three years ago. With his sandy hair and diamond eyes he had that perfect golden retriever look going on. Charley supposed that he was hoping to capitalise on that trend and lure in some unsuspecting TikTok addict that fed into those sorts of trends. But Charley knew better; that 'golden retriever boyfriend' look was nothing more than a false sense of security.

"I kept to myself. Just needed some time out of the house." She grinned as Jack surveyed her up and down, his eyes devouring her in a way which she couldn't pretend didn't piss her off. This guy had some fucking nerve. "So, where's Madeline?" She toyed with a smirk, attempting to break the uncomfortable silence. His eyes snapped back to her with a glint.

"Charley!" He gushed, placing a hand against his stone heart. "Are you jealous?" She tried not to let the frustration show on her face and instead opted for an indifferent look as she folded her arms across her middle.

"Not at all, I just thought she was better than our kind of trash." Charley grinned as she watched the microscopic twitch of his eyebrow. That landed, she thought. If there was one thing she figured out about Jack in their time as partners, it was that he despised being compared to 'her kind of trash'. For some reason, having an actual house and two parents who didn't hate each other made him better in his eyes. When this ideology was challenged, he fell to pieces.

Charley only had a mere second to enjoy her victory before he took a step forward with that stupid alluring grin he liked to do.

"Madeline is nice," he admitted, which was just about the kindest thing she had heard from his lips regarding another woman. "But she can't take it back like you can."

"Don't toy with me, Jack-Ass." She bit back with a tongue like razor wire though he barely seemed offended.

"You have a nickname for me now?" His brow raised in a lack of understanding of her paraphrased, 'fuck off'.

"Alice came up with it." She saw the light in his eye and predicted his next move. "She hates you too." Charley grinned. She had warned him in the past that if he ever so much as breathed a flirtatious word Alice's way that she and Ryan would slice off his cock with a broken Coke can and nail it to the church door.