Page 116 of Rafferty's Rules
‘What are you flapping your gums about now?’ Despite my mild tone, my insides have turned to stone. I know—I just know what’s coming next.
‘You know what Becci told me?’ he asks in a change of tone.
‘No, and I don’t want to know.’
‘She said the Phillips boys are good in bed for a reason. I reckon she meant practice.’
‘I don’t need to hear your pillow talk.’
‘But that’s just the thing. Me and her? We haven’t. Credit me with some sense. More sense than you and By, at least.’ I say nothing. I neither deny nor confirm his suspicions. Even if his digging feels like a scouring pad to my soul. ‘I thought it must’ve been Flynn at first, but when she sent me with that message,looking up old friends?I knew it was you.’
‘Why, Tom?’ I turn to face him now, anger giving way to disbelief. ‘Why would you play in her little games?’
‘Because the fucking bitch has got me over a barrel. She caught me with one of the kids at school—’
I bolt upright. That couldn’t have been what he said. Tom might be a lot of things but he’s a decent bloke under all the shit on the surface.
‘—It’s not like that, ’ he adds frantically, his eyes wide with panic. ‘She’s over eighteen and didn’t know. I met her over the holidays, and she told me she was twenty-one.’
‘But she’s a kid at the high school?’
He nods. ‘Year twelve. I nearly puked when I saw her in her uniform at reception. She’ll be out of the schooling system in a few months, not that it’ll help me.’
‘Fuck me.’ It’s not a helpful comment as far as comments go, but what the hell can I say?
‘If only I’d fucked you,’ he answers with a grin. ‘New South Wales Education wouldn’t mind a gay principal. It’d be good for their diversity numbers. But a one who gets involved with a pupil? I’ll be lucky not to get prosecuted.’
‘Involved. Is that a euphemism? And not if she’s eighteen, surely? And Becci might keep her mouth shut yet?’
‘She’s made herselfveryclear.’ He answers only one of those questions but I don’t call him out. ‘I’m rooted, mate. But that’s not what we’re talking about right now. We’re talking about you and why the fuck you would let her go when it’s clear you’re crazy about her?’
‘It’s not that simple,’ I reply through gritted teeth.
‘You love her. We can all see it.’ He circles his hand in the air as though his opinion is the same for everyone here. ‘That fucking simple; don’t screw it up.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ My gut tightens when I notice Lissa’s no longer on the dancefloor, my head swinging this way and that, looking for trying to find her.There.She’s chatting with mum.I’m relieved she’s not close enough to overhear.
‘You can’t take your eyes of her for a second!’ he says, sitting back in his chair. He folds his arms across his chest, looking so fucking smug.
‘Leave it,’ I growl, my finger in the air punctuating the words. ‘Just fucking leave it, okay? You don’t know what you’re talking about—you’re only seeing what you want to. She’s not interested in me, it’s all fucking fake!’
‘Piss off.’
‘It’s true,’ I grate out, my jaw tense and aching. I asked her to come with me as cover. Fucking Becci, she’s like a plague. She’ll text every few months, even call. When I don’t pick up, she’ll sends me what she callsa little memeto.A picture of us that night. And the worst of it is, I can’t fucking remember because I was drunk.’
It sounds so pathetic but it’s true. I can go months without hearing from her, months where I think she’s done. But then out of the blue, the cycle will start all again.
‘That’s why I’ve stayed away. Because of her. And because I fucked my brother’s then girlfriend.’
‘I wouldn’t have called her that, exactly,’ Tom says carefully. ‘Not that it matters, not if she’s blackmailing you.’
‘She’s not though. Not exactly. She’s just reminding me what’s at stake. Trying to get me back. Honestly? I don’t fucking know.’ My head in my hands, I rake my fingers through my hair as I try to control the anger building inside me, the frustration. The absolute disgust that I could fuck up my life like this.
‘I hate to break it to you but Becci’s probably more interested in you than me.’ My head comes up hard, my gaze hitting his. ‘She gets off on the power, the mind fuck. Currently, I’m fulfilling all of her needs. And let’s face it, Byron was always the prize.Always. Even when we were at school. And now he’s not available, she’s just entertaining herself by pulling the legs off other spiders.’
When he puts it like that, it all seems so basic. So simple. But it doesn’t alter the fact that I’ve spent the last two years tying myself in knots. Knots that are now tighter because of how I feel about Lissa.
‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ Tom begins again. ‘But what I’m hearing is that Lissa is decoy pussy.’
