“Things are screwed up because you made them that way. Because you’re Sebastian freakin’ Hawkins and you can’t settle down with one girl. I should have known you’d pull this shit.” Her eyes started to water. Those tears were suffocating me. This is what I didn’t want! Her hurting. My mom hurting. All of this was just fucked up.

“Come here.” I reached out for her, that zap happening when I touched her hand. I just wanted to make her feel better. I tried pulling her close, for herself just as much as me, but she jerked away. It was like a punch to the gut.

“No! You can’t make this better. It’s your fault.”

Her pain collided with mine and erupted. “I’m trying to be noble here! Don’t you get that?!”

Her tears flowed freely now. “Noble? You have a funny way of showing it. I was over you and you made me think we had a chance and now you’re crushing me.”

What did that even mean? This was the second time she said she’d been over me, but I knew she wasn’t. Her words and my thoughts were all trying to push through at the same time. I was confused and hurt that she didn’t understand. Angry at myself that I was hurting her and angry at her, too. “Funny, Aspen, but I know you weren’t over me considering I’ve been giving you advice for weeks on how to hook-up with me.”

Her face paled and I regretted the words immediately. I was totally screwing this up and I didn’t even know what to do about it. “Wood--”

“You’re The Hook-up Doctor?” she stepped up to me and pushed me. Hard. I fell back onto her bed. “You jerk! You lied to me!”

“What? No I didn’t. I didn’t tell you, but I never lied.” I stood up.

“So that’s what this was all about. You never really wanted me. It was only because you thought I wanted you. Why take the easy hook-up for the weekend?! I hate you, Sebastian. Get out of my house!” She was crying, her face red, but not from blushing. It was so different, that red, when it came from hurt and anger than embarrassment.

“No. That’s not it. It had nothing to do with the emails. They just made me realize I should go for it.”

The tightness in her features, the way her eyes narrowed at me in hate told me I’d just said the wrong thing. “Well guess what, Mr. Hook-up Doctor. You were wrong. I wasn’t trying to get with you. It was Matt! He’s the one I wanted to go out with, not you!”

My chest started to hurt. My heart was pounding like a jackhammer against my ribs. Matt? Matt? That ass! “That doesn’t make sense. You helped me when I told PA to be nice. You ditched us when I said to ignore him.” My head was spinning. “At the party you were supposed to flirt. You saw me with Crystal and got nervous and got drunk.”

“God. You’re so conceited, Bastian. Matt was at the arcade. He was at the party, too. I know you may think it does, but the world doesn’t revolve around you! Looks like you don’t know it all like you think you do! But thanks for helping me. I’m sure I can put all this to good use, when I tell Matt I like him.”

Her words had an effect over my whole body. They weakened the muscles in my legs. I felt hot all over and not the good kind of hot either. But more than that, I felt like I’d seen my mom feel so many times. Broken. I had to get out of there. “You know what? You can have him. I couldn’t care less. When you get your little boyfriend, don’t forget my other fifty bucks.”

She slammed her bedroom door when I walked out. Each step I took away from her, made another pain shoot through my body, but I kept going. She didn’t want me anyway, so I’d find a way not to want her either. I was The Hook-up Doctor, so I’d go out there and do what I did best. Hook-up. Jaden had been right all along. Girls were crazy.

***

“Ma, quit hogging all the Chunky Monkey.” I grabbed the pint of ice cream off Mom’s lap as she sat next to me on the couch. I wasn’t proud of myself. Actually, I was pretty embarrassed that I was practically crying in my ice cream with my mom. Totally not a very manly thing to do, but I just couldn’t make myself go out tonight. Everything about it felt wrong. Plus, I didn’t want to leave Mom alone tonight. She needed me, so I’d be there. I tried to tell myself that was the real reason I’d turned into a sap, eating ice cream and watching a bad romance movie after a break-up, but even I knew that wasn’t true.

“Hey! This is supposed to be my “poor-me” night. That entitles me to more of the ice cream,” she said. I tossed the pint back at her because it was much easier to hand over the dessert rather than tell her I was in mourning, too. I saved some points on the “losing my masculinity” scale if no one knew what I was doing but me. “Speaking of, you don’t have to stay home with me tonight, kiddo. I’m fine.” She grabbed my hand and I wanted to tell her I wasn’t. I clamped my mouth closed when she continued. “We’re fine.”

“Yeah, we are.” I finished the movie with her before heading up to bed. The next morning I was supposed to go back to work, but I couldn’t do it. What if she’d gone to Matt after I left? I can’t believe the jack-off was the one she’d wanted from the start. They were probably together by now and I couldn’t risk making pizza while they snuck in the back room to make out or something. That’s what I’d planned on doing with her the first time we worked together after hooking up.

So, I faked a killer cough, something I’d done for school a million times, and called in. Irresponsible and lame? Yeah, but I figured I deserved it. I thought about calling Jaden, but I couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t understand and I wasn’t in the mood to hear I told you so, or him to go all Mike Tyson on me because, even though he’s the one who told me girls were crazy, this would still end up my fault. So I got dressed, grabbed my skateboard and went for a ride to clear my head.

Even the jumps at the skate park didn’t help. Sure that little rush of adrenaline, the jump of my heart when I landed felt good, but not good enough to make me forget that when I walked away last night, Aspen had been crying and that I was the one who put those tears on her face. And the guy I hated was probably wiping those tears away for her. Yeah, before I just had a bad feeling about him, but now I hated him. Funny how quickly that could happen.

Slipping my board under my arm I walked away from the skate ramps and over to the grassy area of the park. I wandered down one of the paths that led to the small creek. We had some prime entertainment in this town. I plopped down under a tree.

“Hi. You’re Sebastian, right?”

I looked behind me.

It was Party Girl. Twin party girl without her other half. She had on a sinfully short pair of shorts and a tank top that I’m embarrassed to say, I couldn’t even be happy about. “What’s up? Crystal, right?” She sat down next to me and I fought a groan. Hadn’t I just said I needed to get back to my roots? Right now, I just wasn’t feelin’ it, but I didn’t want to be a jerk, either.

“Yep. I borrowed my cousin’s car while she’s at work, so I was out trying to find something to do.” She pushed her black hair behind her ear and looked at me.

“Good luck with that. We’re pretty scarce on the fun around here.”

“Ya think?” She smiled at me. I couldn’t help, but laugh. “So what are you doing out here by yourself? Where are your friends? Or the girl. How’d things go with her?”

What was it with girls and talking? Even the ones I didn’t know acting like it was share your feelings hour all the time. “Ugh…” I grunted, hoping she’d get a clue. No such luck.

“Uh-oh. What did you do?” She asked.

I whipped my head around, more than a little annoyed. “What the hell? Why does it automatically have to be me who did something wrong?”

She shrugged. “Because you’re the guy.”

Okay, so Jaden was scoring even more points to prove his whole girls are crazy theory. “What kind of wacko knowledge is that? I swear, no wonder girls need my help. They’re all freakin’ mental.” I was done with girls. Aspen, Pris, Crystal, I didn’t want anything to do with any of them. How did I ever think I knew what they wanted? They were even more messed up than guys were! Well, except for my mom. She just had radar for assholes, but all the rest of the girls I knew, they needed way more than a little bit of help from The Hook-up Doctor.

I pushed to my feet, but Crystal grabbed my hand to stop me. I jerked it away because it felt weird, some other girl holding onto me like that.

“I’m kidding. You know, angry ex-girlfriend here, remember? I have girl-power music playing in the car if you need more proof.”

I sat back down. It wasn’t like I had anywhere else to go. I was avoiding all my friends. I scratched my head, hoping my arms would block her view of me. “Come to find out, she really liked someone else.” I couldn’t believe I told her that.

She pulled her knees to her chest the way Aspen sat sometimes. “Yeah, Will, too. I guess that was the real reason he broke up with me. It’s always someone else.”

Of course, I’d neglected to tell her I’d dumped Aspen and that’s how I found out about the other guy, but what did that matter if I hadn’t been the one she wanted anyway? “This is kind of a first for me,” I admitted. “I’m not trying to sound cocky, but I mean, I’ve never really gave it a chance for there to be someone else, ya know? I knew how things always play out though. I don’t know why I even went there.”

“Because you loved her. That’s why I gave Will a chance even though everyone told me he was a player.”

“Arrgh.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “I really don’t want to talk about this. It’s a guy thing. We can do serious for maybe ninety seconds before we shut down.” She laughed like I hoped she would. “I mean, I’m sorry about your ex, but I’m sure you don’t want to talk about him anymore than I want to talk about Aspen.” And Matt… Who was probably kissing her right now… I needed to distract myself.

“I was thinking about going to the mall. Want to come?”

“Sure.” I stood and helped her up, too. It felt kind of good to hang out with someone who knew what I was going through. Plus, even though I knew what I really needed was to get back on the saddle so to speak, I totally didn’t feel like it. At least with her, I knew she still had feelings for her ex. Made things easier when I didn’t have to worry about her getting the wrong idea.

A couple of hours later we were sitting at a table in the food court, eating food worse than what we served at DJ’s, when my blood went cold.

She was here.

With him.

Son of a—

“Sebastian? What’s wrong?”

“Shh.” I shushed Crystal like her words blocked my vision or something. They were quite a ways down the walkway, looking over the edge toward the bottom floor, but I could recognize her body anywhere. I knew it now. Every curve, how her hair fell, and what it felt like when the hand she had wrapped around Mattie’s had held mine.

My insides were frozen. Like one little flick from her finger and they would break apart like an icicle hitting the ground. I’d never felt something like it, and honestly, I never wanted to again. How could my mom have thought love was worth it if it had the power to make you feel like this?

“Is that her? With him?” Crystal must have turned around to see what I was looking at, but I couldn’t pull my eyes off Aspen long enough to see. I couldn’t believe it! Last night she was crying over me and now here she was holding some other guy’s hand at the mall? I squinted so I could see better. Had she dropped his hand? Yep, she did. She pulled free and now she was walking away. Oh, and the jerk was following her.

“Come on,” I told Crystal as I started walking away, fully aware that I was teetering on stalker territory as I followed her.