"What do you want me to do, man?" Daryl chuckled, wiping his eyes with the back of his hands.

"I want you to get your ass over here and help me put this damn fire out," Rourke huffed. "And bring your little sidekick with you."

"Hey –" I began to protest, but Daryl was quick to defend my honor.

"Girlfriend," he corrected, tone hard now. "She's my girlfriend. Call her anything else and we're gonna have a problem."

"So that's why you didn’t answer any of my calls!" Rourke accused down the line. "While I was being dragged over hot coals all day, and needed your help, you were too busy getting balls deep in your real best friend to pick up the damn phone." He huffed out a breath. "Whatever. Just get over here asap – and bring your girlfriend."

With that, Rourke hung up.

"Jesus Christ." Sighing heavily, Daryl rubbed his jaw. "That guy is such a –"

"Needy little bitch?"

Daryl grinned. "You took the words right out of my mouth."

35 Molly

The drama surrounding Mercy and Rourke's not-so-secret affair was on the tips of everyone at school's lips for several weeks after homecoming, which, in any other circumstance, would have taken the heat off me.

Problem was, I was dating the QB1 of the varsity football team. The same football team that had made it to the state championship playoffs this year. And the same QB1 that not only was homecoming king, but football royalty around here.

Yeah, our decision to go public with our relationship had caused more than just a tailspin at school. It had all but rattled the damn foundations.

To be quite truthful, none of the attention or hushed whispers and stares seemed to bother Daryl in the slightest. He was either completely oblivious to the world around him, or he was so used to being looked at that it had become second nature to him.

Me, not so much.

I didn’t like the attention that came with being Daryl King's girlfriend. I didn’t like the constant rumors and I liked the way the cheer squad taunted me even less.

Yeah, the mean girls had upped the ante at school, and I, legit, couldn’t walk ten feet down the hallway alone these days without having some backhanded compliment or cruel jibe thrown my way.

Still, he was worth it.

The looks.

The stares.

The jealousy.

The rumors.

The nasty girls.

Being with Daryl was worth it all.

"I swear to god, if those bitches point at us one more time, I'm going to lose my shit," Mercy growled, as she sat cross-legged on the grass near the football field, carefully cutting out one of her mother's sonogram pictures to put in the scrapbook she was making.

We were waiting for the guys to finish their afternoon football practice session before heading back to my house – the one place Rourke and Mercy could be alone together since their parents had enforced some major house rules.