Girl Code by LD Davis Read Free Book Online Page A

Rico’s balls into his skull. Still giving him the benefit of the doubt, I wondered if he would have really taken it too far, if he really would have pushed me into something I didn’t want to do.
    My brother was right. I was too young for this shit, and Leo was too young for this shit. He shouldn’t have been driving for one, but he shouldn’t have had to go into Rico’s house and fight him like a man. We were all just kids, even Rico. We were only kids.
    “You’re shaking.”
    I jumped, almost completely off of the couch when I felt Leo’s hand touch my back. I didn’t even notice when he sat down beside me.
    “You’re shaking really bad,” Leo said worriedly. “Maybe I should wake up your mom.”
    “No!” I cried out, gripping his sweatshirt in my fingers and looking at him with wild eyes. “She’s the last person I want. She won’t even care, anyway.”
    Since he had started dating Leslie, he had been in my house with her frequently. He had seen firsthand what my relationship—or lack of relationship—with my parents was really like, but Leo still had his doubts. He had a loving, caring mother, so of course, it was hard to believe that mothers like mine existed.
    “You don’t know that for sure.”
    “I do know, Leo,” I said, pushing a shaky hand through my hair. “Just leave it alone, okay?”
    “Well, what would your brother do? I feel like I should be doing something more than sitting here like a dumbass.”
    I stared at a picture of me and my brother after one of his championship football games. He was all sweaty and stinky in his gear, but I didn’t care. I had my arms wrapped around him as we grinned at the camera.
    “Tack would have yelled at me for going and then he would have gone and knocked Rico’s teeth out,” I said with a cynical smile. I looked back at Leo. “You’ve already done all of that.”
    “What else would he do?” Leo asked, watching me carefully.
    Nibbling on my thumbnail with raw nerves, I thought about what Tack would do. My brother would hold me tight and tell me everything will be okay, but then he’d give me a piece of good advice.
    I managed a small smile. “He would tell me to pull my shit together,” I said and sat up straight. I inhaled deeply and let it out fast. “So, I’m going to pull my shit together.”
    And I did just that. I took a few deep breaths under Leo’s watchful eyes. I was still shaking a little and chewing on the tip of my thumb when I sat back on the couch, but Leo didn’t comment on it.
    “The whole night is all kinds of screwed up,” I said quietly, as I stared ahead at the blank television. “And this is going to sound really stupid, but one of the worse things about tonight is that Rico was my first kiss. It wasn’t at all how I imagined my first kiss would be, and maybe the writer in me is just a little too dreamy, but I’m kind of pissed off that I will always see his face when I think of all of the firsts I’ve had and will have.”
    Leo cleared his throat and I felt him shift on the couch beside me. “Well, it could have been a worst kind of first,” he said softly.
    I let out a small, humorless laugh. “Yeah. You’re right.”
    We sat silently for a couple of minutes. Leo shifted again and threw an arm across the back of the couch behind me. I became hyper-aware of how close he was to me. Our thighs were touching and my shoulder and arm were against his side.
    “I can…erase it, I mean…” Leo paused and then his voice dropped an octave. “I can give you another memory so that when you think of tonight, you’ll think of something…better.”
    My head swung in his direction, confusion written all over my face. “What are you talking about? The only good memory I’ll have of tonight is watching you cry like a little girl when I poured peroxide on your hand.”
    He grinned, but it was brief. His face grew serious and his eyes dropped to my lips. I inhaled sharply, dropping my hand away from my mouth. My