“Some fairy tales are screwed up,” she adds. She can’t shut up. She’s nervous. Her eyes are still closed.
“All the good ones are, Skull Eyes,” I say softly.
I unlatch the metal bar from its hook. She hears the click and sucks in a breath.
“What are you doing?” Her voice shudders.
“Tell me what’s going on between you and Prichard.” My voice hardens around the vowels.
Her eyes are still closed, not because she is still following my directions, but because she is freaking out and would probably faint if she looks down.
“You’re insane!” She squeezes her eyes shut.
“You bangin’ the old man?” I ignore her psychological assessment.
“You said I could trust you!”
“No, I didn’t. I asked if you did. For the record, you shouldn’t trust me. Our loyalties lie with different schools and people. But I answered your question, so it’s only fair you answer mine.”
“Dream on, Scully.”
I push the metal bar open. She can feel the breeze. I hold on to it, knowing I won’t be able to pull it back if I don’t, and that means I’m squatting, my ass in the air.
“Fine! Okay! Fine. No. We’re not sleeping together.”
I yawn loudly, so she can hear, dangling the handle from side to side.
“Not buying it.”
“We’re not!” she screams desperately. People from other carts can probably hear her and see this. Giving a damn, however, is not on my agenda.
“Then what are you doing together? Playing Caribbean poker?”
“That’s two questions,” she bargains.
“Since when are you good at math, Followhill?”
I know Daria would have a lot of fun rubbing the truth in my face. She knows I would never rat her out to her parents. Not only because she holds my residence a secret, but I’m just not that type of asshole.
“What do you care, anyway? Gus said you have a girlfriend.”
“Gus is an idiot.”
“It doesn’t make him a liar.”
True, and I notice she doesn’t ask me again about the girlfriend situation. Which is good, because she won’t like the answer, and I’m not done with her ass, literally and figuratively. I close the metal bar. She hears the click and lets out a breath. She opens her eyes and stares at me. It’s cool to see her like that. Vulnerable. Scared. She’s not the head cheerleader right now, and I’m not the football captain of the rival team. We’re just two teenagers who never stood a chance to be friends in this world, so we became what was expected of us. Enemies.
We reach the top.
“Ever been kissed on a Ferris wheel?” I ask.
“No.”
All your firsts, baby.
I take that as an invitation, pressing my mouth to hers, RSVPing that shit without thinking about her parents down below, the complications of it, or the consequences. Without thinking this is taboo, and wrong, and twisted, and can surely come back to bite me in the ass.
She opens her mouth, groans into mine, and we kiss, and we kiss, and we kiss until nothing else exists. My hand slips to her neck and squeezes it, and when she protests in the form of biting my lip, I laugh and lick her entire fucking face. Then she laughs, too.
“I thought you said you didn’t want all my firsts.”
“My mind changes according to my mood and how hot you look at that moment.”
“How very stupid teenage jock of you,” she murmurs against my lips.
“How very indeed.”
Our cart is an invisible cloak until it starts to lower. Her parents will be able to make out our faces if they’re standing underneath the wheel, waiting for us, which I’m sure they are because whether she realizes it—they give a shit.
We pull away together. Everything about us is a power game, and no one wants to be the side that got rejected.
My dick is hard and so is her expression. I think she’s regretting it. I should be regretting it, too. Not because of Jaime. Fuck Jaime. I never asked to crash at their house. But because of Adriana and Via.
But Via isn’t here for me to feel guilty about or sorry to.
Via left me, just like the rest.
“I still don’t like you.” Her whisper caresses my face.
“Me neither,” I say. About her. About me.
We spend the rest of the ride in silence. When we get out of the cart, the operator is tapping his foot, waiting for his money. Jaime slaps a twenty into his open palm, waving at us to join them.
“Keep the change. You two good?” He looks back and forth between us.
Daria says no.
I say yes.
We say it at the same time.
We look each other, and she rolls her eyes. I smile because it’s hard not to.
Melody complains about our level of cooperation when it comes to family functions.
On the drive home, Daria eats the entire apple I threw at her and tosses the core on my lap.
“Checkmate.”
It was love at first sight
Hate at second
Lust at third
But four is my lucky number
So mine your ass shall be
Time moves differently when you live a lie.
You swim against the stream, and every second feels like three hours and some change.
I park four blocks from school at buttfuck o’clock, an hour before practice starts. Mornings are for strength training, and afternoons are the real deal on the field.
Not only do I not live with Rhett anymore and dread the day he will get an unexpected visit or phone call from a school official, but I also have a brand-new Prius. The first time I have something semi-nice, and naturally, I don’t get to flaunt it.
To make sure my friends don’t ask Rhett about me when they see him at the gas station or supermarket, I tell them that he’s losing his mind.
“Early dementia,” I explain to anyone willing to listen. “The drugs really did a number on him.”
Nobody questions it. But to give my alibi an extra shine, I have Adriana—Addy, my girlfriend—tell everyone she spotted Rhett arguing heatedly with a jukebox at Lenny’s, the diner where she works.
This is the first time I’ll see my team since Friday’s game. I needed the buffer time to digest what happened, and when the players begin to trickle into our chipped-wall locker room, I’m already there, hands on hips, with one leg flung over a bench. Our rusty lockers have so much graffiti, the color lies somewhere between gray and purple. The place always smells of dust, piss, and poverty.
Josh, Malcolm, Camilo, Kannon, Nelson, and the rest arrive before Coach Higgins. The fact he ain’t here yet gives me pause. Coach is never late. Well, other than the time his wife went into labor. He was ten minutes late that day as he yelled at her on the phone. “Well, Meredith, it’s our first baby. You’re not gonna have her in the next hour. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
On the same note, I don’t know how his balls are still intact.
I close the door behind them and lean over the wall, crossing my arms.
“Care to explain the fuckery that was Friday night?”
They all stare at the ground. Shit doesn’t make any sense, and I’ve been trying to put it together all weekend. I know in my bones that my teammates are savages. All Saints is not a bad team, but they usually get ahead because enough money is thrown into their shit like a mid-ranked NFL team. We have the talent, the motivation, the hunger.