“I don’t know, Trent, but we’ll figure it out later, alright? I have to get this homework done or I’m screwed. Listen, before you go, we have to meet Hawk later.”
He groaned again and shook his head. “No, not today. Tomorrow maybe. Not today.”
I nodded my head and I told him that Mom was gone again. After that, he was quite happy to go and see Hawk to find out what had happened at the party.
The day didn’t go by slowly but it came to a dramatic end as I walked out of my last class and met Trent by the lockers. We had to go to see Hawk, and I had to tell them everything. The latter part made me more nervous. I’d decided that Claire and Goldie must have had different ideas about how the night would end, and probably got into an argument about it.
“You ready to face the music?” He asked as he turned to me, ready to meet Hawk. We were both exhausted but somehow facing Hawk and telling him about Claire was better than the alternative, which was facing Mom. She was much more than we could handle.
“I wanted to talk to Claire, because I saw her in class earlier after lunch, and she was kind of aggressive man, and fucked up. She looked as if she had one hell of a beating. No amount of foundation could cover that black eye, and Ms. Krempt told her to take her glasses off, and everyone could see that shiner. As for Goldie when I saw her, she was sitting at the opposite side of the class. I cornered her too, and she just ran off crying when I tried to speak to her,” Trent said as he gave me the breakdown of events earlier.
“This is so messed up, why don’t they say what really happened, and be done with it? Did you see them at the party?”
“Between getting there, jumping in the pool, and ending up at the side of the bed, the night is a mystery to me. If I’d known that we would have to be on babysitting duties then I wouldn’t have touched a drop, and it would have ended differently. Fuck, I wish that we’d looked for them before coming back and going to the hotel. It would have been easier. Let’s go,” he said as he slammed his locker door shut, and with a heavy heart I did the same thing before we started to walk to the left-wing.
I laughed as we walked and remembered what had happened in the guest room at Jet’s house.
“Yeah bro’ you were wasted, and you were on the sofa talking to two girls that had passed out. If I’d had my phone, then I would have taken a photo of you. I was a little wasted myself. We staggered down the hall and I was helping you along the way. Man, you felt so fucking heavy and there were a few guest rooms there. One was taken, it looked like a refugee camp, bodies everywhere.”
“Shit! I remember that.”
I continued on with the story, “Then the other was empty. I bet because no one knew that it was there, near the pool, and kind of hidden.”
“Yeah, I know the room, we’ve stayed in there a couple of times. There was no way we were making it up the stairs, right?” He asked.
“No, so we get to the room. I’m exhausted, I let go of you to shut the door, and bam. You just fall face first flat on the ground, and you don’t move. I’m calling out your name. Trent. Trent. Get up! I don’t have the strength to move you to the bed. You lifted up your hand, and then started crawling to the bed, and then I just dropped on the bed. I didn’t even take my swimming trunks off, and that’s it.”
“Wow, so you really did leave me on the floor. Thanks bro. It all makes sense now. If I had a loving brother to help me to the bed, then my whole body wouldn’t have been hurting the next day,” he said.
Anyone that saw us in the halls would have thought that we were going to the suite, that it was an ordinary night, and everything was cool between us. We were exchanging stories like we did every time that we went to Jet’s house.
“I’m kind of curious what happened between Goldie and Claire. I went to the car when we first got there, and you jumped in the pool. I spoke to Goldie. You know how that went down, because I told you in the diner. I’ve been thinking about it all fucking day, about her wanting to get with us at the party. I’ve tried to erase it from my mind, and focus on class, but I couldn’t. Every time I try, I think about when I was dancing.”
“Shit, I remember that, and the girls were like he should be in Magic Mike, and started throwing bills at you,” he said as we continued to get closer to Hawk’s study at the house..
“See, if all else fails I know how I can make some real money. Dancing. Anyway, I didn’t see Goldie or Claire after that, which was weird. Not even once.”
Trent sighed, “Yeah we both acted like jerks. I mean we didn’t have to babysit, but we could have at least made sure that they were ok at some point during the night, we weren’t acting like gentlemen at all.”
I laughed, “I would call us a lot of things, but gentlemen is not a word that springs to mind.”
“Oh, so what would you call us, apart from kings?”
I patted him on the back, “That’s exactly why I wouldn’t call us gentlemen. You can’t be one, and the other.”
He choked, “You’re so full of it, J.”
I agreed as I reached the door that separated the left, and right wings of the house, “I know, but then so are you. If anything you’re more full of it than I could ever hope to be.”
***
As we arrived, we couldn’t find Hawk in his bedroom, study or even the library aka his second bedroom. I didn’t know where else he would be, and then Trent said that we should just call him. Something that we should have done in the first place, but we were too busy wondering about Goldie and Claire that we didn’t even think about that. I called him and agreed when he told me to wait for him, that he would come join us. So, we talked as we waited for Hawk to show up.
“Where the fuck is Vicki?” I asked as I realized that not only did we not see her on the weekend, but Trent hadn’t mentioned her all day.
Trent laughed, “You just thought about her. She’s with her aunt. Something happened to that rapper uncle of hers, so she’ll be back tomorrow.”
“What?”
“Just that he was in some sort of accident on Friday night, and she went to New York to see them. I don’t know any more than that, otherwise I would tell you.”
I was about to remind him that I wouldn’t even know that Vicki was in New York if I hadn’t asked, but then again everything was so fucked up at the moment, and the idea of Vicki not being around was a good thing, especially seeing as Claire had sent Vicki’s stepdad to come and get rid of her.
“Trent do you have a bad feeling about all this?” I asked.
“It’s creeping me out, but then again Claire has just brought this all on herself. I’m happy that Vicki’s not around, because it is clear that Claire really has a thing about her. The way that she was carrying on in the car, was just nuts that night. You know when we were going to the party?”
I nodded my head to tell him that I knew what he was talking about, but he didn’t even know the half of it. Claire’s reaction in the car was a fraction of how she really felt about Vicki.
“J don’t give me that look. I know what you’re thinking that I should have told you sooner about Vicki not being around, but between this crap about Goldie, and Claire, and all the classes today, I just didn’t think that it was a big deal. Besides I know that you’re not really into Vicki. Not like me, and I don’t want to keep going on about her in front of you. Sometimes I get the feeling that when I do, it just pisses you off.”