He fucked my mom, which means he fished for information – not that she knows a damn thing about me.
I hate her.
I force myself to speak, not acknowledging his attempt to play the big bad man. “I’ll pass. I can make a life on my own.”
I turn and reach for the handle.
“Did I mention,” he’s quick to add. “After graduation, the program puts you in an apartment and sets you up with a five-thousand-dollar bank account to get you on your feet.”
I tense.
“You turn eighteen a few months before school’s end. You’ll age out, be on the streets or back in your trailer park. Graven can change all that. I can change all that.”
“You can let the attendance office know I’m going home sick.”
I swallow and yank the door open, colliding into Maddoc on my break from the room.
Perkins slams the door after my exit.
Each one of their faces holds a blank stare, no emotion to be found, but the longer they stare, the more the tension grows, and the worry they try to hide comes forward to cloud their eyes. But Perkins fucked me up and I’m not in the mood for talking, so I spin on my heels and head for the front.
That kicks them into gear and suddenly I’m crowded.
“That’s it?” Royce spits. “You cut us out when we try to be there for you, then take off without a word?!”
I skid to a stop by the exit. “I need to go.”
Captain hangs his head, hands on his hips and Royce’s jaw clenches in defeat.
I look to Maddoc, who simply frowns at me.
My head pulls back. “What is happening right now?”
Nobody says a word.
“Look, I gotta get out of here for a bit, I’ll see you guys later.”
“Wait—” Royce starts, and Captain’s head shoots up. “So, what, you’re just ... you’re going home? Our home?”
Our home.
Shit.
My eyes bounce between the three. “Yeah, I ... fuck. I didn’t ... think. I’ll just hang around ‘til school gets out and—”
Royce laughs, cutting me off. He moves in, squeezes me then jogs off down the hall.
Captain scans my face but gives nothing with his expression, and a heavier foot carries him back to class. And then there’s Maddoc.
His features are tight, his lips in a thin line.
“What?”
“You really going back to the house?”
I start to say yes then shrug my shoulders. “I think I need some air.”
He licks his lips.
“Wanna come?”
He studies me a moment before a sexy ass grin takes over. He pushes me for the door.
I have to laugh. Seems all the big man wanted was an invite.
“Okay, it’s been fifteen minutes of staring at nothing. What are we doing, Raven?”
“Almost.”
“Almost wha—”
The ringing of the crossing guards echoes down the track and I look up at Maddoc with a grin.
“Here it comes.”
His eyes follow the sound.
I rush from the SUV, quickly pulling my hair up.
The first part of the train blows by and Maddoc gives me a look that says ‘no fucking way are you doing what I think you’re doing’ but then it starts to slow, the blurry images becoming clearer as the speed lessens, and his shoulders relax a bit.
“Get ready, big man.”
“Raven...” he warns. “I don’t fucking think so—”
“Now!”
I take off, running parallel with the train, moving closer every few feet. I grin when Maddoc catches up to me.
I glance back, then cut a quick nod at Maddoc. I turn in, gripping the front railing of an open cart and yank myself up. Maddoc does the same on the back handle.
He quickly tosses himself inside, but I stand at the open edge for a moment longer.
When he shouts, I pull myself inside and lean against the wall.
I take a second to catch my breath then look to him, laughing at his pissy expression.
“Not fucking funny,” he growls.
I wave him off, my hand hitting my stomach as I take a deep breath, settling my heart rate from the short sprint.
I push off the side and Maddoc’s stare grows panicked. He darts forward, but before he can step past the side wall, I run across to him.
“Goddamn it, Raven.”
I drop onto my ass and lean against the metal, close enough to the door where I can feel the force of air as it flies past my shoes.
“Chill, big man.” I meet his stare. “Sit.”
He considers standing just to prove a point but drops against the opposite side.
After a few minutes of silence, he says, “I take it you do this a lot?”
“All the time. Or I used to do it all the time.” I look out the car. “I’ve been wanting to come ride here though.”
“You’ve been out here?”
I nod. “Few times, yeah. I spent a couple hours watchin’, trying to get the timing down for when they slowed enough to jump.” I take a deep breath.
“So what now?”
I tilt my head so I can see the rusted iron containers as the train makes a wide curve down the tracks. Some are blank, some telling other people’s stories in the form of bright paints.
“Now you chill, let the outside world fly behind you. Pretend wherever the driver has to stop somehow lines up with right where you’re supposed to take the leap, but jumping off is the easy part. After, when you have to decide if you get back on or step away and never look back? That’s when shit gets real.
“That’s when you find out if you’re as weak as everyone thinks, or as strong as you always hoped.” I chance a look at Maddoc and when I do, my skin grows warm.
His stare is forward for him, completely unconcealed. Curiosity and realization, a need to know more sitting at the edge of his lips. So many questions. So many misconceptions.
But I know him by now. His words won’t match his wonder.
“Conductor,” he rasps.
I pinch my lips together, but a soft laugh still escapes. “What?”
He licks his lips and looks off, moving to prop his elbows up on his knees, his back against the gold metal. “The driver, the term is conductor.”
“Right.” I drop my grin to my feet, then look out the car again.
I close my eyes and smile at the wind. “Tell me something, big man.”
“Like what?”
I pop a shoulder. “I don’t care. Anything.”
He’s quiet a few minutes and I think he won’t play along, then he surprises me. “I hate going to the movies.”
I laugh, my eyes still closed. “Not surprising.”
“How so?”
“You’re extremely aware. You read every situation, spot things others don’t -it’s why you’re so good at basketball. It’s like a natural sixth sense. A dark theater would make that impossible, and if you can’t read what’s happening around you, you’re constantly on edge, not in control.” I open my eyes to meet his. “And control is something you need to feel you.”
He glares.
“I’m not being a bitch, I swear, I’m just saying it’s a part of who you are. Nothing wrong with it if you believe in yourself.”
He looks like he wants to argue, but instead jerks his chin.
“Your turn.” He drops his head against the cart. “Tell me something. Something I wouldn’t be able to guess.”
“What, like I sleep with a nightlight?” I joke, but he doesn’t laugh, just stares.
After a quiet moment, he says, “Yeah, like that.”
“Um...” I pull my sleeves over my hands. “I hate milk by itself, but I love it in cereal.”
“I hate chocolate.”
“What?” I shout with a laugh. “Nobody hates chocolate.”
“I do.”
“Wow,” I explain with exaggerated awe. “Weird.”
His lip
s tip into a small grin. “Your turn.”
“I hate my mother.”
He doesn’t say anything, so I look his way again. “But that’s no surprise, right?”
His brows lower.
“She’s always been a piece of shit, my whole life, as far as I can remember anyway. But there was one time where everything sucked the teeniest bit less. Wanna know why?” A wry grin slips. “A client stuck.”
“Since he knew about her job of choice, she didn’t have to lie about who she was and what she did. Used and abused and all, he accepted her. Me too. He even claimed to have kids, but I never met them.” I focus on the sky.
“She got better with him, wasn’t clean, but functioned like a human instead of a toy with dying batteries – still turned tricks, but he never seemed to mind.
“For the first time ever, I had a dinnertime. Every night, when the sensor lights on the trailers started popping on – there were no street lamps in my neighborhood – I’d run back. Excited for stupid dinner that was never anything more than macaroni and cheese with hotdogs or rice and sauce. Dumb shit, but it was the first time she’s ever seemed to care if I ate since I was big enough to make my own cereal, so I thought it was cool. Lasted about a year.”
“What happened?”
“I ruined it.”
“How?”
With a deep inhale, I look to Maddoc. “Puberty.”
His features morph in an instant, flashing with incomprehensible anger. “Raven.”
“He started paying more attention to me, ‘neglecting her,’ she’d say. She beat my ass, told me I wasn’t allowed around him if I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.” I remember how angry she’d get. “Kinda hard when my room was the two feet between the table and the couch, that was also my bed.”
Silence stretches between us for several minutes before Maddoc speaks, his voice a deep raspy mumble.
“I like cheese on popcorn.”
My stare flies to Maddoc and I grin earning a dismal one in return.
“We should probably get off, we’ll need to catch one back before dark.”
Maddoc stands, eyes locked on mine as he holds his hand out.
I stare at it a moment before slipping mine into his and allowing him to pull me to the other side.
I move to grab the handle, but he spins, tucking me away into the safety of the car corner, his big ole body caging me in, shielding me from the wind and anything else that may come close. His green eyes bore into mine as waves of strength flow from him, fighting for a way inside me.
But my armor is strong, my mind and body built on defense alone, and self-preservation allows for no safe passage.
Salvation can be a bitch, taking away our own choices before we even decide what’s right versus smart.
I reach out planting my hands on his chest, to keep him back, I think, and he drops his gaze to the contact.
“If someone tries to hurt you, I need you to tell me.”
“I can’t do that.”
He pushes closer, his expression angrier. “Why not?”
“Because I’m not your problem.”
“Be my problem.”
My stomach about bottoms out at his words, but before I can even consider a response, the train jolts and the brakes screech.
“Time to jump.” I push him back and he lets me.
We wait another minute, letting the speed decrease a little more, then swing outside the doors and push off.
Maddoc, of course, lands on his feet, but I stumble a little, catching myself before both knees hit the ground.
I laugh lightly, taking a deep breath as I look around.
Instead of dead grass surrounding the tracks like where we hopped on, there’s rock. And not fifteen feet forward is a line of food trucks and what looks to be a bus station.
We walk over to an old electrical box to sit and wait, watching the sun go down as we do.
“Thanks for coming with me, big man.” I exhale deeply. “I needed today. This basic day-to-day, get up, go to school, go to bed, shit isn’t me.”
“Yeah, and what is ‘you,’ Raven?”
“Think of it like this - you guys like order. It’s like you need your normal so you don’t go crazy, but me? I need crazy to feel normal.”
“There’s no such thing as normal. Normal is an opinion.”
“So is drug free the way to be, but it’s still right, isn’t it?”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Still true.”
He shakes his head and hops down. “Come on.”
“We—”
A horn starts blaring right then, gathering the attention of all the homeless people the abandoned buildings wall.
I turn to find a black SUV jammin’ down the road.
With a laugh, I shake my head. “’Course.” I step ahead of Maddoc and spin to face him as I walk backward. “Where one goes, the others follow.”
“Nothing wrong with having people in your corner, Raven.”
“Sure there is.”
“Why’s that?”
“If your corner’s already empty, no chance of losing anything along the way.”
His shoulders straighten a bit. “Fear’s not your style.”
I don’t respond because he’s as right as he is wrong with that one. Fear isn’t my style. I don’t show it, fight not to feel it, but at the end of the day, fear is the very thing that keeps me up at night.
I slide in the SUV where the guys are jamming out to Lynyrd Skynyrd, so I lean across the seats and crank it up more.
Maddoc slides in beside me but doesn’t move any closer.
We all bob to the music the entire way home.
That night, sleep never comes.
And neither does Maddoc.
“Rumor’s true?”
I prop against the fence, looking over the empty field. “Depends which one you’re referring to.”
Bass scoffs. “You ain’t lyin’. There’s at least a couple dozen floating around now.”
“At least.”
He looks to me, blowing his smoke right in my face. “You really staying with them?”
“I am.” I eye him. “But you know that already, don’t you? Bet they made you aware right away, even asked you to keep me off the cards?”
“They didn’t ask me shit, Carver.” His stare hardens and I sigh.
Right, they didn’t ask. They demanded.
“What’d they say?”
“Come on now, you know how this shit works.”
I nod. “No singers.”
“No fucking singers, Rae.”
Fuck.
I snag his cigarette from his hand and take a drag, dropping my head back. I blow the smoke into the sky, then look to him. “Guess there’s no chance you’ll add me on then, huh?”
He snags his cigarette back and takes the last drag before smooshing it under his foot. He walks off.
“See you around, Carver.”
I follow his form and just when he curves around the corner, I lock eyes with Maddoc in the distance. He stares this way with his sunglasses in place.
I walk to him.
“What’d he want?”
“Nothing.” I lean my shoulder against the wall. “I approached him.”
“Why?”
“Don’t play dumb, big man.”
“You have no need to fight.”
“You have no idea what I need.”
He crowds my space and my body turns against the wall. “Wrong.” His fingers slide inside my open jacket and skim down my side.
When my body shivers, he pushes closer, whispering, “I know exactly what you need, and I guarantee you won’t find it with some G-Eazy wannabe.”
“I happen to love me some G-Eazy,” I tease. “And Bass’ lip ring does something for me.”
“Yeah?” he growls. “Well then a dick ring will really set you off.” When my lips part he steps back, licking his. “Stay away from him, Snow.”
And then he’s gon
e, but I barely register his retreat, because I’m too busy replaying the sight of him in his boxers, trying to figure out if he’s kidding about dick jewelry or not. I know I didn’t feel it on me when we laid together in bed.
When the bell rings I jolt, shaking myself from my Maddick fog and make my way back into the cafeteria.
The rest of the day passes with a blur and then it’s time for the boys to practice.
I post up on the bleachers as they move to the courts.
Royce runs over and tosses me his hoodie and glasses. “Put that under your head.”
“Thanks. Hey!” I shout and he turns back, nodding his chin. “Why this old court, why not the fancy gym or at the house?”
“It’s real out here.” He shrugs. “This is home.”
When I grin, he winks and runs off.
I’m betting Maybell has a lot to do with this side of these guys, the home-grown side. I know they have money, but they don’t live like they do as far as their person. They don’t eat at steakhouses or yacht clubs like I assume ritzy people do but make dinners in their own kitchens instead. They use an old beat up court because it’s more comfortable than a half a million dollar one built just for them – I saw the plaque on the wall. I know their dad had it built it in the Brayshaw name just in time for their freshman year. They don’t walk around with their noses in the air, but their shoulders are wide, and heads still held high. If I saw them walking down my streets with the athletic gear they’ve got on right now, I’d swear they belonged.
I stuff the hoodie over my head and slip his shades on, so I can comfortably enjoy Maddoc commanding the show.
Basketball is like a fast pace dance, one that Maddoc has perfected.
With each swift move of his feet, no matter if he cuts left or right or simply drops back, he makes every basket effortlessly – not a single brick shot. But he’s not trying to eat up all the playtime. He works as a captain should, makes sure the ball is sent where it needs to go, but like a magnet seeks its metal home, the ball finds its way back to the big man’s hands.
He runs down the court, and one of the guys comes up to block, so he spins and tosses the ball backward over his head. Captain runs out of nowhere to catch it and dunks the ball before anyone can even attempt to stop him.
“Ooh, dropping dimes, boy!” Royce laughs and the rest of the team shout out their excitement.
Boys of Brayshaw High Page 25