by Eden O'Neill
Your friend Royal stood up for me today. He didn’t have to, but he did and it was actually pretty cool. Scary, but pretty cool. I get the feeling he scares a lot of people. Did he scare you? Is that why you’re friends? Because you’d rather be with the guy than against him? I saw pictures of you two today as well. You didn’t look scared of him. He looked like he was your friend. In fact, you two looked really close, P, and it kind of makes me wonder why you never mentioned the guy. I told you pretty much everything about my life, but the longer I’m here I’m finding out so much about you. Like how you ruled this place like the badass you are. I heard you were the first girl on the football team? I mean, what? That’s awesome and I never would have known. Why didn’t you tell me? Whenever you came to LA to see me, you were pretty broken. You’d never admit that, of course, playing it off like you were there for me and to take care of me but I knew. Especially your last few visits before you ghosted me…
Did something happen at school? Something outside of Dad and with your friends? Who was protecting you here while you were so busy taking care of me and my mistakes for so long? Was it Royal?
Was it anyone?
- Em
P.S. Hearts you more.
Seven
Rosanna urged me to tell my dad about Hershey that evening before she went home for the night, and I agreed with her. I could only keep an entirely too adorable puppy quiet for so long before she immersed herself into my dad’s radar. I figured getting ahead of that would be best, and the moment I heard the garage door close that night, I ventured downstairs to intercept him before he could get too comfortable. Over the day, I considered he may give me what I want just to get out of his face so he could eat dinner. I had no data to back this theory up, of course, but it could be worth a shot.
“Dad?” I questioned, knowing my incriminating evidence was already upstairs. I hoped to God Hershey could stay quiet at least until I told him. I’d given her apples and peanut butter on top of her puppy food to keep her preoccupied. I wrestled with my hands. “You think we can talk…”
“I got you a job,” he stated, filing through the mail on the counter.
I believed I’d heard him wrong.
“Sorry?” I asked, coming into the kitchen.
He gazed up at me. “I said I got you a job. Staff at the local community center. You’ll be doing maintenance and cleaning amongst other things.”
He hadn’t asked me about a job, nor had I said I had any desire for one. If anything, I’d be too busy once school got in the thick of things considering the curriculum.
“Why?” I dared to ask, and when my father looked at me the way he did, I thought to rethink the question. “I just mean, I just started school and—”
“This will keep things balanced for you,” he said, nodding with it and his sports jacket over his arm. “Keep you focused and out of trouble. We’re not going to have a repeat of what happened out in LA. Not while you’re under my roof.”
I fought myself from cringing at the statement, one mistake branding me for life when it came to him. It’d been a big one, one I owned up to but still. Did he have to hold it over my head? I’d already done that enough to myself in the past.
I rubbed my arm. “Dad, I really don’t have time for a job.” On top of starting at a new school, I’d already dealt with a mini crisis. I had no idea if Royal stepping in would work for me, but I knew I’d still be dealing with some type of repercussions from it. Whatever that may be, I really didn’t feel I needed another thing in my life.
Dad barely acknowledged what I said, flicking through pieces of mail one by one. “You’re starting a job, December, and maybe, unlike your sister, you’ll actually keep one. It’ll also give you some spending money. I don’t mind giving you money for the things you want while you’re here, but if you work, I won’t mind giving it to you even less.”
Giving up, I nodded. What he said was fair enough, and I would need things for Hershey if she was staying with me. I mean, if he said yes to her staying here and all that.
I didn’t like how he’d basically made this decision for me, but it was fair, and back home, I did have a job. Usually, I just did a bunch a bullshit at the convenience store I worked at because the owner had been a joke and the employees did whatever they wanted. It had allowed me spending money, though, and a place to smoke out of my aunt’s house. She didn’t particularly enjoy that I smoked weed, but what aunt would?
“When do I start?” I asked, gripping a chair at the bar, and his mail filtered through, my dad tossed it on the counter.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said. “First thing.”
*
Tomorrow morning consisted of the butt-crack of dawn, Hershey licking me awake in the end after I ignored my alarm for the snooze button three times. Saturday mornings shouldn’t be like this, early, but for the sake of avoiding the wrath of my dad, I got my ass up and got going. I took a shower, got dressed, and after getting my dog set up with breakfast in the guesthouse, I left Hershey to her own devices. I shot a text to Rosanna to poke in on her from time to time since she’d be coming in later today and prayed to God Dad didn’t decide to do something rogue like go out there. He’d have no reason to do so, but stranger things…
I stood in front of the pegboard that held the keys to my dad’s cars, a piece of Pop-Tart from my secret stash clamped between my teeth. Dad said I could take any car outside of his Rolls to work this morning.
Plucking a set of Range Rover keys, I headed to the garage and opened the door, closing myself inside the brand-new vehicle. Dad had just bought this car last year.
I saw it in my sister’s pictures.
Frozen by the information, I smoothed my hand over the wheel, the ghost of my sister, Paige, in this car. This was her car, something she didn’t even take with her.
Gosh, I wish you’d come home.
She had to be staying with friends or maybe just traveling. My sister sent me photos from all over the place when she was in the thick of it from something Dad did or Dad said. She was good at staying off the radar and if she didn’t want to be found, she wouldn’t be.
Sighing, I opened the garage door. I got myself buckled in, then started the car. Once in gear, I let the car’s navigation take me to the community center and was on autopilot virtually the whole way. I kept envisioning my sister in this car, my sister driving these streets, and my sister in this life. It was like I was playing placeholder for her, here in her place until she came back. Turning the wheel, I continued playing the game. I was determined to stay here until she got her shit together. She couldn’t run forever, hide, and I knew this from personal experience. My father reminded me I once had my own shit to deal with and I had dealt with it. Paige had been there for me way back when, and this was me being there for her now.
The car’s navigation literally took me out to the middle of farm country, but when traffic picked up, I knew I was in the right place. Cars everywhere, the roads leading up to the community center were a complete cluster-fuck.
What the hell?
When Dad said “community center,” I figured he meant a busted-down YMCA smack-dab in the middle of downtown, not some glass-encased fortress in the middle of cornfields, but that’s exactly what I found. I followed the traffic flow to the back, the lot just as jam-packed.
Jesus.
The inside wasn’t any different, a crystal palace of wide windows and open space. People rushed around inside, some in uniforms, others not, but all raced to get to various activities, some of which I passed as I wandered the place aimlessly.
I nibbled a Pop-Tart, catching games of basketball, volleyball, and even bowling at one point. Virtually all the rooms were filled, the stands as well with who had to be parents.
I shook my head, the culture completely different.
What else is new?
I felt like a fish out of water at the school, so why not in the community too? I gripped my bag, thinking I needed to find some kind of information
center like when attending a concert at an arena. This basically the same thing, I stood on my tiptoes in search of one. My gaze stopped immediately on extended height, a boy coming directly at me through the crowd. I knew this boy from school or at least knew of him. LJ, Royal’s friend LJ, was a tall blond of extraordinary height and the same went for his build. Arms thick and shoulders bulky, he currently had that long blond hair of his cinched at the top of his head, a red shirt over his arm that matched the one he wore. He came right at me, stopping me in my path. The name Lance J. was embroidered in yellow thread on his right pec, one that very much twitched when he stopped.
He frowned right at me. “You’re late, Lindquist.”
Holy shit, he waiting for me. I mean, he did come right to me, but this was a surprise. He clearly worked here, and when he put the other red shirt he had over my shoulder, he let me know he was here to help me on my first day of work.
He put out his hand. “I’m Lance. Lance Johnson but everyone calls me LJ. I manage here, so I’m showing you around.”
As I hadn’t officially met him, I took his hand, shaking. Though, it was all rather awkward considering we did both know each other from school.
And you called his friend out yesterday.
All that not far enough in the past, my smile was stiff as I let go, and obviously, the exclusive Court ran the community center as well as the school.
Obviously.
I nodded at him, taking back my hand. I really couldn’t get away from these guys, and I idly wondered if Royal was bopping around someplace too. Not brave enough to ask, I took my shirt off my shoulder and followed his extended height through the cluster of people. LJ directed me to a locker room designated for female staff, and after dropping my stuff off and changing, I joined him on the floor.
“I’ll be with you until you get things,” he said, pointing out various areas and the events that were typically held in them. “But even after, you only answer to me. I’m your direct manager so if you have any questions you come see me.”
Apparently, he owned me as well, and I bit back a few choice words for my dad. How in the entire fuck did he manage to find a job for me under the direct hand of the Court? I shook my head, grateful at least that, though LJ was firm, he wasn’t an asshole about the way he said and showed me things. He really was just my manager, so at least I had that. Had I been under someone like Royal Prinze, I had a feeling all this “showing me around” wouldn’t be without his bite or familiar threats. LJ, on the other hand, was definitely a lot more laid-back, and after handing me a broom and wash rag, he showed me where I’d be cleaning floors and wiping down mats. I got to play janitor for minimum wage, and I showcased it in each and every room he showed me. I wasn’t the only red shirt doing bitch work, but I was the only girl. They may have had a female locker room, but the lack of female staff was very obvious. In fact, the only members of the opposite sex around here tended to be the actual members either working out here or participating in activities.
“Last room for today,” LJ said to me around three thirty. At this point, I’d been on my feet since basically 7 AM and had the backache to prove it. LJ had me doing various jobs both inside and outside all day, and I felt it.
Working out my backache, I bent into cleaning up the mess from yet another spectator around this place. I’d cleaned up enough scattered popcorn and Skittles to get me through the final semesters of high school, and LJ gratefully didn’t hover. He tended to just check in on me from time to time while he did whatever he did as manager. From what I’d gathered, that typically consisted of socializing and flirting with the various female members, a job that he got right into while I cleaned my “last room for the day.”
Peering over the broomstick, the tall blond was called over by a couple of girls in unitards. Apparently, we were in the tumbling room, half-naked girls doing somersaults and dance routines on the mats. LJ wasn’t watching the show, but didn’t stand by idle when one of the girls waved at him. He gathered her by the waist and joined a group of guys who messed around by the mats. I assumed they were Court and one of them was actually standing on a chair and dancing. He swayed his hips to the girls’ music who currently danced a floor routine, and I recognized him as Jax, a practical joker apparently both in and outside of class. Days didn’t pass where classes sometimes stopped entirely just for our teachers to reel him in. He had a tendency of getting people super amped and was proving to do the same today. Obnoxious, he fell off the chair in the middle of the girls’ routine, which of course made all the girls laugh. This received nothing but a jostle from LJ after he helped him up, but at least, another guy slapped him on the back of the head for being an idiot. I recognized him too, mostly because he was a colossal giant. Knight Reed had to be a defender on the lacrosse team, had to with his force.
“Stop dicking around.”
How I failed to notice the guys’ leader before, I didn’t know. Perhaps, it’d been Jax’s dance but Royal Prinze, the one who spoke, sat right up front for the show. In a folding chair, Royal had himself lounged back, yet another girl sprawled across his lap, and this one stole my attention due not just to the fact she was half-naked like the other girls, but her particular hairstyle.
She’d rocked the same one when she’d been sucking Royal off.
I hadn’t seen the redhead since that day. Really, Royal seemed to have a different chick every day of the week in the lunchroom, but today, she had all his attention. He rubbed her back while he chided Jax, then squeezed her hip as the group settled down. Eventually, she got up to go back to the floor in her bright unitard, and he smacked her ass, making her giggle. LJ came over to Royal’s side once Royal was freed up, and the two fist-bumped.
At least Royal doesn’t seem to work here.
I thanked the world for small favors, trying not to watch the group, but that was made hard when after they bumped fists, LJ bent down and said something in Royal’s ear. Whatever it was made the sandy blond’s head turn, Royal looking right at me when he turned fully around in his chair. He tipped his chin at me, smiling a little before he was called ahead by the redhead. LJ must have told him I was here, and Royal wanted to make sure I saw him for whatever reason.
I really didn’t know what to make of that, but let’s just say, my last room of the day I got through quicker than the others.
*
I didn’t have to work the next day due to it being Sunday and the community center being closed, but after school, I worked the next few days for three- to four-hour shifts at the Maywood Heights Community Center. Hubert dropped me off at home after school, and after a quick look over my homework, dinner, and caring for Hershey, I was right back on the road and working. LJ met me when I arrived and, dare I say, worked me harder than any guy there. He didn’t take it easy on me because I was a girl and, if anything, came down on me even worse. I might not have thought anything of it, but considering the impression I’d made so far in this town and how I yelled at LJ’s friend in front of a shit-ton of people…
I wiped sweat from my brow, shoveling dog poo into tiny sacks. The community center had a dog park, and I got the “joy” of working that today.
Fuck me.
My phone buzzed, and I knew it wasn’t Aunt Celeste since I was at work. She was aware of my new schedule and didn’t tend to bother me during a shift. She also loved the fact that Dad was making me work not even a month into moving to a new town… not.
Birdie: Hey. Can you hang out later? The girls and I plan to pop your party cherry. ;)
I was stinky and I was tired, but I was also eighteen and hadn’t done anything remotely social since leaving LA.
Me: Save me.
Eight
Half the Windsor Prep female basketball team picked me up later that night, a cool blue Hummer their ride of choice. Apparently, Shakira’s dad was out of town, and she had full access to any one of the bazillion and a half cars she had in her parents’ garage. I’d been told her dad owned a car dealership, but e
ven outside of that, these girls had exotic cars guys in rap videos would salivate to have. I’d seen them, another world completely on the opposite side of mine.
I eased off of leather seats, adjusting the skirt of a dress that road up my ass just as bad as my uniform. I paired my dress with a leather jacket and black boots, ready to party and get out of my head a little. I’d spent entirely too much time since I’d gotten to this town either thinking about my sister or members of the Court, Royal specifically. I had no idea if he’d be here tonight, but at least with several Amazon-sized women surrounding me, I could blend into the crowd and hopefully avoid his wrath. Birdie, in her crop top and high-waisted jeans, passed Kiki the joint we started on our way over to the party in the ’burbs, all of us already slightly baked before getting here. I took one last hit when passed the weed, then allowed women twice my size to slink arms around my waist and across my shoulders. They led me inside, and thank God for that, as they kept me from getting pummeled in a home already filled from wall to wall with people. I had no idea whose house this was, but there were already bodies passed out in it.
I stepped over one, a guy with his head inside a pot.
Birdie frowned. “Uh-uh, not cool, Taylor,” she said, dragging me by the arm away from the sight with a laugh. “It’s too early to be doing all that.”
“Right?” Shakira’s cheeks hollowed as she took a hit from the joint we still had. Apparently done with it, she quickly put it out in Taylor’s pot, then grabbed my other arm. She pumped a fist. “Let’s dance, bitches!”
Our war cries filled the house as we went down the stairs into the pit of a house inside the high hills of Maywood Heights. Surrounded by glass, the open space let in the night, and we danced beneath the stars to DJ tunes. I actually felt like a star a little bit, a shining burst of light amongst the galaxy’s socialites. Don’t get me wrong. I partied hard back in LA, but I went to an inner-city school. We partied in either musty-smelling lofts or abandoned buildings, the scene busted up by cops barely after midnight.