by Ginger Scott
“And then I took her into the locker room. Alone.” I’m unable to finish before Lucas pipes in again.
“Aww, shit!” He laughs, holding a fist to his mouth as if that somehow mutes it.
“Not like that, dude. Just, fucking listen, all right?” I scold him.
“Sure, yeah.” He snickers. June gives him another elbow.
“Thank you,” I say to her, recalibrating myself to finish the story and get to the hard part. I crack my neck to the side and bring both of my hands together and rest them on the table. “There were so many people cramming through that space, I was afraid we weren’t going to get inside in time. It was the first thing I could think of, because of the pipes.”
“Okay, might be a bit of a stretch, since those pipes only go down a foot or so, but whatever.” Lucas adds his color commentary. I shoot him a look and keep going.
“We were both holding on and she was so freaked out, and maybe I was too, so I started . . . like . . . humming this song that calms me down and shit.”
The snort that leaves Lucas’s nose is epic, only outdone by the cackling laugh that actually forces him to hold his hand over his chest. June pushes him toward the window, to the other end of their seat, but he laughs right through her efforts. She eventually gives up and leaves her boyfriend’s side of the booth and takes my hand, dragging me to a table and chairs on the other end of the diner.
“Oh, come on!” Lucas shouts. June holds up a flat palm.
“I’ll deal with him later,” she says, her eyes square on mine. There isn’t an ounce of judgement in her expression.
I swallow.
“I’m not gonna lie, I was scared, too. The walls were buzzing, and the emergency lights were a joke. All I could feel was her body shaking, and I just sorta . . . started . . . singing.”
“You sing?” June whisper shouts.
I level her with narrowed eyes and tight lips.
“Right, sorry,” she says, clearing her throat. “Continue.”
I squirm a little in my seat because this next part, this is the part that’s bad. June is like my church, though, the place I can come to repent and ask forgiveness, so I hit her with the truth.
“I was holding her against my chest, kinda from behind, and her hair smelled like apricots or fruit or something, and her neck was wide open, and it just felt like I should rest my chin on her shoulder.”
Her eyes sag and her bottom lip protrudes, her face turning into that one girls make when they have to leave a puppy.
“The first time was totally an accident,” I say, skipping ahead.
She shakes her head quickly and twirls her finger, signaling for me to rewind. I sit back in my chair and slink down, stretching my legs out and leaning to one side with my arm slung over the back.
“I was keeping my mouth so close to her ear because I wanted her to hear me. I thought maybe it would calm her or whatever. It was like a graze, I guess.”
“A graze,” June repeats, her mouth all twisted in disappointment. I may as well spill it now.
“Yeah, that one was a graze. Then I fucking kissed her neck.” I shrug under the heat of her blistering glare. “I told you. I fucked up.”
“Oh, Tory.” Her voice is low, but not angry. It’s the goddamned pity again.
“I know.” I huff, standing and rounding the chair. I’m about to push it in when a waitress walks up with a glass of water and a straw for me.
“Oh, you’re not staying?” The girl looks familiar, sophomore class maybe. I don’t want to look like a jerk, so I grab the back of the seat I just left and look down to regroup. I manage to shift my frustrated scowl into something more pleasant, lifting my chin and flashing her the biggest smile I can muster.
“Just heading to the restroom. Give me a burger, cheddar, and skip the side.” I keep my mouth locked in the tight-lipped smile while she sets down my water and scribbles my pretty basic order on her pad. I think maybe she’s new here; I should tip her good. I blink a few times, silently counting the seconds, until she looks back up at me and tells me my food will “be right up.”
There’s a happy sway to her hips that bobs her ponytail from side-to-side as she walks away and I laugh lightly before returning my gaze to June. “Why couldn’t I get stuck on a girl like that?”
“Because she just got her driver’s license and you’re narrowing down your college choice,” June replies.
I point at her and nod in agreement, then excuse myself to the restroom to follow through with my charade. My hair is a mess, having rushed from yard work to the diner without a break in between. I spend a few minutes at the sink, soaking my hands and running my fingers through my hair, wishing like hell I had a hat. I’d dry my hands on the front of my shirt, but now that I glance down at it, there’s dirt all over the front. I grab a towel from the dispenser and pat my hands dry before taking the towel to my shirt to clear some of the dirt off and, what the—? My pants are worse. Who am I? I bend at my waist and brush along the seams of my joggers, actual leaves and twigs getting knocked to the floor.
“Ha.” I laugh out loud at myself.
I give up when major chunks of nature are no longer stuck to me, and wad the towel into a ball and toss it across the room into the trash bin. Guilty or not, I do feel lighter now that I’ve bared my soul to June. I’ll just go back and take her lecture or her advice on how to get over crushes—like she ever did—and then I’ll go home and crash face down in my sheets to make up for the zero sleep I got last night. I tossed and turned with stress for seven hours, and I was pretty close to barging into Hayden’s room and begging him either for forgiveness or his girlfriend. The end goal changed every ten minutes.
The bathroom door opens with surprising ease and I almost crack heads with the person coming in while I’m exiting.
“Oh, shoot!”
There’s a strange element to being a twin that people don’t talk about. Even when you’re used to it, it’s still surprising to look right back at yourself. I had a slight warning, though, because shoot is a total Hayden word.
His palm grasps my shoulder hard, and at first I prepare myself for a fist in the jaw, but he shakes me instead.
“Damn, you scared me,” he says, gripping his hand to his chest. He’s all cleaned up, a nice white T-shirt and jeans. It’s kinda like we traded places during the tornado, like one of those movies, only I’m still stuck wanting his girl and he’s still got her. All I got was his frumpy-ass look while he got my style.
“Sorry. Hey, I didn’t know you were coming.” I scratch at my head as I swap places with him, stepping out while he steps in.
“Yeah, so much for a day off, I guess,” he says.
“We’ve got practice?” My face screws up with surprise because Coach texted us all this morning, telling us to work out and do sprints for the next two days and be ready to hit the gym at the junior high on Thursday. Ours is basically a shipwreck.
“Nah, I picked up a shift, and Mom gave me her car,” he says. It’s then that I notice the infamous red weenie shirt clutched in his fist. “First official day on the job!”
“Nice. I’ll let you change,” I say with a quick smile to excuse myself.
My back barely turned, Hayden catches the door.
“Oh, and Abby came with. We were going to hang but then, duty calls! She thought maybe you’d be up for running lines? If not, it’s cool. I can take her home.”
I don’t want to turn around. If I do, I’m either going to tell him that the phrase duty calls means he has to take a shit, or I’m going to massively fail at bluffing as I stammer my way through an excuse to avoid being alone with Abby.
“Sure,” I say, because of the third option—the one where I want to spend time with her and I can play loyal as long as my back is turned.
“Cool. I’ll be home around nine, I guess.”
I hold up a thumb and walk away, mentally doing the math on the number of hours left before nine. It’s barely twelve-thirty.
I g
et back to the booth where things started, my burger probably still several minutes away from being ready. Abby is twisting where she stands, eyes on the spot where her gym shoe digs at the floor. She’s dressed for the gym in tight black leggings and a black workout tee, a white long-sleeved shirt tied around her waist. Unlike me, she’s got her hair tucked neatly under a hat, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s so she can hide underneath the brim.
“I guess I’m driving you back to our place?” My words come out convincingly nonchalant, but June reads below the surface. My friend shakes her head at me slowly, a warning I ignore as I fish out my wallet and toss a twenty on the table. “Just take my burger home. I’m not hungry anyway.”
“I’ll eat it,” Lucas says, winking at me. Clearly, June filled him in on the details he missed. “I’ll probably be over in an hour too. I don’t mind doing my own thing while you guys study or whatever it is.”
“Run lines,” Abby corrects. She tips her head up sharply and her eyes shift from Lucas to me, but they’re impossible to read. Maybe I’m overreacting, because I could swear she’s her usual self, short-tempered and pretentious, and appalled that Lucas wouldn’t understand her world.
“Right, study,” Lucas says, just to be a dick. I chuckle, mostly to fit in but also because that was funny.
“Ready?” Abby’s entire body has turned to face me, and she’s completely void of tension, at least it seems so on her end. I, however, am an impossible knot.
“Sure, yeah,” I say, picking up my water cup and gulping down half of it. I set it back on the table and clutch my keys in my pocket, nodding toward the door. Abby walks away first, not bothering to wait for me, and I breathe out a laugh as I follow, a little thankful for the normalcy.
“So, see you at one?” Lucas calls after us.
That’s hardly an hour. It’s less than thirty minutes from now. But I know he should show up. If he’s there, everything will stay above board, maybe even my imagination. If he doesn’t show, I might get all sappy and shit and pull out my guitar.
“Sounds good, bruh.” I hold up my hand as I push through the door, the tiny bell ringing at the top as I leave. I’m pretty sure that means June gets her wings.
8
Abby
Stick to the plan, Abby.
I woke up with a renewed sense of business as usual when it comes to Tory D’Angelo and me. If only he’d participate in said plan. This works much better when he acts like a dog, tossing out misogynistic jokes while acting like every girl wants him.
Every girl does want him.
I sense he’s trying, though. His cocky swagger is only at mid-strength. He called the guy with the double-sized spoiler and whirring muffler who tried to race us a douche, then laughed when the guy had to stop short because a minivan pulled out in front of him. Other than that, he’s acting as if I’m not sitting here, a foot away from him in his bucket seat.
I kiss his brother sitting in this seat. What am I thinking? What am I doing? Why am I even dating someone? I’m not emotionally equipped for this stuff.
We get to the main drag of town and traffic halts, a line of twenty or more cars in front of us. Tory rolls down his window and climbs halfway out from his seat, sitting on the ledge. I lean toward the middle of our seats as if somehow, I can see better from here.
“They’re removing some of the downed trees. Looks like they’re almost done,” he says, slipping back inside before I have a chance to move away. His brows draw in a little and his mouth sits on the cusp of laughter as our eyes meet.
“You wanna have a look?” He points over his shoulder and out his window.
“Pfft.” I huff, glowering before blinking my gaze back to the windshield and situating myself away from him again. This little tiff almost feels normal. If only I didn’t know that his stare was loitering on the side of my face. Every breath I take has thought behind it, knowing he’s watching. I work to hold my mouth in check, my face expressionless, despite the burning sensation of his eyes staring at my lips. My pulse is racing, and I’m getting hot even though it’s forty degrees outside and the heater in this car is shit. A perfect storm of my mood triggers clashes in my chest, and finally, I just snap.
“Can’t you just go around?” I jerk my head to face him, catching the twitch in his eyes. I think he’s both nervous I caught him staring and jumpy at my tone. I sounded mean just now. I’m fucking hot, and . . . confused. And I want out of this car.
My hand moves toward the door handle with my panicked thoughts, and on impulse I push my door open a few inches.
“What, are you gonna go help them hurry things along, lumberjack Abby?” Tory adds in a wry smile and I tug my door closed again, crossing my arms in a humph as I fall back into the seat. His laughter grows, but he glances up at the rearview mirror and then over his shoulder, flipping on his turn signal.
“Hang on. I know a way around.” He hangs a quick U-turn, then speeds back past the diner, where June and Lucas are just getting in Lucas’s truck. The minivan is gone, so Hayden must have already rushed off to work. He was pretty excited about his first day, and even more excited about a paycheck in a few weeks.
“How come you don’t have a job?” I ask.
Tory doesn’t answer right away, and at first, I think maybe he didn’t hear me, but as he checks the mirror again, I note his grimace and pinched brow. My question came out kinda judgmental, I guess. It’s not like I have a real job, either. I have gigs, and all of this sort of fell in my lap. My dad signed me up for a summer acting class when I was six, mostly to get me out of the house, but I got hooked. That little class registration, of course, is the cornerstone of his legal argument for deserving a portion of my company. I think the summer fee might have been thirty-five bucks.
Tory makes a sharp turn into an older neighborhood where most of the homes have front porches and cute yards with huge trees now barren for winter. Flower beds are all emptied for the freeze, but you can see the outlines where they probably bloom bright reds and yellows in the spring. Winding pathways lead to swings and sitting areas where kids no doubt run through sprinklers while parents drink lemonade. I’ve always wanted to live in a house like one of these. I crave that Hallmark lifestyle. Maybe I just crave a normal family.
“I should be spending my free time on basketball,” Tory finally says, drawing my attention back to the driver’s seat. His eyes are hazed as he stares at the road ahead, and while my first reaction is to be defensive under the assumption that he’s talking about me taking up his free time, I realize he’s alluding to something deeper.
“You guys are going to get back in the gym, right?”
There’s a long pause before his answer, and I wonder if he’s thinking about last night, too. Less about the disaster and more about . . . us.
Tory leans his weight to the side and rests one hand on the steering wheel, wincing.
“We’ll be in the junior high gym until the new year, which is lame as hell. You know I dunked there in eighth grade?” He flashes a child-like smile at me, and I get that while he’s being funny, he’s also sorta bragging about it.
“Wow. Big time,” I tease.
Maybe I don’t have to be quite so cold with him. It feels as if we’re in a new place, friendship-wise. It happened with June, so perhaps we’re all coming around to each other and maturing.
“It’s been hard to focus, with all of the drama. I’m sure you get an earful from Hayden, and I’m fine, so let’s talk about you.” He glances my way with a tight-lipped grin that tells me his last little bit was complete bullshit. He’s not fine at all.
“You know, it’s not like I have a set number of hours to hear about people’s struggles. If you need to talk, I can listen to you, too,” I say.
“Nah, it’d be like reading the same book twice, back-to-back. Who does that?” he says with a snort laugh.
I stare at him and blink slowly, my mind picturing the book on my nightstand that I’m reading right now—the second time throu
gh. He does a quick double take when he realizes I’m staring at him, and by his third glance, he gets it.
“Oh, shit. You do that? I’m sorry. I mean . . . that’s cool. What do I know? I read Sports Illustrated.” He shrugs and looks back to the road.
“You look at the swim suit issue,” I crack.
His body shakes with quiet laughter and he eventually nods.
“Yeah, I do.”
I muse at his humility. It’s rather charming, which is the opposite of the objective I set. I’m not supposed to find Tory likeable. The plan is to aim for tolerable. But likeable goes with friendship, so maybe I can shift my end goal.
“Hey, if you want, we can trade. You can run lines with me, and I’ll play you some one-on-one.” I throw this out there not to flirt, because Tory knows damn well that I am not athletic in the least.
He blurts out a quick laugh.
“Yeah, okay, Abby.”
His eyes soften when he says my name, and I feel it in the dead center of my chest. Time to move that goal line back where it was.
With only a mile or two left until we reach his house, we spend the last few minutes letting the radio fill in the dead air in the car. It’s nothing but commercials for pot roast sales at the grocery store, snow tires at DJ’s Pit Crew, and a laundry list of side effects for some drug that helps you keep your hair. I’m thankful when we pull in the driveway and see Lucas’s truck.
He’s already pulled a ball out of Tory’s garage and is shooting hoops in his driveway as we pull in. A pile of branches and debris forms a mountain near the street, and I survey the new bare spots in the D’Angelo front yard before Tory shuts off his car. His house seems intact from here. We lost a patio cover, but it was basically only a board held up by two crooked posts, so I’m shocked it didn’t fly away sooner.
We both get out and Tory jogs over to his friend, stealing the ball from him and palming it in one hand to dunk it easily. He’s graceful in the air.
“Dude, how’d you get here so fast?” Tory asks. He punts the ball and catches it off the bounce, then passes it back to Lucas. I lean on the back of Tory’s car, dropping my purse between my feet, to watch boys be boys.