Grade a Stupid

by A. J. Lape

  I tried to have one of those silent conversations with him like, Exactly what do you think happened, Liam? And by the way, were you following me? I thank you, because I think you saved my life, but really, how did you know?

  Instead of picking up on my silent request for more information, Liam’s eyes locked on my legs like a heat-seeking missile.

  Jon saw and grunted, “She’s taken...and busy...and only fifteen. You’re legal, man, that has to be statutory something.”

  Liam sort of laughed, “I was hoping that little detail wouldn’t make a difference.” Was that his drawback? Did he just think me too young? Concentrating with a frown, he appeared as if he was replaying some past events in his mind. With a shrug that said, “Oh well,” he popped upright like our little flirtation was all but forgotten. “So, do you want to swim?”

  And that’s why you should never lose your heart to a fastard, girls. You were discarded too easily.

  Realizing it was probably a slam, I mumbled, “My interests fall more along the culinary. I merely came for the burgers and dogs.”

  Five minutes later, I was standing in the food line with Liam, Jon, and Justice. Collin Lockhart was directly across from us, pouring himself another drink. I gave a quick chin-jerk of acknowledgment as he mumbled, “Hey,” and walked away.

  “Who invited him?” I whispered to Grumpy.

  “Sydney said he came on his own—she thinks.”

  If he came with Brynn, no wonder he lost his party spirit. I picked up a two-liter of Coke and poured it to the rim of a red plastic cup. I took a sip and swallowed down the gloom. Felt like it was catching. While the others neatly constructed hotdogs and hamburgers, I threw a dog on a bun, slathered it with mustard, and pigged out...downing it in three bites.

  My hamburger I decided to savor.

  Still in her velour tracksuit, Dylan’s mother put her arm around my waist with softened eyes. Her hair pulled back in a low ponytail, she looked younger and fresher than anyone here. I, however, was sweating like a pig on slaughter day.

  “How’s your burger, dear?” she asked.

  I took a bite, toasting it toward her. “Burgerlicious.”

  “That’s right,” Justice munched. “So good I’m going to write a poem about it.”

  Liam was inhaling the last of what looked like an extra-loaded, Cincinnati style hotdog complete with chili, onions, and shredded cheddar cheese. He took a napkin and wiped his mouth. “Thank you for having us over, Mrs. Taylor. I think I’ve just met my future wife.” He tweaked me on the nose.

  Coughing up some bun, it dribbled down the front of my suit along with a slice of tomato. My word, I don’t know why they kept me around. It’s like I’d been raised by wolves.

  Liam cleaned it off with a napkin, tilting my chin toward him. “Isn’t she a keeper? She’s so sweet and innocent.”

  Mrs. Taylor threw her head back and laughed loudly, but caught herself then laughed again. Personally, I wasn’t in line when God was passing out the sweet-and-innocent thing. Believe me, I could’ve used it.

  Turning, Liam grabbed a black sharpie that was next to the ketchup bottle, removed his white t-shirt and laid it on the countertop scribbling “Darcy’s Boy Toy” in cursive. “Now, that’s settled. Do you like your new toy?” he asked me.

  “I like the new toy,” Justice whispered in my ear.

  I fought to keep my voice from sounding incredulous. “I have self-esteem issues.”

  I wasn’t sure that statement fit into the context of the conversation, but it definitely was what I was feeling at the moment. And why? My best friend was off doing God knows what with Brynn-I-want-to-smack-her-in-the-face-Hathaway.

  “You’re a dead man,” Jon chuckled behind his cup.

  Susan Taylor’s amber eyes twinkled with an all-knowing amusement, like she was in on an inside joke. In a dignified and maternal voice, she murmured, “Have you met my son?”

  Liam half grinned, half pouted. “He’s hard to miss, and I think he growled at me earlier. I’m telling on him to his mommy.”

  Could you die from looking at someone overly cute? Was that possible? If it was, maybe Grumpy should be digging a hole. Wishing I wasn’t dressed like a naughty Pilgrim, I opened my mouth to tell him Dylan could kiss my you-know-what, that his selfish you-know-what always got what it wanted, and my you-know-what wasn’t on the list.

  He was my hero earlier. My, I emphasized in my brain. What was he now? Hers?

  Right at that moment, a shift happened in the crowd...you could feel it. Emotions were rising as the sound level practically shattered the windows. Someone threw Bronx’s walking stick in the air, it ricocheted off the wall, and launched into a 52” LCD television, gold end first.

  28 PAYING THE PIPER

  IT WAS LIKE Hell broke loose, and demons were trashing holy relics. After a few blinks of shock, Justice was the first to mobilize. She flew into motion, roundhouse kicking the thrower. While Liam and Jon corralled the flying bodies, Mrs. Taylor bolted upstairs for her husband, and I went to unearth Vinnie. I pulled him out of a closet with a bleached blonde bimbo. Both were messy-haired with red faces and rumpled clothes; the girl apologizing; Vinnie gloating. I didn’t want to know, people; I really didn’t want to know.

  When Vinnie’s eyes came back to focus, he jumped into the crowd like a whale frolicking in the ocean. He didn’t diffuse anything; in fact, he amped it up. Next thing you knew, Liam and Jon weren’t playing peacemaker anymore. They were in the fray, fighting for their lives.

  Liam blocked a shot to his face and flipped someone to their stomach, pinning their hands behind their back. While he fought in an orderly fashion—each fist with an intended outcome—Jon was more of a street fighter, with elbows, feet, and profanity that sounded extra dirty. He threw two shots to someone’s gut, but when someone slugged his lip, I didn’t want this evening to go down with me as a scaredy cat.

  I somehow muscled between them and kneed the offender in the happies. Suddenly, he had an eight-octave vocal range. Girly fighting on my part, but as Murphy claimed, it was definitely effective. The guy dropped to his knees with an “unh” and curled into a ball.

  I’m not sure why I turned my head. Perhaps, it was reflex; perhaps, I was tired of looking at fighting. Whatever the case, I got cocked in the jaw by someone’s fist. I saw stars...maybe a few planets. I flailed my arms and legs at some unknown opponent and all of a sudden couldn’t breathe. My breath coming out in hard and painful gasps. Stumbling toward the patio, I circled my hand around the knob, fell into the night, and tumbled into Collin Lockhart—drunker than a monkey.

  “What I did was inexcusably dumb,” I said to Vinnie and Jon, rehashing what happened in the weight room, “but I beg the both of you to not give Dylan specifics.”

  Both acted like the weight room incident was the least of their worries. Jon sat down on the bar seat next to me, nursing a can of Coke like he was wishing it was something harder. He took a long drink then slid his eyes over to Vinnie who looked equally as distraught. Colton Taylor, Dylan’s father, had just ripped everyone a new pie hole, and anyone that had a smidgeon of a conscience felt guilty.

  There was one point I thought he was going to chuck a grenade into the crowd. Emotions were bubbling over. Most were civilized, ashamed, and looking at their feet, but a few were dumb enough to mumble under their breaths and look perturbed. Then there was me, I thought the show was so dang entertaining I didn’t want it to end.

  With an identical face but taller and broader than Dylan, he was dressed in a black golf shirt and black dress slacks, most of his diction in English but peppered with Greek curse words (no kidding, they were of Greek lineage). I tried not to laugh at his behavior, but when you found your closet door dented in, two sofas overturned, and bleeding appendages from people you didn’t know, I guess you were granted a few choice words.

  He’d just wheeled in two SHOP-VACS big enough to clean the space shuttle, and Jon, Vinnie, and I were the ad hoc cleaning crew. Single
handedly, we sucked every grain of sand off the floor and into tomorrow’s garbage. Currently taking a break, we watched Liam and Finn pick up shards of plastic from not one, but two demolished large screen televisions.

  When I realized neither was paying me any attention, I asked, “What’s wrong with you two?”

  “Jaws was here,” Vinnie grumbled.

  I shook my head, wondering if I’d heard him right. “Jaws?”

  “Jaws,” they said in unison.

  I gasped, a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. He was on house arrest, so how did he manage to get here without being busted. “What did he say?”

  “He mumbled something about ‘red’ and told me to give you this note,” Vinnie answered, sliding over a sealed envelope.

  I wanted to open it right then but the room was too crowded, and I wasn’t exactly sure what either of them would do with the information.

  Jon added, “He’d removed his ankle bracelet monitor, Walker, but he was desperate for you to have this. When he walked into World War 3, he took out of here like he was outrunning the gravedigger.”

  Can’t say I blamed him. “What did he look like?”

  Jon glanced over to Trudi, shrugging. “A guy.”

  If Jon had on his girlvision, you might as well have a convo with the wall. He was watching Trudi—in a purple bikini that barely qualified as a Band-Aid—hang all over some guy none of us had ever laid eyes on before.

  Vinnie mumbled, “I’ve got indigestion,” but when a door slammed upstairs, the three of us shot that look amongst ourselves that indigestion was the least of our worries. All of us knew it was Dylan. He was one of those people that you could feel from yards away. Trouble was, he’d missed the fight and most of the cleanup. His father was...well? Let’s just say, he was contemplating how to legally rearrange his son’s face.

  Savagely tromping across the floor, Colton yanked the walking stick out of the television as tiny shards of black plastic and circuitry tumbled to the floor. They fell in slow motion...like gravity was making a point. He pitched it in Dylan’s direction who was taking the stairs two at a time yelling my name again and again.

  Amaaaazing. Simply...amazing.

  What made him think I’d want to answer?

  Catching the stick with his left hand, Dylan was right in the middle of another “Darc—” when his eyes landed on the multi-thousand dollar catastrophe lying at his father’s feet. He looked to the right, the left, his jaw dropped once, then he stopped to scratch his head.

  “Where in God’s name were you, son?” Colton bellowed to him. “You know I told you to look after the place. I not only paid for the beach; evidently, I got the bums.”

  Dressed in jeans and zipped in a black leather jacket, I let my eyes linger over the stretch of muscle across his chest, the way his jeans gripped every well-framed muscle. He looked irresistible.

  I was a naughty Pilgrim.

  Craning his neck to find me, I gave him a circled wave as his eyes bounced from his father, to me, to the “Darcy’s Boy Toy” shirt Liam was still proudly wearing. I don’t know what it was with some guys. They liked to goad another male they considered equally as strong. Liam gave him a look like I-did-the-job-you-were-supposed-to-do-and-now-I’m-taking-your-girl-too.

  You could feel the freeze between them; it was colder than the polar icecaps.

  Emptying his dustpan into a trashcan, Liam sauntered to my side and draped his arm over my shoulder with a chuckle—like we were the happy little couple. My arm wrapped around his waist even though I told it not to.

  Dylan and I had another one of our nonverbal exchanges.

  Where were you? I screamed.

  You have the audacity to wonder where I was? he frowned. What in the, bleep profanity, were you doing with Woods in my weight room?

  Quit cursing at me, I snorted.

  Answer the freaking question, Darcy.

  You answer the freaking question, I grinned evilly.

  Yank. Yank. Yank Dylan’s chain.

  His jaw ticked, and you could feel the steam rolling off him. Dylan took one step forward then stopped, giving me that face like he expected me to meet him half way. When I didn’t budge, he finally prayed a one-worded, “Jesus.”

  His father gave an exaggerated eye roll, regarding him cynically. “There are a lot of people that need to be praying tonight.”

  Funny thing was, my gut told me that should be me.

  Whatever was to come tonight unfolded beneath stormy, charcoal-shadowed skies. In the distance, thunder rumbled and the weather sirens roared; Mother Nature wasn’t happy. A storm was in its infancy, and I had a feeling it was going to come out screaming.

  I walked outside with Vinnie but got into the car with Liam. What Murphy didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and when Dylan was enduring an accessory-after-the-fact lecture from his father, I scribbled a note claiming Vinnie was taking me home then ditched him.

  What’s good for the goose, I thought, is good for the gander.

  Still clasped tightly in my right hand was the note from Jaws. There was no chance to read it yet, and driving with Liam wasn’t exactly the most opportune time either. At first, I thought Liam was going to let the whole thing slide, but his easy-go attitude suddenly shifted to a dark mania when we were behind closed doors.

  “We need to have a talk,” he said stiffly. “We need to talk now. No,” he amended, “I’m going to talk, and you’re going to listen.”

  “I assumed this was coming,” I mumbled.

  “There are a lot of things coming, Darcy, if you don’t stop what you’re doing. And by the way, why are you doing it anyway?”

  This wasn’t the Liam Woods I knew. He was dictatorial, abrasive, unstable, and a part of me was getting scared. “Maybe we should define what I’m doing, Liam,” I said quietly.

  “Where do I start?” he laughed with no humor. “You’re provoking three of the most volatile individuals I’ve ever run across. That’s not only stupid, it borders suicide mission.”

  “I’m worried about Oscar,” was the phrase I offered as explanation.

  Liam idled his black Ford Explorer at a red light, angrily reaching over and squeezing my left hand between his. His hand was so large it nearly folded around mine twice. He was squeezing hard, hard enough to hurt, and I was totally taken aback with his blatant show of force. “You’re hurting me,” I tried not to gasp.

  Liam actually squeezed harder. “Good. I honest to God don’t have time for your games right now, Darcy. I’m trying my best to…”

  Good ole Bad Moon Rising broke the mood. I wasn’t sure I wanted the mood broken, but I knew my hand did. A glance at the number showed Fisher Stanton. Liam angrily released his grasp as I fished my phone out of my purse. I gave Liam one of those gimme-a-sec looks he didn’t appreciate. When the light turned green, he hit the gas pedal so fast he laid down some rubber.

  On instinct, I moved a little closer to the door. “Hey,” Fisher said, when I answered. “What in the heck happened at the Taylor’s house tonight? Facebook’s blowing up, and I’ve had over a dozen texts about the destruction.”

  I mumbled, “What you read is probably true. I’ve got to go, Fisher. Let me call you—”

  “Wait!” he practically screamed. “I just wanted you to know I figured out who that guy was I saw next to the dumpster that day. It’s that swimmer dude. It’s Liam Woods.” My vision blurred, my sense of survival telling me to open the door and drop and roll. Liam had never admitted that to me, and there was more than one opportunity for him to do so...but why? When my eyes cleared, I heard Fisher say, “He’s the one you need to talk to...or stay away from,” he added worriedly. “He knows something.”

  And I was riding in the car with him…

  “Are you sure?” I shakily whispered.

  Fisher snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure. He was right next to that dumpster wearing the same red shirt I’d just bought which really made me mad. I paid good money for that shirt and was hoping it was a
one-of-a-kind at school. But, au contraire; big boy had to…”

  I might’ve briefly passed out, but when I felt my pulse pound in my neck, I realized I was still sucking in air. I was under the erroneous assumption Liam was one of the good guys. The knight-in-shining armor type every girl dreamt about. Could I have been wrong? Why did I feel like everyone I’d spoken to was hiding something?

  To make this conversation appear benign, I launched into a recap of Sydney’s party, sparing no gory detail of the unbelievable destruction, reliving each moment from the color of the bright orange streamers all the way down to the bamboo rings around the napkins. When I threw in the demise of Bronx’s walking stick, Fisher feigned rapt concern, sounding appropriately aghast. Suck up. I knew and he knew he was campaigning for an invitation to the shindig next year.

  I hung up, figuring my best defense was a good offense. Liam knew what I’d been up to. I might as well admit it and play this thing out. As soon as I hit the red “end call” button, Liam belted out, “Answer me.”

  I thought about what Fisher said: Liam was across the road, too. That meant I needed to get closer to him—wouldn’t be hard—but what exactly did he consider close? And could that “close” cost me my life? It dawned on me if he were involved in killing Alfonso Juarez, I was locked up tight with an accomplice, or worse yet, a murderer.

  Note to self: Never get in an automobile with someone until you’re sure they’re a good person.

  Again, I looked to the side of the road, telling myself I could jump out if worse came to worse. Keep your voice cool, Darcy, I told myself.

  I started talking…

  “Obviously, I’m trying to prove that Justin, Juan, and Jinx had something to do with Alfonso Juarez’s murder. Not something,” I amended. “All of it. I know they’re involved in an underground copper business, and AVO was there first. My guess is AVO wasn’t in favor of any sort of profit sharing.”