by Mj Fields
I fold the wrapper over and start to put the rest of mine in the same bag when he says, “Eat the damn thing.”
“I’m full.” I hold it out. “You want it?”
“Can’t you just eat it?” he sighs.
“I’m full,” I say again and start to put it in the bag.
Putting the vehicle in park, he huffs, “Give me that.”
I hand it to him then unbuckle my seat belt, grab my bag, open my door, and jump out while watching him pop the entire remains of the burrito into his mouth.
He looks at me, closes his mouth, and mumbles, “What?”
“You ate my burrito.”
Before he can say anything, I shut the door and start walking toward the door.
I hear a door slam just a few seconds before I feel a hand grab mine, and he takes the bag.
“Think you’re cute?”
I look up and flash him a fake smile.
“You get us breakfast? Or have you forgotten all about us since you and Gabs are a thing?” Max calls from behind us.
I snag the bag from Justice’s hand, turn, and toss it to Max. “Better keep it away. He ate half my burrito.”
“JT, some advice? Next time eat the whole thing, man.” Patrick laughs as Max tosses him one. “Then she might not be so eager to give them out in the school parking lot.”
“Preach, Patrick, preach.” I laugh as I hurry toward the door and slip inside the school to avoid whatever wrath Justice is going to dish out to break the smile his cousins put on my face with their nonsense.
Putting my bag in the locker, I see Nina standing by herself, while Lidia, Carrie, and Demi smile at me, ignoring her completely.
I roll my eyes as I grab the books I need, slam my locker, and then turn and hurry toward the freshman wing to see if I can catch Tris and see how she’s doing.
Glancing behind me to make sure none of the girls are following me, I run into what feels like a brick wall and nearly fall on my ass. Luckily, two hands grab me and stop my fall.
“You can’t just go and try to shove yourself up his ass, Gabs.” Patrick laughs as he hurries past me, calling over his shoulder, “Not without lube, anyway.”
I shake my head and look up to see Justice scowling at me.
“Like I meant to.” I try to sidestep him, and he moves so I can’t. “What?”
“Lunch, meet me outside. We need to talk.”
“Yeah,” I sneer. “Not gonna happen.”
“Better fucking happen,” he snarls.
“How about a please?”
He looks confused at such a request, and I take that opportunity to skate past him.
After a failed attempt at avoiding him for lunch, I find myself sitting in his vehicle, watching him unzip a lunch bag—a very big lunch bag—and pull out some sort of drink. He shakes it up then hands it to me.
“I’m good.”
“Jesus Christ, Gabrielle, just drink the damn thing,” he grumbles as he pulls another one out.
“Not everyone needs to consume a million calories by noon.”
“You clearly do,” he says, shaking his head.
“I—”
He arches a brow. “Drink it.”
“Justice, I—”
“Lemme ask you a question.”
“If I said no, would that stop—”
“Did I let you skip breakfast?”
“Let me?” I huff.
“Same shit’s gonna happen with lunch, so just drink it so we can get through this fight.”
“A fight?” I shake my head and lean back into the seat.
“Just so you know, I’m gonna win.”
“Of course you are, because you’re ‘The King’.”
He arches his eyebrow again as he swallows back half the shake.
I lift mine. “Cheers, Your Highness.”
He finishes his in about two seconds then licks his lips before starting with, “The party Friday night. Quinn’s working it.”
I nearly choke on the chalky-ass shake. “No. Not happen—”
“Yes, it is,” he says as he reaches into the bag and pulls out a sandwich.
“My house, my rul—”
“You denying this is you staying loyal to them. That shit’s not gonna fly with me, Queenie.”
“No, that keeps me loyal to myself. So,—”
“Doesn’t matter what you say; I’m telling you how it’s going down, so you don’t flip shit and act a fool when she’s there.”
“She’s not welcome, and you aren’t either, if you think for one minute that I’m letting your whore in my house!”
“Not that I owe you shit, but I’ve seen her twice since that night and not a damn thing went down.”
“You’ve what!” God, why do I even care?
He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. She’s working the party.”
“I swear to you, if I catch some damn disease because of you, I will tell your parents!”
“Is that so?” He laughs mockingly.
“Try me. And if that doesn’t work, have fun trying to find a new place for your bimbo to—”
When he puts his vehicle in drive, I open the door and try to get out.
When he pulls me back in, I fight to get his hand off me, but he only pulls me closer and swerves, so the open passenger door slams shut.
“I hate you,” I sneer.
“Told ya you would. Maybe if you stop being a self-serving little bitch, you can finally start liking yourself.” He lets go of me. “Now buckle up.”
“If you think I’m going to get down on my knees for you again, you’re wrong. Take me back to school now!”
He laughs, and he laughs hard, as he continues driving.
“I hate you so much,” I say, pulling my knees to my chest and resting my head on them as I watch out the window, feeling sick to my stomach, knowing that I truly have no choice but to do whatever he asks.
I hate that he calls me Queenie. What used to be a term of endearment is now used to mock me. I’m nothing but a pawn in his twisted game of hate laced with revenge.
When we pass the road he pulled off on just two days ago, I feel a flood of relief wash over me, yet my body is still a mess of nerves.
“You think you know her. All you know is—”
I reach up and turn on his radio to drown out whatever bullshit he’s going to try to feed me. Bullshit to make himself feel powerful.
Never having heard the song, I look back at the display. Pearl Jam’s “Amongst the Waves.”
After about a minute, he turns it off. Then calmly, he asks, “You really think she got knocked up on purpose? You really think a girl who’s raising kids that aren’t even her own, pushing them to get educated so they can get the hell out of their situation, would fuck a teenager—”
“Of course I do!”
“Cut the shit. I told you I’m not fucking her and, believe it or not, she wasn’t all that cool with the fact I was seventeen.”
“I don’t care what you do, but she’s not—”
“She is. She is, because that little fuck owes her. He owes her for lying to her. He owes her for making her a mom when she was trying to dig herself out of a hole, and he just shoveled dirt on her burying her and what is his responsibility deeper, while he ate fucking caviar and drank champagne off the nanny’s nips. He owes her, and so do you, for condemning her when you only know half the story.”
“You believe there are two sides to every story, Justice?”
He nods. “Of course I do.”
“Yet you haven’t even asked me—”
“And I won’t. Doesn’t mean shit to either of us. And you know what, Gabrielle? I’ll deal with it, and so will you, because there’s shit more important than something that went down years ago.”
He pulls up in front of a house and nods forward. “Three houses up, the one that looks like it should be condemned, a place neither of us privileged fucks could ever imagine living in. That’s where Quinn lives with her kid, at least
one sibling, and a couple of kids who have junkie parents. It’s a shitty roof, but she keeps it over their heads.” He turns and looks at me. “So, you can hate her for your misguided and misplaced loyalty, but you can’t hate a baby, and you can’t hate kids who have less than nothing.”
He looks at me, expecting that I say something, like I should be humbled by the scene before me, that I should be grateful for what I have. But she has far more than I do. She has people. And I bet she sleeps in her own bed, and not in her closet at night, because her house, the one with the sagging porch and missing railings, has something mine doesn’t—a family.
Friday, take two
Justice
One week in, and I’m over the whole playing make-believe thing with Gabrielle.
Giving it to her straight proved to piss her off, so I get the cold shoulder, which is cool, but it isn’t helping her game at all. Unless you count the game she has going with my crew. Straight-up annoying how close she’s gotten with them. But it is what it is.
Luckily, because of it, she’s been off my ass.
I’ve had a few talks with Quinn who, believe it or not, was pissed, too, when I told her she was on to work Friday night. When I reminded her that’s what she had asked for and to check her attitude at the gate, she apologized. Then she went on to give me more info than Tobias had about the economic side of what I was getting into.
The Bayside crew makes up the majority of the guys and girls who work the circuit but bring in the most revenue from the fights. They set up the parties and get paid for each event, mostly per hour, ranging anywhere from twenty to thirty bucks under the table. Because of that, none were happy the fight scene was dying out because Tobias was leaving. The Blenders, who seem to be Patrick’s favorite, outside of our inner circle, intermingle with everyone. Some of them work the circuit, but mostly they go to the parties to score weed and edibles from Bayside. The Seashore elite don’t touch drugs, but Tobias made sure that, if anything harder than pot or edibles came into one of the events, it would be over.
Seashore hosts the events, mostly at Gabrielle’s, and she gets a take on the profits, which pays those working and to stock the bar. She doesn’t touch the cash; the treasurer does, which is Miles Jameson. Harrison, Miles, Kai and, at one time, Tobias also shared in the profit. Tobias cut himself off from the take when he got his scholarship, not wanting to jeopardize it, and mainly acts as a peacekeeper, rule maker, and enforcer, which now lies on me.
Queenie reset the code so I, “Would quit bugging me in the morning by showing up too early” and warned me, if I used it any other time without permission, she’d reset it again and “Never ever give it back.”
Not that I love the ’tude, but I appreciate the fact that she’s not tossing clothes off, which makes it harder to see her less as straight up thirsty and a bit more human. To be honest, I’m still pissed at myself for letting things get out of hand on Monday.
Thirty minutes early, as planned, to be a dick, I roll up the driveway, park in front of the stairs, and lay on the horn.
I chuckle when she calls my phone and use my other hand to tap the “accept” call button.
“Seriously, Justice?” she grumbles. “Take your big, old hand off the horn. You’ll wake the entire shore.”
“Not worried about your nanny?” I ask.
“More worried about the neighbors.”
“You think they can hear a damn thing that goes on up here, you’re crazy.”
“Seriously, take your hand off the horn.” Her tone is a bit too demanding, which makes me wish I could turn up the volume on my horn just to piss her off more.
“I will when you get out here. And hurry up, would ya? This noise is making my head hurt.” I hit “end call” and laugh at myself.
Takes her but a minute to run out of her double wooden doors, and when she does, her black hair is dripping wet, and she’s wrapped in a little pink robe, carrying her school bag.
She opens the door and slides in, drops her bag, and grabs my hand, yanking it off the horn. “Happy?”
“I wouldn’t say happy, but slightly amused? Yeah.”
“Well, let’s go.” She shuts the door and starts to buckle up.
“Go get some clothes on,” I sigh out.
“Are you gonna keep your paws off the horn?”
I shrug. “Probably not.”
“Then let’s roll, JT.”
“JT?” I ask, taken aback a bit with her using my nickname.
“Yeah, JT, buddy.” She slugs me in the shoulder. “Let’s roll, bro.”
“The hell is wrong with you?”
“Exactly the same question I’ll pose to you.” She unbuckles, opens the door, slides out, and then looks back at me. “I have things to do for the party. I’m driving today. With baseball over, you can probably go back to your normal routine. You know, tormenting small, defenseless animals, lifting things up and putting them down so you can get even more jacked and look more like a twenty-something-year-old, making it easier to bang old ladies.”
“I’d say glad you noticed, but I’m not.”
She shuts the door and heads back to the stairs. I hit the horn, and she whirls around, raising her paws in the air, as if to ask what?
I roll down the passenger window. “Quit fucking around and hurry up.”
She calls over her shoulder, “I’m driving.”
The fuck you are, I think as I watch her walk into her house.
I look around the overgrown landscaping and wonder why the hell they don’t keep it up. Then it dawns on me that it was just the other day Gabrielle’s car was being repo’ed. Money must be an issue. A big fucking issue.
I shake my head, trying to rid the thoughts of cleaning this place up. Not my problem.
Not my problem at all, I think as I throw my ride into gear and punch the accelerator, whipping around the circular drive and heading down the hill, back to even ground.
I avoid her all day, but my crew doesn’t. And by the end of the day, there are whispers amongst the sea of Gucci and Prada about the secret party happening tonight.
Walking down the hall, toward the exit, at the end of the day, I see Gabrielle slam her locker shut and watch as the horsemen, minus Tobias, start to walk toward her.
I quicken my steps and, just as Reeves is about to say something to her, I brush against him, none too lightly, and take her paw. “One more time, Reeves. Stay. The fuck. Away.”
I don’t wait for him to say shit. And I don’t say shit to Queenie, she doesn’t say shit to me either, as we walk out the door of Seashore Academy, hand in hand, toward the parking lot. Once at her car, I drop her little paw, and she reaches in her purse to pull out her keys. I notice a wad of cash.
“You knock over a liquor store?”
As she hits the unlock on her key fob, she replies simply, “Really none of your business what I do when you’re not around, any more than it is mine that you are hanging out with Quinn.”
As she grabs her handle, I lean against her car and ask, “You think I’m fucking Quinn?”
“You do whatever and whoever you want. Pretty messed up that you’d keep that up after …” She pauses and shakes her head. “Whatever. Just don’t mess this up for me by getting your dick sucked at my house again, since you’ve ruined my chances of getting any action around here.”
“First, I’ll get my dick sucked by who I want, when I want, where I want. Second, she’s not all that happy with what went down either, considering I’m seventeen. But keep in mind, she was a victim in that shit. Third, how the fuck do you know if I’ve talked to her? And fourth”—I reach in my bag, pull out a box, and hand it to her—“happy one week fucked-iversary, Queenie. Now go get your shit done, and then go fuck yourself.” I push off the car and start to step away when I see those fucking assholes watching us.
I grip her chin, and when she starts to pull away, I grip it a bit harder. “Your ex, the cherry popper, is over there watching. Trust me; I don’t want to do this
anymore than you want me to.”
I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her hard against me. Just like last time, her paws land on my abs, except she’s not digging into them; she’s trying to push me away.
I press my lips against hers, and she doesn’t even open her mouth, no little mewls escape, and her eyes don’t shut either. She’s glaring at me as she bites my lip, fucking hard, too.
I allow it, for show of course, before breaking the ‘kiss’ and stepping away so she can get in her ride.
“Worst kiss of my life.” I smile, knowing I’m being watched.
“Same, JT.” She opens her door. “Same.”
Leaving the parking lot, ten cars deep behind her, I watch as she takes a right instead of a left toward her place. Knowing she’s going to get shit for the party, I don’t pay it any mind, but when Reeves’ Maserati, Kai’s Porsche, and Miles’s Tesla turn the same way, I start getting pissed.
When Nina’s Mercedes does the same, I get a bit more pissed. With nothing to do besides, as she said this morning, lifting things up and putting them down, or tormenting small, defenseless animals, I decide to do just that, and I follow the rats.
They keep their distance, but they’re all following her toward Bayside, and I wonder if she’s set some shit up to fuck with me and mine, or if she even has a clue she’s being followed.
Fifteen minutes later, I watch as she pulls into a strip mall and see them all pull right around her. I watch as she gets out like she knows they’re there. But only for a second.
Her look morphs from clueless, to shocked, to pissed, and then they all start getting closer.
I hit the gas and the horn simultaneously as I speed through the parking lot, slamming on my brakes inches from the side of Reeves’ car, I slam it into park, and then hop out.
Storming toward them, I ask, “You have a fucking problem with your ears, Reeves!”
“You have a problem with road rage, Steel?” he asks, walking around Gabrielle’s car, the opposite direction as I’m coming at them.