“Party foul!” Derek yelled when I sent a pile of Raisin Bran boxes toppling to the floor.
“Shhhh!” I hissed at him.
“PARTY FOOOUUUL!” he yelled even louder, just to spite me.
Ryan and Shanna turned the corner just in time to see me spike another one. Apparently they’d already been through the checkout, because Ryan was carrying two plastic bags of groceries.
Shanna laughed when she saw me stuff the ball in Derek’s face.
Ryan panicked.
“What are you guys doing?” he asked, shocked.
“Waitin’ on you,” Derek said. “Come on, you’re on my team. Boys against girls. Shanna, get over there.”
“Okay!” Shanna squealed and ran over beside me.
“I don’t think this is such a good idea,” I said uneasily.
“Yeah, you’re going to get us thrown out,” Ryan agreed.
“No I’m not. Here.”
Derek held out the ball.
“No,” Ryan said.
Derek threw the ball right in Ryan’s face.
It bounced off harmlessly. Ryan just stood there like a statue, like he was not going to play this game.
Shanna and I laughed. It was impossible not to, with him acting all mature and Derek throwing his arms out like Whatcha gonna do, punk?
Ryan just glowered at Derek. “NO. This is stupid, cut it out.”
Derek reached in the bottom of the wire contraption and pulled out another ball, a yellow one. The entire time he stared at Ryan, his expression saying, Oh – look at that – oh, I got a ball! Oh crap! I’m gonna throw it! Holy crap! Whatcha gonna do? WHATCHA GONNA DO?
Ryan pointed at Derek like someone pointing at a dog about to poop on their lawn. “Don’t you dare – ”
BONK. The yellow ball smacked his face and bounced onto the ground, tap, tap, tap.
Ryan gritted his teeth but stayed where he was.
Derek took a victory strut, holding his arms out and nodding at me and Shanna like he was some kind of wrestler being an intentional a-hole for the crowd.
“Quit playing around, Derek,” Ryan ordered.
Derek got another ball. He did the exact same facial expressions – Uh oh – I got another ball – oh, oh, here it comes – here it comes – whatcha gonna do? WHATCHA GONNA DO?
Ryan cocked his head to the side. “I swear to God – ”
Derek threw the ball.
BONK. Right in Ryan’s face.
“Okay, that’s it,” Ryan growled.
He plunked down the groceries, reached in the top of the wire container – which, at six three with long arms, was easy for him – and grabbed a ball in each hand.
“Ohhhh, it’s on NOW!” Derek hooted and grabbed the pink swirly ball off the floor.
Ryan threw and SMACKED Derek on the back of the head.
Basically, that started an all-out war.
“Guys, cut it out!” I said, nervous through my laughter.
Derek turned around and nailed me in the stomach with the pink swirly.
“OH NO YOU DID NOT,” I shouted, grabbed the ball, and threw it back.
Shanna shrieked and joined in, and it turned into a free-for-all. Rubber balls flew through the air and hit us all in the head and blasted cereal boxes off the shelf by the dozen.
It lasted for about 20 seconds before an angry voice shouted, “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?”
We all stopped and turned to see the store manager, an angry older man in a red vest, staring us down.
Ohhhhh shit.
We all stood there in mortified silence, the balls tap tap tapping around our feet, bounces dying out until they rolled across the floor.
Well, we all stood there in mortified silence – except Derek.
“Just playing with your balls, man,” he said jovially.
OH MY GOD.
Shanna snorted and covered her mouth with her hand.
The store manager stared at him in shock. “WHAT did you just say?!”
“Your balls. We’re just playing with them.” Derek held up a swirly blue ball in one hand. “Don’t worry, we’re not licking them.”
The manager was turning red. A single vein stood out on his forehead.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Ryan said, blushing furiously as he stooped to pick up some cereal boxes and put them on the shelves. “We’ll clean it up.”
I started helping him, grabbing things and putting them back in their places.
“Oh, you’ll clean it up, alright!” the manager shouted. “Every last bit of it!”
“We will, I promise – ”
“Hey, man, don’t sweat it,” Derek said. “Nobody likes sweaty balls.”
OH MY GOD.
Shanna could barely contain herself.
The manager looked at Derek as though he were about two inches away from pummeling him to death.
“I’m going to pay for one,” Derek explained, his voice deadpan. “I just really, really had to play with them, that’s all. I couldn’t help myself.”
Shanna was dying trying to contain her laughter.
“YOU!” the manager shouted at Derek.
“You got some big balls, man,” Derek said somberly. “And a lot of them. Some people only have two, and you’ve got, what, like, twenty?”
“GET THE HELL OUT OF MY STORE!”
“All of us, or just me? I mean, we were all handling your balls – ”
“ALL OF YOU! GET THE HELL OUT OF MY STORE NOW!”
Ryan grabbed the groceries and we beat a hasty retreat.
“Love your balls, man!” Derek shouted as we left.
Out in the parking lot, Shanna almost collapsed on the ground. Derek could not have been happier with himself. I was half-mortified, half-laughing.
Ryan was not amused.
“DUDE, my mom SHOPS there!” he yelled at Derek.
“Come onnn, I was just having a little fun,” Derek grinned. “Besides, we didn’t have to clean up.”
Ryan hauled off and hit Derek in the shoulder. Derek yelped, but stayed grinning throughout and didn’t retaliate.
“Why you gotta be a jerk all the time?” Ryan yelled.
“I’m not – just to assholes with no sense of humor.”
“He wasn’t an asshole – ”
“Stay away from the asshole,” Derek said seriously, “and just play with the balls.”
Shanna was howling by now.
I couldn’t hold it together anymore. I laughed so hard I started crying.
Even Ryan gave in, and broke out in a grin.
“You dick,” he said, angrily but with a smile.
“No, that’s what you suck,” Derek said, as though he were explaining the birds and bees to a slow child.
Ryan punched him in the arm all the way to the car. Shanna and I had to hold each other up, we were laughing so hard.
31
Dinner with the Millers was great. Ryan’s mom was a good cook, and the spaghetti was tasty. It wasn’t fancy – she just simmered some hamburger meat in spices, then added some spaghetti sauce in a jar – but it was still a nice break from dining hall food.
Before dinner, Shanna disappeared with Ryan upstairs for a few minutes. As the seconds ticked by, Mrs. Miller started looking more and more agitated – and then Shanna came back down wearing one of Ryan’s oversized rock t-shirts over her halter top.
Mrs. Miller relaxed noticeably.
All through dinner, Ryan’s sisters chattered incessantly to Derek, telling him everything they were learning in school. He acted very interested, and admonished them to study hard and get straight A’s – which made Mrs. Miller smile.
And Mr. Miller wasn’t a pervy old man at all. He was actually a very nice, very handsome guy in his 40’s with salt and pepper hair and a loud laugh.
After we were through, the siblings argued about who was supposed to do the dishes.
“Mom, I have friends over,” Ryan whispered.
“Girls, you do the dishes tonight,”
Mrs. Miller commanded. “Let Ryan say goodbye to his friends.”
“Mooooom!” they ranted, but then Derek kissed them goodbye on the tops of their heads and they practically floated off to the kitchen.
“Thank you for having us for dinner, especially on such short notice,” I said to Mrs. Miller.
“You’re welcome, dear. Come back any time.”
“Yeah, thanks… it was great,” Shanna said.
Mrs. Miller smiled tightly. “Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
I noticed she didn’t say ‘come back any time’ to Shanna.
32
Shanna, Derek, Ryan, and I stepped out into the warm night air. Crickets were chirping in the woods, and the moon was shining down through wisps of clouds.
As we reached my car in the driveway, Ryan put out his hand to shake mine. “It was really nice meeting you, Kaitlyn.”
“You, too. I had a great time – you have a wonderful family.”
“He does, doesn’t he?” Derek agreed. “The best.”
“Yeah, well, you try living with them,” Ryan mumbled.
“I did. Didn’t work out, remember?”
“Whatever.” Ryan turned back to me and asked hopefully, “Maybe I’ll see you around sometime?”
“Uh… yeah. Maybe.”
“I’m going to UGA next year,” Ryan said shyly. “I’ve got to live at home, but – ”
“He could’ve gone to Yale or Brown, but he’s staying here for the band,” Derek chimed in, slapping his friend on the back.
“Yeah, also ‘cause my parents are too cheap.”
“Aaah, they’ve gotta pay for two more kids to go to college, dude. Ease up.”
“Anyway,” Ryan said to me, “maybe I’ll see you around campus.”
I looked over at Derek, and suddenly I felt weird talking about Syracuse for some reason.
So I didn’t.
“Yeah… maybe,” I agreed.
“I’m staying here, too!” Shanna announced as she pulled her borrowed t-shirt off. She let it linger over her head a few seconds longer than necessary – thereby jutting her boobs out even more – before she peeled it off and handed it to Ryan. “We can hang out!”
“Uhhhh… okay,” Ryan said, then threw a guilty glance at me, like I was his wife or something.
Shanna reached up, hooked his neck, pulled him down, stood up on her tiptoes, and planted one on his cheek. “See you soon!”
“…okay,” he said, visibly stunned.
“You ol’ smoothie, you,” Derek teased him before he, Shanna, and I piled in the car and drove away.
Ryan lingered on the corner… waved forlornly… and then walked back inside.
33
“Jesus, Kaitlyn, does every guy we meet have to have a crush on you?” Shanna pouted from the back seat.
“He doesn’t have a crush on me.”
“Oh, he does,” Derek said beside me in the front passenger seat. I couldn’t see his smile in the darkness, but I could hear it in his voice.
“How do you know?”
“It was pretty fuckin’ obvious,” Shanna said, though not in a mean way. “In a two-way contest between you and the girls, you won most of the time.”
‘The girls,’ of course, being her breasts.
“You gotta take it easy on Ryan, Shanna,” Derek said. “He’s super-shy. He’s only slept with one girl, and that’s because I set it up for him.”
“Wow, aren’t you a great guy,” I said, slightly disgusted that he was bragging about it.
“I may not be a great guy, but I’m a great friend. Anyway, he blew it by turning into a puppy dog around her.” He looked over his shoulder at Shanna. “You want some advice?”
“What?” Shanna asked, slightly annoyed. I knew her, and I knew she didn’t exactly like thinking she had to get counsel on nabbing men.
“You’re overwhelming him. You’re too sexy. Try dressing really conservatively next time you hang out. Don’t show him any affection, just play it friendly but cool… but ask him about his favorite bands and let him geek out. He’ll warm up to you.”
“Okay,” she said, probably mollified by the ‘too sexy’ part.
“It’s so nice you’re pimping out my roommate to your friend,” I jeered.
“Whatever. If Shanna wants to sleep with him – you’d sleep with him, right?”
“Hell yeah,” Shanna agreed.
“You’d be good for him. He’s too good of a kid. He needs to unwind. What’s that line from Ferris Bueller? If you stuck a piece of coal up his ass, you’d have a diamond in a week.”
“He’s fine,” I snapped.
“He’s uptight,” Shanna disagreed, as though she pitied Ryan.
“Why are you interested in him anyway? He’s in high school.”
“I’m in high school,” Derek teased.
“Not anymore, you’re not.”
“Oooh, burn,” he laughed.
“He’s in a band,” Shanna explained.
“Lots of guys are in bands,” I said, a little snarkily.
Derek looked offended. “Hey!”
“Yeah, but he’s talented,” Shanna pointed out. “He and Derek could really get famous.”
“Thank you, Shanna,” Derek said. “At least somebody believes in me.”
“Whatever,” I said, trying to suppress a smile. I looked in the rearview mirror. “That’s the only reason you like Ryan? Because he’s in a band that might get famous? Not because he’s nice, or smart, or good-looking?”
“Ohhhh, seems the crush might be a two-way street,” Derek teased.
“Shut up. Well?” I asked Shanna.
“Well, yeah, those things, too,” she said offhandedly, like they weren’t really in her top ten list. Then she got enthusiastic again. “And he’s taaaall. I like tall guys. They usually have big dicks.”
“SHANNA!” I yelled at her.
She shrugged. “I know what I like.”
Derek was laughing his ass off. “She knows what she likes,” he said to me, like What’re ya gonna do?
His reaction made me feel weird.
Like, uncomfortably turned-on.
Kevin’s was perfectly normal-sized, and I liked it a lot – at least, I liked the way it felt during sex. Otherwise it was kind of funny-looking. That was my typical outlook on penises: funny-looking.
But if Kevin had heard Shanna just now, he would have gotten sullen and quiet and then asked me hours later in a panicky voice, “It’s big enough, right?”
I’d have to spend fifteen minutes reassuring him, and even that wouldn’t be enough. It would probably be closer to a week before he forgot about it, or at least stopped asking whenever we had sex.
The fact that Derek was laughing made me think he must be pretty confident… about something.
I pushed that thought away as fast as I could. “Whatever, you’re both disgusting.”
“Somebody else is pretty uptight,” Derek said over his shoulder.
“Amen,” Shanna agreed.
“Fuck you,” I said humorously to Derek. “And you, too,” I added to the rearview mirror.
“She’s got a whole diamond mine in her ass,” Shanna said.
“I hear it’s like the De Beers company back there,” Derek agreed.
“FUCK YOU!” I laughed.
“Shoulda stuck with me, Derek,” Shanna said. “I woulda rocked your world.”
When she said that, a surge of white-hot jealousy ripped through me.
I didn’t want to feel that way. It was stupid and inappropriate and pointless –
Then Derek spoke.
“I’m sure you would have, but… the heart wants what the heart wants.”
“Yeah…” Shanna mumbled.
My jealousy melted into something else. What it was, I wasn’t entirely sure – though fear and desire were there in equal measures.
All I know is that my heart started knocking wildly against the inside of my ribs.
“Where am I s
upposed to turn?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
“Left at the third light.”
I quickly forgot about desire (though the fear stuck around) as we turned into what I can only charitably describe as a ‘lower income neighborhood.’
Actually, it was scary. Like, Crack Central scary.
There’s a part of Athens where most of the murders and shootings happen; they call it the Iron Triangle, because the streets that border it intersect in a triangle.
Derek apparently lived dead smack in the middle of it.
“Holy shit, dude, you live in a fucked-up part of town,” Shanna marveled.
“Rent’s cheap,” Derek shrugged, as if that were a good reason to put his life on the line.
We drove past a skeezy-looking white guy dressed in a hoodie, who bobbed his head at us like What up? Then he looked in both directions and started walking towards the car.
I accelerated past him fast.
“Is that guy doing what I think he’s doing?” I asked fearfully as he disappeared in my rearview mirror.
“If you mean does he sell drugs, yeah. But don’t worry, Doug’s cool,” Derek reassured me.
“You know that guy?!”
“Yeah, of course. I get my weed from him.”
“You smoke marijuana?!” I asked, a little too loudly.
“Occasionally,” he said, amused at my puritanical horror.
Shanna perked up. “You can get weed?”
Derek turned around to look in the backseat. “If you ever need any, don’t you come down here, okay? Just tell me and I’ll get it for you.”
“I need some weed,” she said enthusiastically.
“Kaitlyn, could you circle back and – ”
“WE ARE NOT DOING A FUCKING DRUG DEAL IN MY CAR,” I shouted at the top of my lungs.
“Say it a little louder, I don’t think the cops heard you,” Derek joked.
“Chill out, bitch,” Shanna said.
“You are not getting any weed while I am anywhere near the vicinity, is that understood?” I snapped.
“What did I tell you? Diamond mines,” Derek grinned.
“Double amen,” Shanna sulked.
“This is it,” Derek said, pointing. “The one with the Pinto in the driveway.”
Rock Me Hard (The Rock Star's Seduction) Page 10