Rebel without a career was a choice. But if we were caught and thrown in the pokey, it became less a choice and more a liability to future employers.
“We don’t want anyone to see us,” I reminded him.
“They won’t, I’m coming in the back way.”
“Save the dirty talk for after we’ve pulled this off.”
Luke smiled at my response but didn’t immediately reply, so I took a million deep breaths, mentally psyching myself up. I was a hero-villain. I could be bad. That meant I was being good because the objective was to be bad. Fulfilling the objective meant doing the right thing. When it came to the objective.
Donotthink of who might be impacted by any wrongdoing we were about to commit.
“If you wanna turn around,” Luke offered.
“What did I just say about the dirty talk?” I snapped. Rebel. Rebel! Rawr!
Luke made a thoughtful noise. “We can go find a spot, fool around, we don’t have to do this.”
Stay strong! “Stop tempting me,” I ordered. “We can do this, then fool around later.” Being dangerous and criminal would only heighten the fooling around.
My boyfriend didn’t seem opposed to that plan, excellent, he only said, “Just wanted to make sure you weren’t having second thoughts.”
“To have second thoughts, I’d have to have first thoughts,” I tried in an action hero voice again. Then thought about what I said. “Damn, I wanted that to be cooler.”
“I get nervous when I do stuff like this too,” he offered softly. Aww, yet his weakness only made him stronger and hotter.
“Did that ever stop you?”
“Well, a lot of the time I’d been drinking and with Zach, so.” That was a no. He still did the up-to-no-good rebellious teen thing. I wanted to try too! Though it was nice to know he also got nervous.
Okay, I could do this. Let the rabblerousing commence. Eventually! Once we arrived!
I clenched my hands into fists and scowled with determination and the anxiety pooling in my stomach slowly subsided when met with my awesome willpower. Hey, I had a type of power! I was being a badassandlearning new things.
My leg had been bouncing up and down, nervous and impatient the whole way here, and I was dismayed but not surprised when it didn’t stop even when we got out of the car. Luke got into the trunk and passed one baseball bat to me and kept one for himself.
The light from the car hadn’t gone out yet, so I saw the determination on his face. He’d been sappy a moment ago and now he was ready for action. Super hot. I wanted to take pictures.
I hadn’t crimed before, but keeping evidence of the crime was generally not great. Still. Almost worth it. No, I was going to be a great criminal. I wanted to do something illicit, break some rules, and here we were somehow. Vandalizing would soon take place.
Holy shit, I was going to be a vandal.
That was what you did as a teen. Stuff that was ill advised and irresponsible and you knew wasn’t right, but you had the benefit of citing a still developing brain and being charged as a minor if you happened to get caught.
Kids like me did dumb stuff like this all the time. Raising hell. Boys will be boys. No, that one was gross. But still, I was a boy. Didn’t I, an aforementioned boy, deserve to be a boy just once? So I could look back when I was older and say, yeah, I sowed some wild oats when I was young.
…
Why was that an expression? Why were oats badass? Why was sewing badass? Well, you might prick your finger. Then you would bleed all over what you were sewing and that would ruin it. Or you could get the stain out. Damn, getting blood out of a linen? Thatwaspretty badass.
Okay. I could do this.
Our footsteps were loud in the quiet dark, our breathing audible as we got closer and closer to our target. The owner of said target had no idea. Just sleeping in their bed, because of course they were already in bed, they were a farmer. They had to get up early, make a living doing a hard day’s work to feed their family… and we were about to make life harder for them.
No. Grr! Badass! I squared my shoulders and walked forward determinedly.
“Are you—” Luke couldn’t doubt my commitment to sparkle motion right now.
“LET’S DESTORY PRIVATE PROPERTY, LUKE!” I said, committing.
