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“Your mom packs you guys extra food.” And she did. Mrs. Hart fed those boys like she was housing an army in their house.
“I’m not there for food. I’m there for the science club.”
“Eww. You’re getting the girls to do your homework, aren’t you?” He would too.
“What?” He held his hands out like he was completely innocent, but I knew different. “Would you have done it?” he asked and I didn’t think he meant just his homework right then. He’d bribe and cajole anyone into doing his homework if he could. There was a time when I would have fallen for it too.
“You’re disgusting, Damien Hart.” I picked at my cuticle, trying to ignore him.
“That’s not what you said—”
I held up my hand, cutting him off. “Shut up.”
He stopped talking and gave me a wink, getting up from the table to stand with his teammates. I refused to think of my past lapse in judgment where he was concerned.
From a distance, Evan Rooney waved at me and I waved back weakly before superficially participating in the conversation at the table with Taylor and some other acquaintances from school. Damien had been reminding me of a stolen kiss we’d shared under the bleachers. I curled my toes in my shoes under the table thinking about it. I licked my top lip, remembering the fruit-flavored lip gloss I was wearing and how shivery he’d made me feel trailing his hands up and down my arms that day in the shade under the stands before he ran off to football practice. We hadn’t discussed it, what it meant or anything, but I thought about it often and wondered. I still wondered, but now was not the time for that discussion. I glanced over at my best friend. I hadn’t even told her. I was hoarding the moment all to myself. Sometimes I felt like a big jerk keeping such a huge secret from her, but I wasn’t ready to tell the world—well, tell them what exactly, I didn’t know.
Becky interrupted my thoughts, sitting down hard enough to jar the table. “So I see your brother picked up some Ball Bunny from Gardener.” Her voice had a nasal quality to it that reminded me of nails on a chalkboard.
“It looks that way,” I told her.
We were and we weren’t friends, strictly speaking. Becky harbored some weird dislike of me because I was on the cheer squad and lived with my brother, the unspoken town football god. As if that was somehow my fault.
“Is he serious about her?”
“Who?” I looked back to the girl hanging all over him like a tree sloth, wondering if she would grow mossing staying on him like that all night.
“Her name is Melody.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I wasn’t privy to all of the details of my brother’s life. We weren’t each other’s keepers, that was for sure.
“I hope he’s not asking her to homecoming.” She tapped her fingers on the wooden picnic table and I looked at her hands, willing them to stop. That’s when I saw the same chipped purple nail polish from earlier, only now it was on hands and not feet. Ugh. So she was the girl Chase had been making out with, and now he had some Melody chick here. This was going to be a teenage Breakfast Club clusterfuck once the gossip got out.
“You know, I’m not sure except that he’s playing in the game.” I fake smiled when Hunter joined us again, interrupting the awkward silence. Thank God for Hunter Hart.
“Are you girls walking back?” Hunter leaned in, interrupting us. He had his hands on Taylor’s shoulders, kneading them gently, and my bestie looked like she was going to fall asleep, leaning back and yawning. She snuggled her head on my shoulder and I knew I taking Cinderella out past her bedtime was a risk. She wasn’t faking it, which made it humorous because she was practically a narcoleptic going to bed early every night. Looking at my watch, I saw the time. It was late and Hunter was being Mr. Over-Protective as usual. I didn’t understand why they weren’t a couple.
“Yes,” I said, helping to right Taylor in her seat.
“Well, let’s go Damien.” Hunter helped Taylor, who looked like she was drunk when we weren’t old enough for alcohol. I watched the girls with our group give her evil looks which I matched them with my own. Nobody gave my best friend the stink eye.
“Going home?” Chase called out to me and I turned, watching my brother extricate himself from the girl with octopus arms and sparkly nail polish.
“Yeah.” I waved him off. He would stay out because no one at home would miss us.
“We got this, Chase.” Damien walked with us and the four us made our way back along the uneven sidewalk and looming trees whose leaves were turning the first shades of red and gold.
Damian and Hunter walked us to the backdoor of Taylor’s house. Hunter’s instructions were to lock the door behind them when they left. I didn’t ask if they were going back to the Burrito Barn, I would know soon enough on Monday morning when we returned to school.
6
Damien
High School
“Why the hell are we going to the diner when we could have gone bowling tonight?” I nudged Hunter, who looked more distracted than usual. The bowling alley in Poughkeepsie was having two lanes for one that night, with music and free food. I already had my shoes, and I’d given Hunter my dad’s so we could go, but five minutes into the drive he turned the truck around and headed back to town.
“Because I want to go to the diner, that’s why.” His eyes were focused on the road when I heard the nagging voice of Pebbles from the backseat.
