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“Every single time.”
“You must have done some heavy shit.”
Nodding sadly, he pats the flaking white exterior again and motions for me to follow. “Come on. I need to find a part that looks like this.” I examine the object and tag along.
“Don’t like talking about it?”
“I hated who I was back then.”
I understand that better than he thinks. “I like who you are now, Stanley.”
“Thanks, kid, me too. Almost.”
“Almost,” I agree with a smile.
It’s almost five when Carter arrives to pick up his vehicle, it’s an SUV, only a couple of years old. He’s so spoiled.
Presley accompanies him on foot and completely blanks me and Stanley. Not that I care. He can keep that stick up his ass forever, at the end of the day, if my presence perturbs him so badly, I’m the one who’s winning. It makes no difference to me if he likes me or not, and truth be told, I love to see him so riled without even having to try.
Stanley glares at Presley like he did Officer Myers when I was tackled to the ground and cuffed that day. He waits for them to leave before telling me to stay away from the Myers family because they’re nothing but trouble.
I salute him and pull out my phone when it vibrates.
Carter: I like you covered in grease.
Scandal: Does your boyfriend know that?
Carter: I’m not going to dignify that with an answer. I’ll pick you up at 8.
Scandal: Why?
Carter: Dance practice. This routine is the gateway to our future. It must be perfect.
Scandal: And what about Presley?
Carter: I’ll talk to him.
Scandal: You keep saying that. What makes you think you can convince him of anything?
Carter: Duh… because he’s my bae. :-p
Scandal: I’m going to make that go viral around the school.
Carter: You wouldn’t dare.
Scandal: *evil smirk*
Carter: 8. Be ready.
I am going to be exhausted.
“That’s the kind of smile a girl gets when she’s texting a boy she likes,” Stanley comments, pointing at me with a spanner.
“Mind yo biznis,” I retort making him chuckle before getting back to work.
True to his word, Carter arrives at eight on his bike not his fixed SUV.
“I need the exercise,” he informs me, patting the handlebars. I laugh when I see that he has strapped a cushion to the center with long cable ties. The cushion curves around the bar and really helps with padding my ass. “Face me this time.”
“Face you?”
He helps lift me on and shows me where to put my feet on the middle bar. “You look gorgeous.”
“Now I know you’re trying to sweet-talk me.” And I have a feeling a lot of it is because he needs me now to get a place in the college he wants.
Laughing, he kisses my chin and starts pedaling.
“I don’t know if I like this,” I say around a nervous and excited giggle. “I feel blind.”
“Trust me.”
The path is bouncy but it feels even more so as I hold on to his shoulders and smile like a giddy child. Apart from when Stanley started teaching me to drive, I haven’t felt this happy since I was a little kid.
It is such a rush going so fast and not knowing what’s coming. It’s like the future, I can’t see it but I see the present blurring by.
When we come to a stop by the same fence as before, we ditch the bike and I ask, feeling particularly vulnerable, “Are you just being nice because we’re dancing together? I just don’t trust that you suddenly like me after everything you did.”
“Who’s your bestest friend in the entire world? The person who you would absolutely do anything for?”
“Alice, I suppose? But I don’t really know her that well.”
He frowns. “There’s nobody from where you used to live?”
I chew my lip, daring not to say anything else.
“Are you telling me you don’t have a single friend in this entire world other than Alice fucking Bonner?”
“I haven’t been to a normal school before now. I was homeschooled until my cousin died, and then I was in juvie for his murder.” My hands are trembling. “I’ve never spoken about this before.”
“You can trust me.”
“So you keep saying.”
He touches my braid, following the grooves of it down the center of my back where it rests snug against my spine. “Tell me about it.”
“Would you believe me if I told you that juvie was the happiest I’ve ever been?”
“Really?”
If only he knew the kind of life I had before then. “Let’s dance. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s making me feel sick.”
“Okay,” he whispers, not prying. I like him even more now. “Anyway, as I was saying before you rudely interrupted with your sob story.”
I smack his arm in jest making him grunt and feign pain with a dramatic hiss from his parted lips.
“Careful there, killer.”
“Shut up and get on with it,” I demand, growling slightly.
