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She laughs at my response. “We have the same trick, you and me. Walk around with a full cup and no one bothers you…” she says knowingly.
“I drink sometimes,” I explain. “I just have to be in the right mood. What’s your reason?”
“I don’t really know. I tried it once, but it wasn’t really enjoyable, and I’m not one to give in to peer pressure and do something just because everyone else does.”
“That’s… smart. I would’ve never thought that about you.”
She shrugs. “People tend to judge me based on my looks or the way I carry myself. I’m confident, sure, and I like to look nice, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have brains. I have the third highest GPA in our class.” There’s a hint of disdain in her tone, and I wonder if she’s talking about people in general, or me specifically. Because I sure as shit judged her based on everything she just said, and in this setting, outside of school, she seems like a decent person to be around. She starts packing up both our empty plates. “You ready?”
“Yeah.” We stand together, and I follow her to the trash, then to the cages. I say, making sure she can hear me, “Hey, I’m sorry I missed your party. Happy birthday, by the way.”
Her smile is as genuine as her response. “Thanks, Connor. I appreciate it.”
* * *
“Jesus. She’s got a reasonable swing on her,” I remark, watching Karen swing a bat as if it came with years of practice.
Rhys fingers the cage, then starts to climb it. “She ain’t bad.”
“Does she hang around you guys often?” I ask, pulling him down when I see one of the attendants start making his way over to us.
“Karen? Yeah. She’s one of the boys. Has been for years.”
“Huh.”
“Don’t let those legs and that pretty smile fool you,” he tells me, leaping off the cage and landing in a squat. To be honest, I hadn’t noticed either of those things. “She’s competitive as hell. That’s why she and Ava got along so well. Put those two in a room together, and they could take down the Chinese wall.”
“The Great Wall of China?”
“Same thing.” He shrugs. Then adds, “So Peter’s home?”
“I guess. How do you know him?”
He scoffs. “Everyone knows Peter Parker.”
“That can’t be his real name,” I mumble, bewildered.
Chuckling, he says, “Oh, but it is.”
In the cage, Oscar asks for the bat, and Karen tosses it toward him, but he’s too slow, and it hits him right in the nuts. Oscar howls in pain, folds over himself. I turn to Rhys, ask him something that’s been consuming my mind all afternoon. “Hey, do you and Ava talk a lot?”
He faces me, expressionless. “Define a lot.”
I shrug, look through the cage again. “Just seems like you know a lot about what’s going on in her life.” More than I do, I want to add, but don’t.
“I told you it wasn’t like that,” he says, clearly irked by my question.
“No, I know,” I assure. “I’m just… I’m trying to work out what we are exactly—Ava and me—and I can’t seem to get it out of her, so… I don’t know. I’m just looking for validation, I guess.”
Rhys sighs. “My sister graduated two years ago. She took most of the same classes that Ava’s taking now, and she kept most of her notes because she’s a giant fucking nerd, I guess. She lets me give them to Ava for the classes she misses because that girl misses a lot of classes. We talk about that stuff mainly, but yeah, sometimes I’ll ask how she’s doing, and she’ll tell me.”
“She must be telling you more than she tells me. I can barely get her on the phone.”
“She has a lot going on,” he tries to convince. “And it’s got to be hard for her.”
“Hard how?”
“I don’t know, dude.” He rubs the back of his neck, frustrated. “I guess, trying to juggle and prioritize school while having to be a parent to your own parent, add to that the normal teenage anxiety and emotions and trying not to get too attached to people.” He backhands my chest. “People like you.”
