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“King!” Taylor says and the door swings open.
“Elijah?” she says and immediately covers her chest.Like I haven’t seen that before.
The snake slithers in between my legs, and I cringe as it pokes its head up the bottom of my shorts. Taylor bends down and grabs it, dragging it back into her room and into its cage. I follow her and shut the door, not sure what I’m doing here.
She walks over to her closet and throws on a robe, but I can still vividly picture what’s underneath.
“What the fuck were you doing?” she says, her hands on her hips. Her glasses are tilted sideways, a bit too heavy for her face. “Unless you’re here to apologize, please just leave.”
“I was about to go on a run,” I say, sitting down across from her on her desk chair.
“But thought you’d stop by my room first to creep on me?” She scrunches her nose in disapproval.
I shrug. No use in denying it.
“Leave,” she growls.
I throw my hands up and relax against the chair. “Yeah, okay, sorry.”
She rolls her hazel eyes and flings a strand of her black hair over her shoulder.
“I need better than that,” she says.
“Well, shit, you should be lucky I said sorry at all. Isn’t that what you asked for?”
Her nostrils flare, and her jaw clenches. I like how she looks when she’s angry. “Get out, Elijah!”
I huff an exaggerated sigh. “Fine, but next time put a leash on that snake.” I stand up and head towards her door. “You don’t want him to eat Barnacle.”
“His name is King,” she corrects. “And that wouldn’t be the worst thing, would it?”
I close the door and put in my earbuds. Jack Harlow starts, and I jog down the stairs and out the door into the light rain, following my usual route: a five-mile loop starting from home wrapping around the local bar, Sally’s, and back.
I love Minnesota but I hate the rain. It makes me think of Dad. He loved rainy days to watch hockey, said that it was a signifier of the season. He’d always rewatch recorded games, going over the playbacks and describing what each player did to me. I told him that watching hockey is really only worth it if it’s live. I heard Levi’s dad say that. But Dad wasn’t like Levi’s, he was different from all my other friends’ dads. He’d work late nights, and was never really home, leaving me to fend for myself with Mom. I don’t know if Mom ever really loved him the way she said she did. Maybe in the beginning. But as his death approached, he was a cruel man to us. We stayed for the money, but I’m still not sure what he did. I suspect he was a coke dealer.
I stop at the four-way intersection two blocks over to catch my breath.
Unlike my dad, I don’t do illegal drugs and I sure as hell don’t deal them. Xanax doesn’t count. The one downside of being a hockey player is traveling every month from state to state. Everyone on the team loves it but me. First class seats to every game, courtesy of Braylon’s dad. He’s a hockey player in the NHL and pays practically anything extra for the team.
I finally make it to Sally’s and stop outside to do some stretches. Every freshman knows this is the place to go to not get carded, but they overcharge, too. I look at myself in the reflection of the window and see a car pull up behind me.
“Hi, Elijah!” A group of girls roll down their window and wave. The rain eases up and I wave back as I push my dripping hair out of my face.
The back window rolls down and I recognize Samantha from high school. She smokes a cigarette. The only other girl I’ve slept with since Taylor. She didn’t use to be a burnout, though; she was actually a sweet girl freshmen year.
“Hey, Samantha,” I say with a wave, taking out my earbuds.
“Want to join us? We’re going to Minneapolis to get drinks.”
“Isn’t it a little early?” I laugh. The girl driving the car glares at me.
“Yeah, so? Whatever. Thanks for sharing that pic of Taylor, by the way. Hilarious. I always knew she was a slut,” Samantha takes another drag then flicks ashes out the window towards my shoes. “At least, that’s what you told me, right?”
“Don’t say that,” I snap, but since when am I sticking up for Taylor?
Samantha throws her entire cigarette on the ground this time, then shrugs.
“Ugh, come on. Let’s go,” the girl in the front seat says to the driver.
