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Frank came and picked me up in a bear hug and spun me around a couple of times.
“Hey, Cat. Where to?”
“No idea. I was thinking about skipping lunch.”
Marco took a step forward with his chest all puffed up.
“Why? Is someone giving you a hard time?”
I frowned.
“I’m just not hungry. Is something going on?”
I had the impression things were off all day, but I blamed it all on Hugo.
“We had practice this morning, and Nate didn’t made it. Jason and Miriam made a point of bitching to everyone about what happened to him last night. Did Mustafa really strangle him?”
Of course Miriam got into bitch mode the second I stepped away from her. I was tired of the hot and cold power struggle we’d had since seventh grade. We’d be out of school in a few months; what was the point of all of this?
“He didn’t strangle anyone. Hugo walked into a party while Nate was…hugging me…” there was no need to put another target on his back. The twins wouldn’t hesitate to give Nate their input on the situation too, “and he just grabbed him by the neck and threw him into a table.”
They both laughed, and Frank hugged me again.
“Nate is a pussy. You really need to stop hanging out with that chick and her dickless friends.” Yeah, Frank wasn’t wrong about that. “Anyways, everyone knows about it, people talk.”
“People talk about us all the time.”
“True, so let’s skip today. We have fucking geometry next period, and I don’t feel like going.”
I looked over at Marco, and he just shrugged, silently agreeing with his brother.
“What did your mom cook?” I asked.
Their mother, Patty, used to be a chef at her parents’ Ethiopian restaurant before marrying Frank Sr. and becoming a mob wife, but she still loved to spend time in the kitchen. I’d never seen anyone sit at her table and not ask for seconds.
“I think we have some lasagna from last night.”
“Dude, I have lasagna at my hose. I want Fatira.”
Fatira was this awesome dish she made, kind of a breakfast snack from the Horn of Africa with pastry and scrambled eggs with honey filling. It was amazing.
“I thought you weren’t hungry.”
“I am if she makes me Fatira. Also, if we leave, we need to take B too. I’m not going to listen to you talk about hookups the whole day.”
Their little sister, Bianca, was one of my favorite people in the world. She was sixteen and a sophomore at our school. She was my best damn friend and knew most of my secrets. B was the only one who knew I wanted to lose my V-card to someone and enjoy my rebellious stage. Actually, she was the one who suggested Nate. In her words, Nate is pretty enough to be worth seeing naked and stupid enough to not be worth keeping after.
“Wow, Cat,” Marco said, pretending to be shocked, one hand dramatically on his chest. “You want us to teach our baby sister to ditch school? What kind of role models do you think we are?”
“Oh, please, shut up and let’s go already.”
~
We found Bianca, and we didn’t have to ask her twice to skip the rest of the day. Marco drove us all to their house, and we ate together. Frank Sr. came home too, and I asked him to let Hugo know where I was and that I didn’t need anyone to come and pick me up today. I could have called home myself, but right then, I was set on avoiding Mustafa like he was carrying the last case of the black plague.
The boys went to their cave to play Street Fighter on their PlayStation, and even though I could have kicked their asses at that game after all the hours of practice I got with Vito, I passed. I thanked Patty for the meal and went upstairs with Bianca to hang in her room. She was at one end of the bed, sucking on a watermelon lollypop, and I was at the other, flat on my back with my head hanging over the edge.
“Last night was a disaster,” I moaned.
