Heston laughs, mocking, “Yeah, Reyn, your probation. It’s not worth it.”
“Might be, actually,” I respond, still feeling that crazy itch rushing through my blood. “Wouldn’t be much of a challenge. I hear even Hamilton’s little punk ass could take you down.”
Heston scoffs. “Hamilton only beats me when I let him.”
“What’s all this about?” Sebastian ambles up to us, face red and bruised, but still just as hard. The guy just spent a solid twenty minutes in a fistfight intense enough to rival even the hazing shit I’d seen at Mountain Point, but he doesn’t even look tired as he takes a lazy drag from a cigarette.
He doesn’t look any less like a bomb about to detonate, either.
Heston levels him with a cold glare. “This is about you apparently throwing fights now. What the fuck, Bass?”
“Throwing fights?” He gives a razor-sharp laugh. “You can’t throw a fight by winning.”
“Since when do you not draw first blood?” Heston’s icy gaze moves between Vandy and me. “Since these two are feeding you bullshit?”
Sebastian looks bored now. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. I took the first hit to throw him off his game. It worked.”
“Want to know what I think?” Heston nods to Vandy, still clutching at my clenched arm. “I think Baby V doesn’t know when to mind her own damn business.”
Before my own fury can even properly flare, Sebastian is there, stepping up to his brother. “And I think you need to back the fuck off my girl here.”
Heston says, “Your girl?” and it’s such a mirror-perfect echo of my thoughts, derision and all, that I actually think I’m the one saying it aloud. Heston’s eyes shift to Vandy, and I can’t stand the way he’s looking at her—greedy and cutting. “So, he’s the one you let your hair down for, Princess? Slumming it with my brother? I guess that makes sense. The defective Wilcox and the defective Hall.”
Vandy’s grip goes slack enough that it’s almost nothing to jerk out of it, but I’m not sure I could have stopped myself if it hadn’t. My eyes go so suddenly blind with rage that it’s almost like I lose time. One second, I’m there in front of Vandy, and the next...
I’m watching Heston stumble backward, hand clutched to his face. “Fuck!”
For a brief moment, I wonder why my knuckles don’t hurt, and then I realize my punch never landed.
Sebastian’s did.
Heston pulls his hand away, face all screwed up in an angry grimace. He says, “I’m going to make you regret that,” and I don’t put much stock into anything Heston says. Never have. But it sounds like, for Sebastian, maybe he actually could.
Nevertheless, Sebastian just takes a drag of cigarette, voice as dry as his stare. “Look at that.” He points to Heston’s nose. “First blood.”
Heston looks at us like he’s trying to decide if it’s worth his pride and pretty face to fuck with us any longer. He makes the right decision. “Whatever. I don’t have time for your dumb high school bullshit.” His eyes sweep over Vandy. “Not really into chicks with a masochistic streak anyway.”
I pull up the hood of the sweater I’d taken from the Jeep and cross my arms. We’re at the lake now. Apparently after all that shit went down with Heston, Ben and Sebastian decided to take the party elsewhere. We’re on the north side of the lake, otherwise known as the Jerry-free zone, and it’s a lot more relaxed here.
Or would be, if not for the roar inside my head.
Vandy’s huddled with some of the girls across the small clearing as Sebastian shows off, teaching them some fighting moves. He’s inspecting all their fists, saying stuff like, “Don’t tuck the thumb. That’s how you break it.” She’s got my jacket zipped up around her, watching dubiously as he taps her knuckles. “Straighten your wrist, though.”
She keeps shooting me these little worried glances, smiling when I meet them. And I always do. Because the sight of her swimming in my jacket is seriously doing things for me.
This, and the fact that she looks loose and chill, soothes some of the sharp edges that could only be the result of not giving an ass-kicking that’s clearly owed.
I’d parked my car at home and walked over, hoping it might settle the firing impulses of my nerves, but it didn’t really work. When I arrived, they already had a crude bonfire going, flames crackling and hissing, making my back prickle and itch. Elana’s car is parked close, windows down, music blaring from the speakers.
I’m tending to the business of downing as many of these beers as I can.
Carlton is at my side, carefully separating seeds from a makeshift notebook-tray of weed. It’s a nice break from the incessant clicking of the pocket knife he’s been playing with all night. “Usually,” he’s saying, “people want something, I don’t ask questions. It’s not like I knew Heston was selling it to her.”
I give him a sidelong look, raising the bottle to my mouth. “Sure.”
I’m not pissed at Carlton, though. I’m pissed at Emory for taking Vandy out there and leaving her to fend for herself. For making me take on a duty that I can’t even fucking honor. I’m pissed at Heston, and I’m pissed at his brother for being able to do what I can’t, because Sebastian can clock that asshole and still be fine come morning. Sebastian can ride around with a beer in his system. Sebastian can call Vandy his girl.
He didn’t even say it like that—not the way I mean it. He said it in the same way I call Emory, Carlton, and Ben my boys. It’s the same way all of us call the Playthings our girls. It wasn’t like that. I know it’s irrational.