Dynamo sighs and unlocks the gate. “I don’t know where the parties are,” he says. “I don’t go to them. I’m not in that circle anymore. I’m sure someone at school was talking about it, but I don’t pay attention to that shit.”
“Listen,” I say, hooking my thumb through the strap on my bag. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” he says. “I’m sure they told you I was bad news and threatened you if you hung out with me. Why do you think I hang out alone?”
My throat tightens at his words, the resigned tone in his voice, only the slightest trace of bitterness left, as if he’s given up on even his anger. The Dolces have ensured he has zero friends for so long he doesn’t even bother to want them anymore. I’ve had my experience with friendlessness, but my isolation was my own doing. My heart breaks a little for this boy whose every chance at human connection is severed at the root.
“They didn’t threaten me if I hung out with you,” I say quietly. “They threatened you.”
We stand there in silence for a minute, just looking at each other. I stopped hanging out with him to protect him, but it doesn’t change the fact that I did it, probably the same as every other friend he’s had since the Dolces decided he was an enemy.
He leans an elbow on the chain-link fence, hooking his fingers into it and surveying me from head to toe. “If you go in one of their parties looking like that, they’ll eat you alive.”
“I wasn’t aware the football parties were a formal event.”
“Harper,” he says, his voice serious. “Look, you’re hot, okay? You know it, I know it, everyone in the whole school knows it. That’s why those bitches find you so threatening. You do you, and they hate it, because they don’t have the balls. But you look like a fucking hood princess, not a Willow Heights princess. If you’re trying to get in with that crowd, you gotta fit in, Teeny.”
“Yeah, well, that’s never going to happen,” I say, my throat tight with frustration. “I don’t have a thousand bucks to spend on clothes, let alone a fucking purse. I’m never going to be a Gucci girl.”
“Then you’re never going to be a Dolce girl,” he says. “So stop trying.”
“I can’t.”
Colt shakes his head, closing his eyes like he’s praying for patience. “Most of my sister’s clothes are still in her closet,” he says, his shoulders slumping. “She wasn’t curvy like you, but she was about your same height. I’ll drop off a couple bags on your porch.”
I’m glad it’s dark out, that the streetlights in the lot aren’t enough to illuminate the heat in my face. I’d rather dumpster dive than take someone’s charity.
“Why would you do that?” I ask. “You hate the Dolces.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”
He shrugs and gives me a grin, but it’s the one that never touches his eyes. “Maybe when they’re done with you, I’ll get their sloppy seconds.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Thanks, asshole.”
“A guy can dream.”
“So, I’m your dream girl?” I tease.
“Nah,” he says. “My dream girl lives on the other side of the country and has never heard of Faulkner, Arkansas.”
“Then I’d say about ninety-five percent of the country could be your dream girl,” I say. “But not me.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I keep waiting for it to be my turn, but I always come in second. As my gramps would say, second place is first loser.”
“Weren’t you first until the Dolces came along?”
“I gotta get back to the fight,” he says, hooking a thumb over his shoulder toward the ring. “Promise you won’t go to the party until you’ve got something better to wear.”
“You’re just full of compliments tonight.”
“Promise?”
I stand on tiptoes and give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I promise, asshole.”
It strikes me as I walk away that maybe the reason I feel so comfortable with Colt, the reason he feels like a kindred soul, is that he’s the only person in this town who wants to get out as badly as I do.