Royal: srsly
BadApple: bills n shit. N u wont get the slaughterpen shut down. U need it 2.
Royal: u will b at my game or u will never fight again.
BadApple: R u threatening me?
Royal: no.
BadApple: sounds like it. Isnt that wut the mafia does? Break knees n shit?
Royal: I don’t need 2 hurt u. i fucking own that place. u think I can’t get u banned? u obey me or u wont make a dime there Friday night. Or ever again.
I grind my teeth, seething with hatred. There’s no victory to be had here, only acid on my tongue as I type the hateful white flag word.
BadApple: understood
Royal: Ur boring so I’m out. c u Friday. dress like the slut u r
BadApple: How cud I look like anything else?
As annoyed as I am, that part is true. Thanks to his brothers, I’m back to my old clothes, which Royal despises. After school, I had to race home on my bike, grab anything even slightly identifiable as Mabel’s, and fly across town to Lexi Lands It. I hope they fucking appreciate it. For all I know, they won’t even go. But if they did, and they couldn’t find a single item of her clothes and decided I was lying… I don’t really want to think about the drama they’ll cause.
I kept enough clothes to get me through the week at school—khakis and plain white shirts can’t be traced back to her—but I’m not going to go to a football game looking like a preppy little nerd. On Friday afternoon, I ride home on my bike. I think about going next door and asking Blue to go with me, but I decide against it. I don’t want to drag her into this ugly mess, and I’m more than capable of walking into the football game alone.
But then I think about Jolene, about how excited she’d be to go to a game at Willow Heights. She was the one who told me about the Dolce boys when I didn’t know who they were. I haven’t talked to her in months, since I left Faulkner, but she’s the kind of friend I can call out of the blue, and it’s like nothing’s changed. I’m not calling to ask a favor, after all.
I text Jolene, and two seconds later, my phone rings. “Oh my god,” she squeals. “I’m on my way over right now. Be there in five. We’re already in the car. You still live on Mill?”
“Yep,” I say, feeling simultaneously guilty and exhilarated. I should have kept in touch better, even if I’m not the same girl I was growing up with her in the trailer park. Still, hearing her excitement buoys me, as if it’s contagious, or at least makes me feel like the long, dark winter of the Dolce reign might not freeze me in the ground like a corpse.
Five minutes later, I hear a sputtering motor and head outside to see a two-tone brown Ford Lariat in the road, the windows down and the back full of redneck boys.
“Hey, it’s Fight Club,” one of them yells, waving to me.
“How ‘bout them apples!” another yells, whooping and raising a coozy that is most definitely hiding a beer, not a soda.
Skeeter Bite hangs out the driver’s side window and yells, “Who’s dick are you sucking in that video?”
“Not yours, that’s for damn sure,” I call back, flipping him off.
The guys in the back of the truck bust out laughing, but it’s not the same kind of shit I get at Willow Heights. These boys are obnoxious, and I’d get sick of it in the halls, but it’s just teasing. There’s something darker, more insidious, about the way I’m treated at the prep academy.
“Yeah, because mine’s bigger,” Skeeter Bite bellows over the laughter.
“Wait, aren’t you called Skeeter Bite because that’s the size of your dick?” I ask, pretending confusion.
The guys in the back of the truck are rolling with laughter now. Jolene hops out of the cab, then stands on the tailgate flirting with the boys for a minute before jumping down to the cheers of the boys, who I’m assuming are appreciating the lack of support provided by her cheap bra. I grin and shake my head as she skips up the walkway and hugs me.
“I kinda forgot you existed until you texted me out of nowhere,” she admits with a giggle, waving to the boys and managing to look both bashful and preening at once. They drive away hooting and hollering.
“How do you do it?” I ask, shaking my head.
“Do what?” she asks, like she has no idea. “Hey, you got a smoke?”
“No,” I admit. “But Blue lives next door.”
“Oh my god, let’s go visit,” she says, grabbing my arm and dragging me to the neighbor’s before I can answer.