sixteen
Harper Apple
After the game, we stand at the edge of the parking lot, Jolene trying to bum a smoke from every passing family as we wait for Skeeter Bite to pick us up.
We’re still waiting when a cheer goes up from the small crowd lingering around the entrance, mostly kids from our school. The football team comes pouring out the gate, their hands raised for high fives. The second half of the game started a little dicey, but after Willow Heights kicked away the ball, something happened that I don’t want to think about too much because witnessing it felt… Wrong.
Royal was stalking off the field, clearly pissed, when Baron Dolce ran in front of him and grabbed his facemask, right in the front, and pulled Royal’s head up. He crammed his facemask right up against Royal’s, and they put their arms around each other, and just stood there on the sidelines for the whole next possession. They were obviously talking, but the intimacy wasn’t about a pep talk. The way they held each other made me want to cry, the fierceness in Baron’s grip on Royal’s helmet, the way Royal clung onto him as if all those pads were a life raft.
When the offense went back on the field, Royal seemed more like the last time I saw him—he made risky passes, but they were beautiful to behold, even when Baron didn’t catch them. He usually did. Royal still played like he was trying to get himself stomped to death, flinging himself in front of the defense like he was daring them to break his neck, throwing would-be tacklers to the ground like he was unbreakable.
But somehow, the game ended without anyone being carried off the field in a stretcher, though Royal took a beating like I’m sure he’s never even gotten at the Slaughterpen. After seeing the game tonight, I’m not even sure why he needs the Saturday night fights. If he does this on Friday, fighting again on Saturday is just plain masochistic.
He ignores the raised hands trying to give him five and heads for his car. Duke soaks up the adoration like it’s oxygen, holding up his hands for everyone to slap, running a circle around the group to get more, grabbing a girl to kiss her hard on the mouth, then signing her friend’s boobs with a Sharpie. After he’s gotten all the slaps on the back he can, Baron tugs him aside and nods to us.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter as they start our way. “What now?”
“You are still wearing his letterman jacket,” says Jolene, puffing nervously on the cigarette she finally procured. “He’s not going to let you keep that if you’re not his girl. That means something, Harper.”
I quirk a brow. “Does it, though?”
Duke comes running over, bent halfway over, his arms out like he’s a kid playing he’s an airplane. He scoops up Jolene, who shrieks so loud half the crowd turns to see—the half that wasn’t already watching the Dolce boys’ every move.
Baron grabs me and hoists me over his shoulder, so my ass is in the air. “Let’s go.”
“Put me down, asshole,” I say, kicking my legs.
“Your attempts to fight us were cute at first, but they were futile then, and they’re futile now,” he says. “And they’re starting to annoy me.”
“Then put me the fuck down.”
“Don’t you get tired of fighting when you know you won’t win?” he asks.
He’s right in some ways. This fight with them is exhausting, and he must wonder why I keep fighting when they always win. But sometimes, there’s compromise. Sometimes, there’s little victories even when the big battle is lost. Poor people know that. That’s why I don’t roll over. Why I can’t.
“Royal told me to come to the game, so I did,” I say. “I fulfilled my obligation. That’s all he asked.”
“There’s an afterparty,” Baron says, arriving at the Range Rover. “I suggest you behave yourself better there than you have here.” He opens the door and stuffs me into the back, where Duke has just deposited Jolene. Duke takes his spot in the front seat, like usual, and Baron slides in with us. Not for the first time, I wonder how the twins worked out who gets shotgun, and if Baron resents that he always literally takes a backseat to Duke.
“Party time is pussy time,” Duke hollers, rolling down the window even though the November air is heavy with a damp chill, the kind of cold that settles in your toes and stays there for days, so you feel like you can never quite get warm. Or maybe it’s the fact that I just spent hours wearing next to nothing. I’m more than grateful for Royal’s jacket.
Duke hangs out the window, whooping and hollering to everyone we pass in the lot, and then flying his hand out the window like a kid playing with the air currents as we speed through town.
“We’re going to a party with the Dolces,” Jolene whisper-shouts in my ear. “I would have worn something else. I didn’t even shave my legs today!”
“As long as you shaved your pussy,” Duke says, twisting around in the seat and wiggling his brows at her. Jolene goes dead silent, obviously not having meant for the guys to overhear her whispering.
Royal pulls up outside my house, blocking the driveway, where my mom’s car and an unfamiliar truck are squeezed in. Great. She has company.
For a second, I think they’re going to let me go. Royal has been ominously silent the whole ride. If he’s pissed, maybe he doesn’t want me at his party after all. I reach for the door handle, but Baron lays a firm hand on my knee. “Go inside and change,” he says. “Wear something decent.”
“Got it,” I say stiffly, jerking my knee away. “And stop touching me like you have the right.”
“Do I need to come in with you and pick something out of your trashcan, or can you manage to dress yourself?” he asks.
“Fuck off.”
“Don’t be a little bitch and come out in sweats, blinking those doe eyes at me and pretending you’re clever. A skirt that’s just above the knees, a tight top. Not too much skin. Not too little. No turtlenecks. Look like you put a little effort into it, okay, sweetheart? Or is that asking too much?”