I glare at him, wishing I could throat punch the asshole into tomorrow. I don’t think that would go over too well, though.
“I’ll try my very best, your majesty,” I say with my fakest smile.
“If you’re not out in ten minutes, we’ll come in and help.”
I think about the Dolces walking into the dump I call home, with the dingy carpets and hideous wallpaper that was ugly decades ago, the dusty blinds and drunken occupants, and my pulse pounds in my temples. No fucking way. It’s shameful enough for them to see me and the outside of my house. They don’t have to see the whole humiliating inner workings.
“I’ll be out in five.”
Royal clears his throat quietly, but he doesn’t speak. Somehow, it feels like a threat, like he’s warning me. Like he might want to come inside and get more ammunition on me.
I hop out, but Baron throws out a hand, stopping me from slamming the door. “And take off some of that clown makeup. Less is more, sweetheart.”
I grit my teeth and storm up the walkway, banging through the front door. Smoke envelops me, so thick everything is seen through a haze. Mom sits on the couch between two tattooed men, each of them with a hand on her thigh, all three of them smoking joints. The coffee table is littered with beer cans and overflowing ashtrays and drug paraphernalia. Loud metal music rattles the windows. I shake my head and duck into the hall, hearing my mom squeal with drunken laughter even over the screaming guitars.
I consider coming out in the sweats Royal nicked from the gym and telling them Royal found them plenty sexy the other day, but that would just piss off Baron even more. And yeah, I can be a punk, but I’m not dumb. I know when to quit… At least sometimes.
Instead of blatantly disobeying them and ending up with their polished, shiny rich asses in my house, where they’d see the squalor I come from and probably be hit on by my mother, I yank on my best pair of Levi’s, hoping they’ll consider tight jeans sexy enough, even though they’re high-waisted. Scanning through my closet, I find nothing remotely suitable. In the end, I choose a tight crop top but pair it with a light jacket so I’m not showing too much skin. Then, because I’d rather err on the side of too little rather than too much, I shove my feet in my combat boots, one of my best thrift store scores, since they’re real leather.
I don’t have time to wash my face and reapply makeup in the two minutes I have left, so I just wash my face, grab a pair of earrings and a tube of lipstick, and then dash to my closet to peel another twenty off the roll. Never hurts to have some cash in case I need a ride or whatever the night brings. Tucking my stuff in my pocket, I head out, ignoring the way one of Mom’s conquests eyes my ass the whole way to the door.
The second I step out, I run face-first into the hardened body of Baron Dolce.
“It hasn’t been ten minutes,” I snap, yanking the door closed behind me, so he won’t see inside.
“You said five.”
“Even you couldn’t change and wash your face in five minutes.”
“You’d be surprised how fast a man can undress,” he says with a smirk. He reaches out and flicks my jacket open, taking in my bare midriff before scanning the rest of my outfit. “Good enough.”
He turns and heads for the car, and I bite my tongue and follow. Duke is in the backseat, his tongue down Jolene’s throat, so Baron takes the front while I squeeze in next to the groping couple. Maybe the seating arrangement doesn’t mean anything. Maybe my thinking it does says more about me than them. I need to stop this, need to pull back before it’s too late. I’m already all tangled up in their shit, even though I still know fuck-all about them.
But I have to remember that I’m not one of them. No matter what happens, even when I get in with them, I’ll never be a part of their family, their bond. I’ll never fit into their world. I fit in with the likes of Blue and Jolene, with guys like Skeeter Bite and Dodge and Shiner. If I play my cards just right, never making a wrong move, and a little luck is on my side, I can land a guy a little above my class, a guy like Maverick or Zephyr. I don’t belong in Royal’s world any more than he belongs in mine, any more than he could walk into my living room and walk by that scene tonight and look the other way for me, pretend he didn’t see it, because he knows how to let me keep my dignity.
Royal would never let me keep my dignity. And when I’m with him, I don’t try. I dress myself up as a skank and make a spectacle of myself, because the truth is, I don’t know how to exist in his world, either. And losing my dignity on my own terms is better than him taking it. Than admitting I’m lost, that I’m fucking frustrated as hell and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get out from under his thumb, let alone gain his trust or get in with his crowd.
I ignore Duke and Jolene sucking face all the way to the party. I’m not in the mood for any of it. If I had friends who would have my back, I’d get fucked up. I’d drink until I was wasted and puke in the bushes and forget this night and my whole fucking life for a night, just like my mom is doing at home, probably letting those dudes run a train on her and telling herself it makes her a fun girl, that it makes them want her more instead of seeing her as trash. It’s not that I don’t drink. I just won’t drink around these assholes. Too much chance they’ll use it to their advantage.
We’re not friends. I don’t have friends. I have girls like Jolene, who are down to have a good time, but when shit gets real, they split. That’s the way I like it. That way, I know who I can trust, and there’s never any question who has my back. I have my back. I trust me.
We get on the highway and pass stretches of fallow cotton fields and low-lying areas of trees standing in water from the latest storm, though really, the pseudo-swamp never really dries up. It just doesn’t have enough water to have anything cool like crocodiles and be labeled a real swamp. Instead, it’s chock full of mosquitos and cottonmouths. For a second, my throat goes dry, and I wonder if they’re going to drive me out here and ditch me on the way to the party. I’m sure as shit not going to walk home through those fields.
We turn off at the next exit, and I sit up straight. I may be freaking out a little, but fuck if I’m sitting here moping instead of watching where we’re going. Not for a second did I lose track of where we are. I have my phone and twenty bucks to get me home if they ditch me, so I better know where to tell someone to come pick me up.
“Are we going to the quarry?” I ask.
“You know it,” Baron says, not turning around in the front seat.
“You guys go to the quarry?”
“Everyone goes to the quarry, Jailbird.”
The quarry is exactly what it sounds like—an old rock quarry—but it’s also a place Faulkner kids use to swim in the summer, since there’s a basin of water. And since it’s not at anyone’s house, no one’s parents have to be out of town for someone to throw a party here, though the cops eventually come bust them up. When there’s no party, it’s also a good place to park for girls who have the sort of parents who give a fuck about whose dick is in them.
We turn onto the old dirt road leading out there, and I pretend I can’t see that Jolene has Duke’s dick in her hand and is jerking him off while she sits astride his lap, kissing his neck. He lets his head fall back, rolling it toward me. Our eyes meet, and he does that thing where he slowly wets his lips, a little smile playing over them. He raises his brows just a smidge and glances down at his lap, making the slightest nod with his head. An invitation.
I roll my eyes. Hell no.