Her eyes flash with that spark of defiance that kindles something inside me, some urge to either own her or crush her. I’m not sure which one I want yet. Up close, I can see the gold flecks in the green of her eyes, ringed with a fringe of dark lashes. I imagine them peeking up at me while those pouty lips stretch around my cock…
I shove the thought away and sit up straighter, though if she wanted to look at my dick, she would have done it when I was shoving it down Scarlet’s throat.
“She’s not my type,” I say, the words surprising me as they leave my mouth. “Just a hole.”
Rae looks at me skeptically while I take another drink. “A hot blonde cheerleader is not your type?”
“Nah,” I say. “She’s a whore who knows how to ride a dick, but she’s only trying to rebel against her daddy by slumming it with the crew. One taste of thug dick and she’ll be chasing us like a bitch in heat for the rest of high school. She doesn’t want our respect, and she’ll never get it.”
“Wow,” Rae says. “Do you have everyone figured out, or just her?”
“People are easy to figure out if you stop thinking about yourself long enough to look.”
“Okay, I’ll bite,” she says, crossing her arms and lying back against my brother. “Tell me all about myself then.”
I take a drink and let my gaze linger as it takes her in from head to toe. When I get back to her face, it’s a little flushed, and Lennox is glaring at me like I’m eye-fucking his bitch.
“Maybe next time,” I say, turning up the bottle again, even though I’ve already got a good buzz going. “I’m still looking.”
two for joy
eleven
#1 on the Billboard Chart:
“Goodbye England’s Rose”—Elton John
Rae West
After the second party, things are both better and worse. That morning, Lennox, Maddox, Billy, Lola, and Lexi stay until the last shard of glass is swept up and the last can thrown away. My neighbors take the trash to their house, so Lee won’t see it by our trashcan again. No one mentions why they’re doing it, but they seem to have a little more respect for me now. Or maybe they just take care of the people they consider to belong, and by mingling and drinking with them instead of fighting the idea of a party, I’ve proven that I can hang.
So, I don’t get in trouble with Lee, since Mom would never intentionally bring down his wrath on me. She keeps her mouth shut, and so do I. No reason to give him extra ammunition. He’ll think of a reason to knock us around when he wants one.
At school, no one seems to hate me anymore, and no one calls me a pig or a rat. They all know about the “Rae Ban,” as Billy calls it. Besides, I let everyone come party at my house, even people I don’t like who showed up without an invitation. Not that I handed out invitations, but I don’t think the North brothers invited them, either.
I barely see Maddox, since I’m in advanced placement classes and he isn’t. But I see Lennox, who’s in several of my classes and makes sure to sit by me in each one. Everyone seems to know I’m under their protection, and they don’t mess with me. At least, not directly.
But a few weeks after the party, I start getting rude comments from guys when Lennox isn’t around. Not the ones I used to get about being a rat, but more sexual ones. No one pushes me, knocks my books out of my hands, or puts gum in the combination of my locker. But over the next month, I hear the comments behind my back, whispers, speculation that I came to this school because I got kicked out of my last one. The variety of fabricated reasons range from, I was blowing the principal, to I got pregnant and my parents didn’t want anyone to remember.
Midway through the year, my name appears on desks and bathroom walls along with Lexi’s and the other girls’ who sit with us at lunch.
For a good time, call Lexi Gunn/Marilyn Boehner/any of their friends… Followed by a phone number. Now,Rae Westis added in with a plus sign. I try not to care. Fuck those people. Lexi’s nice, and I’m not going to stop sitting with her at lunch just because everyone calls her a slut. She and her friends are tight, an impenetrable, unbreakable bond of girlhood that makes me miss my old friends, who I spent the first three years of high school with, even though we were never that close. They stopped calling pretty soon after I moved, since none of us had cars or ways to visit each other.
Also, we were the nerds, while Lexi and her friends are the self-proclaimed Slut Club. If it bothers them that others call them names, they don’t talk to me about it, and after the rumors about me go around, I know better than to believe the gossip at this school has any basis in reality.
Just before Christmas break, I finally get an answer when Scarlet and her demon cheerleader squad clear it up for me.
“So, what’s it like?” Scarlet asks behind me as I grab my gross uniform from my locker to dress out for PE.
“What?” I ask.
“Being the Murder of Crows’ whore,” she asks, then blows a big pink bubble with her gum. Her friends all snicker, and Diana flicks her shoulder-length brown hair back and smirks at me with pale, glossy lips.
“Why don’t you tell me?” I ask. “You’re the one who stuck Maddox’s dick in your mouth in the middle of my party.”
Her friends all widen their eyes at each other, and Scarlet’s face goes red.
“I was drunk,” she huffs. “And we haven’t even hooked up. I don’t sleep with guys I’m not dating, and I definitely don’t let a whole crew pass me around.”