“Yeah, look at you, breaking city curfew and smoking weed on the same night. Pretty soon you’ll be doing time in lock-up.”
He grins and watches me, a challenge in his eyes, like he doesn’t think I’ll do it. When I slip the end between my lips and feel the wetness of the tip, a little thrill goes through me, and I have to press my knees together again. I take a drag, feeling cool and grown up and badass like him.
Then I exhale and cough for a whole minute straight while Maddox laughs his ass off.
My head is spinning and foggy at once, and I lay down on the roof, this time flat on my back. The warmth of the tiles seeps into my back, and I’m grateful they absorbed so much from the sun today. It’s still early enough in the year that the nights are a bit chilly to be out in shorts and a tank, especially when the dew settles. It must be around midnight by now, but Maddox doesn’t protest when I make myself comfortable.
I reach out and run my finger over a tattoo of a vaguely familiar man’s face on the back of his forearm. “Who’s this?”
He twists his arm around and looks at it, swiping his palm over it and smiling. “That’s my boy Che,” he says, leaning back on his hand again.
“A guy in your crew who died?” I ask, swallowing hard.
“Che Guevara, dumbass,” he says, knocking his foot against mine to show he’s just playing and doesn’t mean the insult. Still, embarrassment washes over me. I should have recognized him. I make a mental note to study up on him on the Encarta at school, since Valeria doesn’t have a computer. If he’s important enough to Maddox that he wants him inked on his skin forever, he must be a pretty big influence on him.
“What about you, little mama?” he asks, nudging my foot again. “Got any ink I don’t know about?”
I feel my face warming, and I’m glad it’s too dark for him to see it up here. He’s seen every inch of me—on several occasions.
“Not yet,” I say lightly, leaning up on one elbow to snag my beer. “But I’ve always wanted one. They look really cool on y’all. I wouldn’t mind having a few.”
“Know what you’d get?” he asks, turning his head and looking down at me, like he’s actually interested in the answer.
“No,” I admit. “Maybe a quote from my favorite book.”
He tips his chin, prompting me to go on. “What’s your favorite book?”
“Yeah, see, that’s the problem,” I admit, smiling up at him. “It changes all the time. Right now it’sIT.Last year, it wasFrankenstein. Next year, it could be something else, so if I got a quote from that book, maybe I’d regret it.”
“Maybe,” he says, taking a swig from his beer.
I take one from mine. “Have you ever regretted any of yours?”
“No,” he says. “They’re part of me.”
“What made you decide to put the crow on your neck?” I ask. “No one else has it there.”
He shrugs one shoulder. “It’s right up front, where you can’t miss it,” he says. “People know who I am and what I’m about from the first time they see me. I like that.”
It strikes me how well I know him. I was just thinking the same thing earlier, that with him, there’s no guessing. He is who he is, and he makes no apologies for it. I try not to let other people’s opinions of me matter, but I’m nowhere near as confident as he is. “You’re not worried about… I don’t know… People not wanting to hire you because of it?”
He laughs quietly. “You sound like Mom.”
“I mean, it’s a legitimate concern.”
“Nah, I’m not worried about it,” he says, setting down his beer and leaning back on both hands. “I figure the only jobs I’ll ever have will be for the Crosses, anyway. If I live that long.”
“Wow,” I say, sipping my beer. “That’s morbid.”
“I thought you were into that shit,” he teases. “All those scary books and movies…”
He shoots me a grin, and my tummy flips. He’s not as gorgeous as Lennox, not as perfectly symmetrical and flawless, not as well dressed. But when he smiles, the rough, carelessness of his appearance disappears, and there’s only that smile, the one that tugs at the corners of his lips and crinkles the corners of his eyes, the one that makes me feel like I’m soaring high in the night sky, a crow who lost her bearings and is guided only by the silvery moonlight on her inky feathers.
I clear my throat, trying not to lose myself in his magnetism. “I like to read,” I say, hearing how lame it sounds the moment the words leave my lips. “Not just scary stuff. I like everything. I figure one day I’ll probably teach lit, or maybe… Write.”
I’ve never said that out loud to anyone, and it makes me feel stupider than just saying I like to read.
“You write?” he asks, looking way too intrigued by that. “What kind of stuff?”