He grunted something that sounded like ‘magnificent’ but I couldn’t be sure.
It was as we were turning into our driveway that I saw a flash of black.
I turned and watched out of the passenger window as Trouper walked across his front lawn to the front door of the house that was right next to mine.
Score!
“Son of a bitch.” My dad had obviously seen the same thing. “What are the fuckin’ odds?”
“What?” I asked innocently.
“Don’t ever, ever, ever go near that boy. Not unless you want to be a single mother at seventeen. That boy is Bad with a capital B.” He made sure to hold my eyes and let me know just how serious he was about that statement.
“Dad, he’s just a kid,” I said. “A teenager. What is this immediate dislike you have going on? That’s not like you.”
That wasn’t like him at all. My dad was normally very open-minded about everything.
That was why I had a tattoo at seventeen, because he’d gone with me to get it.
That was why I was allowed to do what I wanted, when I wanted, and had no curfew. Because he trusted me implicitly.
At least, he used to.
I wasn’t so sure that he would continue to think this way when it came to some random boy.
I mean, it wasn’t like we were dating or anything.
When we got inside, my mother all but rushed me. “You aren’t answering your phone!”
I frowned. “I don’t have my phone. I never have my phone when I go out on a walk.”
She frowned. “You went out on a walk?”
“Yes,” I said. “I told you this before I left.”
“Oh,” she smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”
I shrugged and walked into the kitchen for a bottle of water, coming to a stop when I looked through our kitchen window and saw Troup standing in his.
His eyes lifted and our gazes connected over the length of the separation between us.
Don’t ever, ever, ever go near that boy. Not unless you want to be a single mother at seventeen. That boy is Bad with a capital B.
CHAPTER 2
You sad fuck.
-Conversation between Beckham and Troup
TROUP
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
I looked up and over to see the cute little curly blonde from yesterday.
Today was the official first day of school, and if it wasn’t mandatory for me to go, via a judge, then I wouldn’t be here.
I’d be working, trying to make a living, and helping my little brother.
My little brother that’d been taken away from me by the state because I wasn’t ‘of age’ yet. Luckily, my little brother was sixteen to my seventeen, and honestly wasn’t going to be too hard for anyone to take care of. Thankfully, his mother was able to take emergency retirement from the military, meaning that he was no longer forced to live in a foster home until she got home.
He was a smart little do-gooder, and I had no doubt in my mind that he would always have his head on straight.
I was just glad that no one treated him like shit like the home that I had been in before I’d emancipated myself did. Through a weird set of circumstances, I was now officially on my own, in a great big house, in the middle of a fancy neighborhood.
The same fancy neighborhood where she happened to live.
Right. Next. Door.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” I muttered as I side-eyed the girl. “Are you walking to school?”
She nodded. “My parents don’t believe that I should be given a car. They feel that I should have to work for it. So that’s what I’m doing. Working for it.”
“It looks like you’re walking, not working,” I commented as we fell into step.
“Maybe,” she admitted. “But I can’t work right now. With volleyball practice, volleyball games, and homework, I just don’t have time to work. I have a job at Coffee Time in town, though. I work there on the weekends, and whenever I can get a spare day off.”
“Coffee Time,” I said. “That’s over by that garage. Toon’s?”
She looked at me with almost hopeful glee in her eyes. “Yes, why?”
“Because I started a job there,” I told her.
“Isn’t Toon’s an airplane mechanic?” she asked. “I’ve always wondered.”
“It is,” I said. “Toon’s is the only specialized airplane mechanic in the area. He used to be in the Air Force. He and my dad served together. My dad was a fighter pilot, and Toon was a mechanic on the same planes.”
“Wow,” she breathed. Damn, she was cute. “I don’t know many fighter pilots.”
I grinned down at her.
“That’s what I want to do… as long as I keep my head on straight this year, anyway. That may prove to be impossible,” I grumbled.
“Why?” she asked.
I looked down at her to see her hair bouncing in her high ponytail.
I’d never seen anyone with so much fuckin’ hair before.
“Why what?” I asked, losing my train of thought when I looked into her eyes.
“Why will it prove to be impossible?” she explained.
I sighed.
“Because I seem to cause trouble everywhere I go. I guarantee, the biggest bully in Kilgore will clock me the moment I walk in through the doors. Wanna place a bet?” I teased.
She blinked. “Um, sure. What’s the bet for?”
“If I win, you have to show me around town. If you win, I’ll stay away from you.” I kicked a rock. I didn’t like that idea at all.
“That sounds like I should throw it just because I don’t want you to do that,” she mused as she looked up at me with curiosity. “Why would you say that?”
She gestured for me to take a right, and I did, causing us to cut through a side entrance to the playground. “No wonder you beat me the other day.”
“You’re not answering my question,” she grumbled.
I sighed. “I’m a bad bet, babe.”
“You’re not a bad bet. You’re a kid,” she corrected me. “You’ve only been told you’re bad, so you believe it.”
I snorted. “You keep telling yourself that, Curly Fry.”
“Curly Fry?” she asked. “Very original.”
I reached out and touched a curl that’d strayed close to her eyes and tucked it back behind her ear.
“I like your hair.”
Why had I said that?
“That’s nice, because it’s my hair, and I can’t change it. I’ve tried straightening it before, but within an hour the curl is back. I have my dad to thank for my curly hair,” she admitted.
I was glad that it was curly.
Everybody always straightened their hair. All the fake bottle-blonde popular girls looked the same with their flat-ironed hair. It was rare to see a girl with her hair anything other than straight.
Since apparently that was ‘popular.’
Whatever.
I liked a little originality.
“Now, this is the fastest way to school, but sometimes that gate is locked. If it’s locked, you have to go the long way around like you did yesterday,” she said. “This way cuts off about ten minutes, but you have to walk through a grassy field. But a lot of the times the field is wet thanks to the dew in the morning. That’s why I wear these rubber boots and change if I care what I’m wearing. Today, it’s supposed to rain anyway, so I’ll just keep them on.”