Dying for Rain (The Rain Trilog - BB Easton Page 0,72
Light and drag my sad ass back inside, I felt two solid arms wrap around my body from behind. One snaked around my rib cage, and the other hoisted me up from behind my knees. Before I could scream, Rape! I was flipped completely upside down and plopped, ass up, on the shoulder of a giant. It wasn’t until he swatted my backside and laughed in that glorious, soft tone that made my body go all warm and bubbly that I realized I’d been captured by my immortal beloved, Lance Hightower.
Lance Motherfucking Hightower. God, he was perfection. Lance was in my grade, but he was easily half a foot taller than most of the upperclassmen and already filled out like a man. Dude had a permanent five o’clock shadow at the age of fifteen. Despite having the dark, chiseled features of a Disney prince, Lance was a punk rock icon. Every day, he sported the same effortlessly badass look: faded black Converse, faded black jeans, and a faded black hoodie covered in patches advertising obscure European underground punk bands and anarchist political statements that he painted on with Wite-Out during class. That hoodie was so well known, it probably had its own fanzine.
Topping off all that faded black packaging was an equally faded, slightly grown-out green Mohawk. It probably would have added another three inches to Lance’s already six-foot-three-inch frame if he ever bothered to style it, and the color totally brought out the green flecks in his coppery-hazel eyes.
Oh, Lance. I had been obsessing over him since the sixth grade. I admired him from afar until last year when we fatefully wound up sharing a pottery wheel in art class. The flirting that ensued was incendiary. Atomic. The only problem was that I was technically “dating” his best friend, Colton, at the time, so things never really got off the ground.
Then, a goddamn miracle happened. Colton upped and moved to Las Vegas to live with his dad right in the middle of the spring semester. I pretended to be sad for a few hours, out of respect. Then, I immediately resumed my campaign to become the mother of Lance’s children. The only problem was that Lance and I didn’t have any classes together, so all of my flirting had to be done in seven-minute increments between periods. But in tenth grade, what I was sure would be the best year ever, Lance and I had been assigned to the same motherfucking lunch period. I was going to be sporting his last name by May. I just knew it.
“Lance! What are you doing?” I giggled. “Put me down! I can’t breathe with your shoulder in my stomach!”
Lance chuckled. “That’s so sweet. You take my breath away too, girl.”
God, his voice. Like fucking angel bells. For such a big dude with such an in-your-face look, Lance’s voice was surprisingly soft and flirty. It was a total mindfuck the first few times I’d heard that sweet sound come out of that ruggedly handsome face. And the pick-up lines. I swear to Jesus he had a new one every time I saw him. I fucking loved Lance Hightower.
I giggled harder, which made my stomach hurt even worse, and swatted at his perfect, patch-covered ass. “Put me down, asshole!”
Before he could comply, we heard a sickening smack from across the parking lot, followed by a deep voice shouting, “Say it again, motherfucker!”
Lance held on tight to the backs of my thighs and swung around to face the commotion, making me even dizzier as I grabbed his waist and peeked around his side to see what was going on.
Although I couldn’t make out exactly what was happening due to the blood rushing into my eyeballs, I recognized the assailant immediately. I’d never met him, but I’d heard stories. Everybody had. He was “the skinhead,” the only one at our entire four-thousand-student suburban high school.
I’d noticed him in ninth grade because he was literally the only person I’d ever seen wear suspenders (skinny ones, called braces) to school. In a world full of studded belts and chain wallets, that motherfucker wore suspenders—the epitome of dorkiness—and made them look as scary as the stripes on a venomous snake.
A snake who was standing about thirty feet away, looming over a little skater boy who was clutching his rapidly swelling jaw and trying not to cry.
When the kid didn’t say whatever it was the skinhead wanted to hear, he buried his fist deep in Skater Boy’s stomach, causing him