His first football game is in one week, and it’s against the Las Juntas Bulldogs. They’ll break his legs without even thinking about it twice. Of course, I can’t tell him this.
Last year, the outgoing seniors of All Saints showed up at Las Juntas High School in the middle of the night, took down their flag, replaced it with a pirate’s flag, and smeared the pole with Vaseline for an end-of-school prank. Going there without his crew, even with Vaughn, is not only asking for trouble, it’s begging for it. But that’s the thing about Knight. Taking risks is a hobby of his.
“Just dropping Dar at home.”
“Fine, whatever, I’ll come with you guys,” I huff. I know I can’t face Penn, especially considering the circumstances. I’m probably the last person he wants to see because I will only remind him of what he’s lost. And if my snotty friends hear I hung out with the Las Juntas crowd after spontaneously screaming like the world was ending tonight, they would have a field day.
Still, I want to see that he is all right. Personally, I guess.
“Shut up,” both Vaughn and Knight say in unison.
Vaughn takes a step forward, appearing under the streetlamp. The tawny light illuminates the damage Penn inflicted on his face. Both his eyes are black, his lip and eyebrow have cuts, and there’s swelling on his forehead that will only grow worse by tomorrow morning. He’s never been beaten up so badly before.
“Don’t bother, Mother Teresa. Dudebro’s not gonna hang out for long,” Vaughn says.
“Yeah?” Knight asks.
“Blythe Ortiz just coaxed him to go home with her afterward. Not sure how he can fuck in his state, but I guess that’s for them to discover tonight.”
Both guys chuckle darkly. Blythe. Why am I not surprised? She is so boy crazy. Girl, Interrupted. By dick. It doesn’t usually faze me that Blythe is boy crazy since it actually makes me look better, but her touching Penn is just gross on so many levels because (A) he is clearly badly injured, and (B) he was my first kiss. Which in my weird mind means that no one from All Saints can touch him now. “He’s eighteen. He can fuck in any state—all fifty—even when he is physically in a coma,” Knight deadpans. There’s silence for a beat, and then he adds, “Gus is probably losing his shit. He put a lot of money on this fight, and technically, there’s no winner.” Knight strokes his chin.
“Gus needs a life and a neck. Not in that order. Guy’s a douche, and I’ve met socks more sophisticated than his ass,” Vaughn replies dryly. “He’ll survive.”
“You get in bed with him business-wise.”
“I get in bed with anyone I can fuck over and have my way with business-wise,” Vaughn says calmly.
I look down at my hands in my lap. Why do I feel so guilty? Vaughn bends over and pats my back like a big brother even though he is two years younger than me.
“Don’t sulk. Scully is a tough motherfucker.”
They don’t know.
Not about Via, and not about Penn.
Not about my sea glass necklace, and not about the green Hulk living inside me.
I flip my hair and smile, but I’m not there. Not really. Even when Knight drives me home under the beautiful starless sky, the color of the night so pure, my eyes sting. The moon looks as lonely and seductive as ever, and Penn is somewhere underneath it, digesting his new reality.
Knight kills the engine and gestures his chin to the entrance of my house. A Tuscan-style mansion with eight bedrooms, it has a two-story foyer, a wine cellar, a ballet studio, and a pool that looks like it bleeds into the cliff of the mountain in our in a gated community called El Dorado. My dad is in investments, and my mom…well, she invested in bagging the right man, I guess.
Her former high school student. But that’s a story for later.
Knight helps me to my door. He shoves his hand into my crocheted purse and fishes out my keys, kicks the door open, and punches in our security code.
“You look wasted, and I look inherently guilty. Please snap out of your bullshit meltdown before we hit the second floor,” he drones, throwing my arm over his shoulder and dragging me up the stairs of the darkened foyer. There’s a huge black and white picture of my mother arabesque-ing in ballerina attire, staring ahead, her elegance casting a regal vibe on the entire house.