He sends a poop emoji. I roll my eyes as the next text comes in.
speakin of textbooks u got my work done?
Yes. You may pick it up after our next lesson.
sweet thanks cause I need it real soon
I return to my calculus work, but a nagging inquiry harries the back of my brain. I wince and try to concentrate, but it demands attention. I finally give in, texting one last question.
Which ones do you like best?
His reply comes in the form of a phone call. It startles me, but I compose my voice and pick up.
“Hello?”
“Hi, whoever this is, can you fucking leave us alone?” A woman’s voice on the other end says. I recognize it instantly as Holly. “We’re kind of busy.”
She hangs up, and I listen to the empty dialtone for a few seconds in shock. How could I have forgotten? He’d traded sex for those same underwear on my bed. I shoot them a nasty look, and catch myself wondering why I feel the need to be nasty at all. Ranik is his own person – the fact he traded material goods for sex is an indicator of his experience. Women are willing to give him something – pay him, essentially - to have sex with him. That in itself is the best sign I could hope for, like he said, that I picked the right teacher of attraction. So why is there a sour taste in my mouth at the thought of it? And why does his face when I said he was lonely haunt me behind my eyelids?
Hours later, when my homework is done, I return from the showers to find two texts on my phone.
sorry about that, princess, kicked her out fast as I could
The second text makes the tight knot of confusion in my chest untie itself, loosening and letting me sleep that much easier.
i like the rose ones, too
Chapter 4
The night’s clear and star-studded. I light a cigarette and watch the smoke spiral into the full moon. Full moons always make me antsy – always have, ever since I was a kid watching ‘em from trailer park windows. They fill me up with some kinda wild hunger for air, and darkness, and silence. No people. No bullshit. Just stars and trees. Full moonlight makes me feel like running off into the woods and never coming back.
My posse and I wait around my truck for a call from a sorority house. We made a pit stop at the local liquor store and piled Trent’s truck high with the stuff. Now all that’s left is to sneak it on campus and into the house – easy enough with a few tarps and a signal from our buyers.
Trent leans on his red truck, the monster even more massive and pimped out than mine, all chrome wheels and sweet LED baseboard lights. Trent and I’ve known each other since kindergarten. He’s fat where I’m lean, he’s nice where I’m mean. We balance each other out. He shaves his head bald, his eyes a cool-ass bottle-green color, and his meaty arms stick out of his black shirt.
My phone buzzes with a text. I whip it out quick and glance at it. It’s Alice.
Isn’t the homework I’ve done due tomorrow? You should come and pick it up. On that note, do you have any idea when our next lesson is going to be? I don’t mean to sound pushy, but I feel I’m ready to continue.
course u mean 2 sound pushy I text back. ur scared Theo’s gonna get snatched up before u can get to him.
Her reply is wet-cat angry. I don’t see how my fears are any of your business.
chill, princess. next lesson’ll be soon i promise
“Who’s that blowing up your phone lately?” Trent asks. I scoff and lean against his truck.
“None of your business, buttass.”
“Oooh, so touchy! And original with the insults, too. It’s like you’re a perfect gentleman or something.” Miranda flips her pink hair over her shoulder and laughs. “Is it a new lay?”
Miranda’s a little less familiar to me. She’s Trent’s cousin, so I only saw her during summers when she’d come to his house for the yearly family reunions. She’s short and prefers heels with spikes, her eyes the same bright green and her hair long and dyed cotton-candy pink.
“I bet it’s Kara. You’ve been tryna bag her for months,” Sam, his dark skin and tattoos practically glowing under the streetlight, smirks. Sam’s the newest guy in our group – dating Miranda since freshmen year. But he’s cool. He moves like a well-muscled tiger, and wears big horn-rimmed glasses and Metallica shirts. He’s pretty laid-back, until you start talking about music.
“Cheerleader captain Kara? Incredible. Who knew she’d stoop so low.” Miranda looks impressed and massages Sam’s shoulders idly.
“Nobody’s stooping,” I snarl. “Just fuckin’ drop it.”
“You text her back a lot,” Trent muses. “Should I call a reporter? I can see the headline now; Ranik Mason, Giving A Shit About A Woman For The First Time In His Life – Miracle, or Manipulation?”
“Guess Kara must have more to her than her tits,” Sam says, lighting his own cigarette.
“Nah, it’s just the tits,” Miranda determines. “Have you seen those things? They’d make up for at least four whole character flaws.”
“They aren’t bigger than Holly’s.” Seth frowns. Miranda scoffs.
“Holly’s the queen of tits, though. Kara’s more like…more like the duchess. Oh, and remember Hasfah? With the rad head scarves? Damn, she came close to being the princess –”
“Whenever you’re done goin’ through my bangin’ history,” I snarl and put my cigarette out.
“There isn’t enough time in the universe to go through your banging history,” Trent laughs.
“We’re just giving you shit,” Miranda quips and punches my arm playfully. “It’s nice to actually see you talking to a girl instead of just texting her for a bootycall.”
“How do you know it’s a girl?” Sam smirks.
“It’s a man,” I insist. “A huge, hairy-ass man.”
“This huge hairy-ass man sure makes you smile a lot,” Trent mutters.
“Get off my dick, okay? It’s nobody important.”
Sam chuckles, and looks towards the well-lit sorority house practically hemorrhaging a party. “We gonna do this, or what?”
I check my phone just in time to see Rachel’s text; All clear. I turn to the others.
“Yeah, let’s pony up. Trent, grab the keg. Miranda, get the bottles. Sam and I will bring the cooler in,” I direct. We trudge up the lawn, girls in pearls and tight dresses and dudes in polo shirts and gelled hair wrinkling their noses at our ripped jeans and black leather jackets. I knock on the door, and it flings open.
“Ranik!” Rachael, her black hair short and her cheeks apple-adorable, smiles at me. “Thank you for coming so soon!”
“S’nothing, sweetheart. What’s tonight’s theme? Dress up like the entire Republican party?”
She laughs. “It’s a 50’s theme.”
I jerk my head at Trent, and he muscles through the door with the keg, Rachael stepping aside and shouting directions over the booming music.
“Just put it in the kitchen! Yep, right there!”
Miranda slinks past her disdainfully, putting the bottles on the counter. She never pretends to like my past one-night stands. Rachael, oblivious, directs me and Sam to drop the cooler in the living room. Every prep in here is shooting looks at us. Even the beer pong game pauses briefly to ogle Trent’s size and my tattoos.
“Um,” Rachael pulls out her wallet and gives me a hundred. “That’s for you. Thanks again. No one else could bring so much so fast.”
There’s a silence as I glare at the party around us, daring them to say something. Finally, Trent, ever-diplomatic and keen to keep me out of a fight, slaps my shoulder. He can smell tension like a bloodhound.
“We should get going.”
“Bye, losers,” Miranda blows everyone a kiss as she backs out of the door, Sam close on her heels. Rachael grabs my sleeve as I follow.
“Um. You could stay! If you want.”
I raise my eyebrow. “Yeah? You sure about that?”
She nods vigorously. “Nobody will bother you. Promise.”
I spot someone very fam
iliar over her shoulder – blonde hair, blue eyes. I flash a smile down at her.
“Sure. I’ll stay for a bit.”
Trent pokes his head back in the house. “What, dude? C’mon, let’s go. We were gonna hook up the Xboxes on a LAN and play Left for Dead.”
“You guys go ahead. I’ll meet you back home.”
Trent shakes his head. “Alright, man. Your funeral.”
“What are they gonna do, throw trust funds at me? I’ll be fine. Just get outta here.”
Trent laughs and leaves, his truck giving a guttural roar as it pulls out of the driveway. The party starts up again, people turning back to mind their own goddamn business like they should. I pour myself a drink and head for the familiar face by the pool outside.
“Yo,” I say. Theo turns, eyes widening when he sees me. He offers me a hand to shake. He’s every girl’s wet dream – chiseled jaw, soulful blue eyes, and a big dumb warm grin. He’s harmless-looking and eager, like a fuckin’ golden retriever.
“Ranik! Wow, how are you? It’s been a while.”
“Three years, give or take,” I shove my free hand in my pocket. His handsome face gets sad.
“And I’m sorry about that. Really, I am –”
I shrug. “Eh. Don’t worry about it. College is a pretty crazy time. People drift apart. It’s whatever.”
“Still,” Theo frowns. “We went to the same high school, and we’re here in the same college, too. I should say hello more often. How’ve you been?”
We didn’t cruise the same circles in our high school – him with the clever AP videogamers, me with the almost-dropout potheads. But sometimes parties would draw us in and we’d see each other in the overlap. I’d shared a beer with him, and a few interestin’ drunk conversations. But they were always a little tense. Unavoidable, I guess. S’what happens when two people from opposite sides of the tracks meet.
“Oh, you know,” I shrug. “Providin’ my services, peddlin’ my wares.”
“So I see,” Theo chuckles. “Just like your Dad.”
I can’t stop the cold ice that lashes out from my tongue. “I’m nothin’ like that fucker.”
Theo flinches. “Right. Shit, you’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just messing this whole thing up, aren’t I? I’ve been told I always say the wrong thing at the wrong time.”
I study his Abercrombie-model face. He obviously said something right at the right time for Alice to fall in love with him as much as she has. Or maybe it was just his face. Who am I kiddin’ - of course it was his face. His face and his polo shirts and his charity fundraisers and his 4.0 GPA. But then again, Alice ain’t the type to go for boys shallowly like that. She’s too clever. Looks wouldn’t keep her around for long. He’s got brains, too. Big, massive brains that’re five times smarter than mine.
“S’fine,” I grunt. “I mess up a lot too. It’s whatever.”
Theo looks relieved, and breaks the tension by nodding at Rachel.
“So? You and her a thing? I saw you talking.”
I smirk. “No one’s ever my thing for long, buddy. You know that.”
Theo laughs. “It’s true. I pity the trail of girls you leave behind. I guess they’re just too stupid to know better. Or maybe desperate for attention. Probably both.”
His tone is so fuckin’ hoity-toity I wanna punch it all out of him. But I keep my hand still as I can. He hates my flings, always has. He was there to see my string of girls in high school, too. He judges them harsh and mean because they’ve slept with me. Because his high school crush slept with me, and he was ‘forced’ to date his second choice. I’m a walking WARNING sign, and my yellow paint is contagious and rubs off on whoever sleeps with me.
Theo, oblivious to my anger, pulls in a girl from the crowd by the shoulders.
“Ranik, this is Grace. Grace, this is Ranik, a friend of mine from high school.”
Grace’s hair is black and long, glossy, with one playful purple streak in it. Her eyes are chocolate, round and warm. In an army surplus jacket and red skinny jeans, she stands out from the horde of dirty-blonde, cocktail-dress sorority girls. Everything about her screams CUTE! and QUIRKY!, from her combat boots to her fox necklace to her neon fingernails.
“Hi,” Grace smiles. “Oh wow, your tattoos are hells awesome!”
She’s not my type. The farthest thing from it, actually. But even that can’t stop me from catching her enthusiasm bug.
“Shit, thanks. Took a lot of work and money.”
“I bet! My brother got a dragon on his hand, and that took two whole months. You were probably stuck in the tattoo shop for a year with that rose on your neck! Did it hurt?”
I smile crookedly. “Like a bitch. But thas’ the point, ain’t it?” She furrows her eyebrows, confused. “I mean, whatever you’re gettin’ tattooed on your skin permanently should be important to you. So important you’re willing to go through the pain of it.”
She’s quiet. I can tell she ain’t struck quiet all that often. Theo laughs, and looks at her.
“Hey, did you get enough to eat?”
Grace nods. “Yup! I’ll go back for seconds later, the seven layer dip is like seven layers of heavenly bliss. And fat. But mostly bliss.”
We all chuckle, and I brave the invisible-ass elephant question in the room. “So…are you guys…dating?”
Grace and Theo turn identical shades of red.
“W-What?” Grace stutters. “No! I mean, um. No way. I’m kind of in the process of getting over someone. So.”
Theo can’t look at her, staring at the ceiling instead. I force a chuckle.
“Right. Sorry. Didn’t mean to get all up in your business. I was just confused.”
Grace clears her throat and motions to the pool. “I’m gonna go stick my feet in it. Um. I’ll see you two later.”
Theo watches her trot off, then turns to me, his eyes narrow.
“I don’t want to be rude, but –”
I slap his back. “Nah, don’t worry about it. I know I got a reputation. She ain’t my type, okay? She’s all yours. I was just wonderin’ is all.”
Theo relaxes visibly. “Alright. It’s…it’s hard. She just got out of a two year relationship, but we really like each other. She even told me she likes me.”
Someone calls out to Theo, and he waves at them before looking at me.
“Look, I need to go. I’ll see you around, yeah?”
“Yeah man, later.”
I nurse my drink and make my way through the crowd, people parting for me. The girls eye me like a nice steak, and the guys eye me like they wanna stake me. Which is nothin’ unusual. Nobody will make the first move, though. They ain’t drunk enough yet. That means I still got time to do some research.
I watch Grace out of the corner of my eye. So this is the girl who’s after Theo – short, button-cute, unavailable; basically the perfect manic pixie dream girl and the polar opposite of Alice. No wonder she freaked and asked me to teach her how to seduce. But now that I can see the competition, I know it’s a lost cause. Grace is the type to jump from relationship to relationship, never single for real long, and with that cute ass face, I’m willin’ to bet she’s been in more than a few rodeos. She knows how it works, how the game of pull-and-push and I’m-not-ready-but-I’ll-keep-you-hanging-to-make-you-want-me-more works. She has Theo wrapped around her finger already, knowingly or unknowingly.
A blonde with an impressive ass leans on the same wall as me, and shoots me a smile. I raise an eyebrow at her, and go back to studying Grace. I know her type; always unfulfilled, always dating boys who are too-sweet, ready to die for her, and blinded by love. Boys whose heads she can mess with, because she enjoys the feeling of power. She’d never date someone like me – oh no. She targets the easily-manipulated, the easily tortured. She knows any boy with half a brain would call her on her shit, and the game would be over, so she steers way clear of ‘em.
Alice, on the other hand, is a total noob. Theo, despite his model-face, is a bit of a noob
too. He’s looking for someone who will love him with all the dreamy straight-white-guy-meets-girl movie romance he grew up watching. He wants to save Grace from the pain of endin’ her past relationship. Grace is the perfect slot he wants to fill. Sexually. And also not-sexually.
Alice don’t stand a chance. She has no idea how the boy-girl, want-me-want-you game works, or that there even is a fuckin’ game. She’s whole and complete on her own – organized as hell and focused on her future. She doesn’t need a man. But she wants one. One specific one. She’s not a girl coyly searching for the perfect gullible boy she can toy with emotionally for her amusement. She just straight likes Theo. I’m almost a little jealous of how pure and straightforward her crush is. The rest of us forget what that’s like, or it gets twisted up and deformed as life makes us bitter and experienced.
“You’re Ranik Mason, right?” The blonde next to me is suddenly a helluva lot closer. Her green dress matches her heavy-makeuped eyes, and her breath smells like booze and vanilla lip gloss.
“The one and only,” I smirk.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” She purrs, rubbing against my crotch with her thigh. It’s forward and typical and real borin’ of her. I can’t even get a chubby from it, it’s so bland.
“Whatever you heard ain’t shit,” I say. “I’m more interested in what you heard about Alice Wells.”
“Alice?” The girl taps her chin. “Never heard of – oh, wait, she’s that loner glasses girl in Eliza’s World History class. Really bitchy and mean. She’s a total suck-up to the professors. I mean, she’s smart, but you can’t really get that many good grades without some….extracurriculars, if you know what I mean.”
How the fuck do people assume that? Alice works her ass off for what she has. She’d never stoop to sleeping with her teachers. Her sleazy-ass teacher tried to sleep with her!
“But let’s backtrack,” The girl leans in. “The rumors about you are much more interesting.”
I duck out of her grasp, and smirk.
“We’re done here. And for the record – you can fuck off with the gossip. Alice don’t do shit like that.”
“Ranik Mason is supposed to bed girls, not defend them,” She retorts. I move back in, my lips almost grazing hers. Her breath catches.