The Lounge: King of Oregon Country

Carrick Brus - Rivalry

POV: Carrick Brus

"Bro, why aren't you saying anything," Justen's running his hands through his hair and glaring at me from the rearview mirror in his Hummer. "Are we boys or not?"

We're parked in the school's lot. I am about to roll out and head to the Lounge, but the child lock is on, so I can't open the door. Justen's been trying to fish an answer out of me to a question I ain't answering.

Us, boys? Nah, we're not. But I can't tell him that. And I can't lie to him.

"Damnit, Carrick," Lil Q says to me. She sounds hella uncomfortable. "Can you please just talk to him so we can go to class?"

"I ain't got shit to say," I tell them. "I don't know why y'all are trippin'. I was chill nappin' back here, and then y'all wake me up with all this aggression n' shit."

Justen turns off the car, but the doors are still locked. "Dude, you haven't spoken to me all night. All fucking summer! What the hell did I do?"

Pathetic how one thing goes wrong in his perfect little life, and the dude can't keep it together. This man's got everything—perfect car, perfect house, baddest girl in the whole school. It's like this shit just falls into his lap from some silver spoon in the sky. The only thing he's ever had to worry about in life is babysitting his little brother, and even that's got my little sister all crushing on him. That and his bitch-ass little blue eyes she keeps drooling over.

Q's fumbling with the door handle, trying to make her escape.

I roll my eyes, "Man, let her out 'fore she wets herself."

Queenie socks me one in the arm, then goes into beast mode. "Fuck you, Carrick, don't think I won't beat your ass in front of your friend."

I laugh and rub the spot where she hit me, even though it doesn't hurt. I know she ain't gonna fight me for real in front of Justen. She likes him too damn much.

Justen unlocks the doors.

"I'll see you after school," Q says to him. Then she's gone.

Just us boys in the whip now.

It's quiet.

"What, now that she's gone, you ain't got shit to say," I tell him. "Talk your shit, let's go."

Justen rubs his mouth with his fist. He looks mad.

"Bro, I don't get what happened," he says. "We were fine last year, thick as thieves. Then I don't see you the whole summer, but Shane's telling me you guys still hang. Why'd you cut me out? Did I do something wrong?"

Closing my eyes, I lean back in the seat and rub my brow. Justen ain't did nothin' wrong. Just the opposite, this fool did everything right. He always has. That's how he ended up taking what's mine.

Lex Prinsen took the mantle as the Alpha of the Red School three years ago in the 26th Gauntlet. I was a freshman then, and Justen was in his last year of middle school. I was too young to be a Champion but was involved in other ways. I watched Lex lead our school through all kinds of challenges. That year, we took 532nd place out of exactly 2,000 high schools in Oregon Country. We didn't make the top 25%, as Lex had promised, but we got close.

The drag is that Lex couldn't see it as a win even though it was one. We placed better than we did in the 25th Gauntlet, but Lex still took that shit too personally. Not delivering exactly what he promised made him feel inferior and worthless. Wouldn't exactly say the guy was bitter the rest of his time at the Red School, but he sure as shit wasn't skippin' down any fuckin' hallways.