The Rich Girl and the Gangster

Chapter thirteen

‘Can you feel it in the air?’ Caitlin asked me once they were well out of sight.

‘Feel what?’ I thought I knew what Caitlin was talking about, the extra violent aura in the air, but asked anyway.

‘There’s going to be a fight, soon.’

Well, it had to happen sometime. It was actually a surprise that it took so long for the boys to find something to fight about. It was usually something small that was blown way out of proportion so that the guys of the south and north could fight each other and see who was more manly than the other. It was stupid, but it seemed that I was the only one who thought so. Around here, it seemed like another one of those traditions I probably would never get used to.

I glanced at Caitlin and couldn’t help but laugh. She was staring at me with big eyes, her lips her fingertips pressed together, her lips forming a knowing smile, looking like some fortune teller.

‘What did I miss?’ I asked as I turned away from my locker and started walking to our first class. Caitlin hooked her arm through mine, and told me in a bored tone, ‘This Mario kid didn’t watch where he was going, crashed his car into Shawn’s brand new Camaro. Now, you know how protective Shawn is of his new baby, and she had a dent and the paint was scratched.’

I finished for her, ‘And he in turn gave Mario a nice beating.’ That had happened before. Just not with Mario and Shawn.

Caitlin was nodding eagerly, ‘Yep. He has a black eye and a busted lip.  You can almost touch the tension in the air. There’s no way the south siders will let this go. Heaven knows they fought over less.’

Sadly they had, ‘I still don’t see how you can find all this amusing.’

Caitlin was always excited when she thought there was going to be another fight. Sometimes I thought it was because her three favorites, Drew, Shawn and David, were always standing afterwards. Sometimes I didn’t know what went on in that head of hers.

‘Of course I find it amusing. I always imagine that the guys are fighting for our honor, and in a way they are. Besides, a lot of them always remove their shirts and then it’s like we’re at a all-the-hotties-you-can-eat buffet.’

I shook my head, ‘They are hot when they fight.’

‘You betcha.’

Drew’s arm was around me protectively as we were walking towards our cars. We were going to May’s, we being, Caitlin, Lindsey, Lisa, Shawn, Jake and Drew and me. Despite the tension in the air, nothing had happened, yet. I didn’t have a great feeling about going to May’s, the guys wouldn’t have risked fighting at school, but they had fought once in front of May’s, where there was a parking lot for the supermarket Valdo.

I’d asked May why she didn’t call the police, whereupon she’d answered that , ‘Boys will be boys. They have to get that aggression out one way or another.’

To say that the answer from the nice thirty-ish woman who ran a diner had surprised me, was the understatement of the year.

It also meant that that would be a perfect place for a fight.

I was not wrong, I knew that from the moment we stepped foot in May’s. Every guy in the soccer team was there, and that couldn’t be a coincidence.

We took one of the back booths that were still empty. Shawn, Jake and Drew looked quite bored, hanging back, not talking. Lindsey and Lisa were quietly talking among themselves, and Caitlin was staring at the door, twinkles in her eyes.

It didn’t take long. Kate gasped as the door opened and almost everybody visibly tensed, Drew, Shawn and David were the only ones who didn’t. Jake tensed too, slightly, but it was there.