The Riveting Lives of Russell and Sal

Chapter 27

Sal was grounded until his birthday, which was in a few weeks. He had worried about getting kicked out, but Tyler and Brenda still wanted him. Though Michelle had quite a few words to say to him over the phone. But his fate had to have been better than Russell's. Russell was probably dead.

But Russell's parents must have let him live, for he sat in his usual spot in English class. Sal's heart fluttered. "You're alive!"

"Yeah, and I have something for you." Russell held out Sal's phone. "My mom found it in the car."

Sal took the phone from Russell. He had suspected he left his phone there. Brenda had asked for him to hand it over, but he couldn't find it.

"And it would be nice if you'd get with the program, and put a lock on your phone," Russell said. "So nosy parents can't snoop through it."

Sal furrowed his brow as he flopped into his chair. "What?"

"My parents know about us." Russell gave him a serious look. "They snooped through all our messages and put two-and-two together."

"What!" Sal pounded his fist on the table. "That is a serious violation of privacy. They had no right-"

"I know," Russell said. "That's how they're like. And if you were like me, you would have locked it to prevent such a thing from happening."

Sal tapped his phone against the table. "But then I'd have to deal with passwords every time I want to check my phone. I don't have time for that."

"You have a fingerprint reader built in it, you know. Set that up and you'll just have to tap it."

Sal winced. "I have to give this thing enough personal information, without adding my fingerprints to it."

Russell rubbed the sides of his nose, but said nothing more on the subject. "In other news, I'm banned from seeing you, and banned from driving. My parents now drive me everywhere."

None of that surprised Sal. What did surprise him was the familiar sweatshirt Russell wore. "That's my sweatshirt."

"What? This?" Russell tugged at the collar, smirking.

"I was wondering what that cop did with it."

"He must've put it in the car. My mom found it and gave it to me." Russell grinned. "It's mine now."

Sal leaned forward, grabbing at the rolled up sleeve, but Russell pulled away. "Give it back!"

Russell grinned again. "No."

"It's 80 degrees out!" Sal made another grab for it, this time latching onto the hood, but Russell shoved him.

"Take it off-"

"Yeah Russell, take it all off for Sal," Brad said, strutting past the two boys towards his desk.

Sal released his hold, blushing.

Russell flipped his hair over his shoulder. "I already did that last night. I don't need to do it again."

Brad groaned. Sal hid his burning face by taking his notebook out of his backpack.

Since the two boys had next to no time together, they ate lunch alone that day. On their way to their spot, Sal told Russell about the party and how they got arrested, since Russell couldn't remember a thing.

"We should have gone to prom instead," Russell said, taking a seat on the concrete steps.

"I'd rather have stayed home and played video games." Sal sat next to him, and pulled out his usual peanut butter sandwich.