Girls Chase Girls | #1 [COMPLETE]

Chapter 11 (new)

"Like what?"

"There's a dance." Xia had mentioned it earlier; Phaedra had disregarded it at once. Just because she could go, didn't mean she went. Not even for her Wild Girls.

"I don't dance."

"I do. Do it for me. I helped organize it and pay for it—you even gave me two hundred dollars to kiss all the volleyball players for it."

Phaedra cringed. That was another plan gone to hell in an Easter basket.

"Dragging you out of the fire wasn't enough. You want my dignity, too? Give me a second, I think I can giftwrap that for you."

"You'll be the prettiest girl there. Nobody'll notice the boys either. You'll outlook both."

Phaedra had never cared about that. Beauty felt like a participation ribbon most of the time.

"Weren't you just shaking in your boots over me? How'd you get so brave?"

"Almost dying changes a lot."

Who was Phae to argue with a statement like that? Why would she want to?

"Okay."

She leaned over and kissed Xia's tear-warm cheek, hating that she'd made her sad enough to cry. Xia bumped their foreheads together and held on tight. Phae held on too.

I'm so sprung.

---

The next afternoon, Phaedra's head was half in the clouds and Sable was doing a noisy job of gnawing on a block of Nicorette gum. Alayna Hu was running the annual Smoke Cessation Barbecue Fundraiser and Sable wanted a prime seat at the raffle. Maybe, just maybe she'd finally ask the girl out and put the whole gang out of its unified misery.

Not. A. Chance.

Phae had never seen this many useless lesbians and bi chicks in her life. They were all hopeless, save for Lucia. Garvey almost had it together, barring that whole jonesing for the jock anti-Christ Ron Jensen deal. Useless lesbians and bi chicks on motorcycles. It's a traveling circus.

Jensen was a great athlete and terrible human being, just like every other high-functioning sociopath roaming the halls of Ellie Webber High. Phaedra couldn't even work up a good froth about the basketball team captain; he only got away with stuff because people who weren't terrified of him worshipped him. He was possessed with the spirit of Napoleon Bonaparte at five feet, six inches tall. He and his crew'd own the school the minute Phae, Tré, Luce, and Hunter drove into the sunset, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Not that that's my problem. Her problem had dark brown eyes, too much attitude and wanted to go to a stupid dance run by stupid people. Phaedra chewed at a toothpick she'd found in her glove compartment and tried to find a way out.

"Admin doesn't like my choice of date." She didn't have to explain.

"Admin can suck it." Sable was in no mood for administrative ball breaking. She was still stinging from that time a boys' hockey prick had snapped photos of her in the locker room and she'd gotten the fine for driving over his iPhone afterward. 'Sexist bullshit was their battle cry' and it was still echoing through the halls after every game.

"Let the church say amen. That's what I'm talking about."

Tempest Kennedy, junior and future stand-up comedian, ladies and gents. She's here all week.

Lucia lowered the book she'd been reading from above her head. It had made decent shade while the sun was at high noon, but it wasn't much use as the hours passed. The warmth emanating from the engine of her violet '71 Dodge Challenger made her want to nap instead of read.

She yawned, "The PTA warned that their exclusionary policies wouldn't be tolerated. I'll text Mum." She rolled onto her side to unlock her phone. Lucia's mom was a law professor first, a Wild Girl made good second. Beyond that, she was just a person who couldn't stand injustice.

Sable tapped the rubberized sole of her riding boots triple-time against the painted bumper of her '76 Firebird Trans Am . "Webber's about to make the evening news again. That hasn't happened for a while."

"It's been a month," Mickey reminded her, engrossed as she was in her belated obsession with Kim Kardashian: Hollywood.

"Like I said, 'a while'. We're slipping."