I thumbed through Spotify on my phone as I parked my BMW in Jordyn's driveway. I hovered over that singer Kaia liked before settling on a Drake mix. Rochelle fidgeted in the passenger seat beside me, rifling through her backpack. It was warm enough to have the top down, but a morning breeze ripped through us and sent Rochelle's dark hair whipping in every direction.
"I really don't know how I lost my god damn lip gloss on the first day of school," she grumbled.
"Technically the first day of school hasn't started yet," I jabbed at her. "Besides, didn't Principal Maddox give you shit for all your harlot-looking lipstick last year?"
Rochelle shot me a sly grin. "Oh give me a break. The fact that we're only allowed to wear neutral makeup is a travesty, I don't care how much of a dress code violation it is. Besides, it's lip gloss." Rochelle flicked the word gloss at me like venom off the tongue of a snake.
"I don't know why you expect me to know the difference," I shrugged.
"I'm surprised you don't," Rochelle side-eyed me. "You should know the remnants of what's left on your dick after Jordyn blows you."
I groaned. "Can you not?"
Rochelle pouted at her reflection in the mirror on the sun visor. "This whole situation is a time bomb waiting to blow, and when it does, I'm not salvaging you from the wreckage."
When Jordyn returned from the Hamptons over the weekend, I made an admittedly half-assed attempt at ending our summer fling, but between my lingering hangover from the fair and Jordyn giving me all the intimate attention I could have wanted, it put my whole world off its axis. The idea of being with Jordyn to prevent total obliteration of the status quo (plus the prospect of getting regular blow jobs) severely outweighed the bullshit it required to maintain some type of relationship with an overly high-maintenance girl I wasn't really interested in.
"It's fine," I insisted. "She's not even really my girlfriend. The summer fling has now just extended itself into a...fall fling."
Summer really wasn't over yet, but summer shenanigans were. How I was going to balance football, school, and all the accompanying bullshit was an equation I had yet to solve. Good thing problem solver was a highly touted character trait on my college recommendation letters.
"Right, but does she know that?" Rochelle shook her head. "Because when you inevitably do what it is that you always do, this will end very badly."
"God damn it Rochelle, what the fuck does that even mean?" I rubbed at my tired eyes behind my Ray Bans, making little stars flash in my peripheral. I knew exactly what she meant, but it didn't sting any less.
"You're a flirt," she shrugged. "It's in your nature. So forgive me if I'm slightly concerned that Mr. I Wanna Love On Everyone refuses to unhook his claws from this weird little relationship."
"Because it's not about that," I blurted out, gripping the steering wheel tighter. "And you know that. Besides, I don't wanna love on everyone."
Rochelle sighed, and she gently placed a hand on my shoulder. "I love you Dallas, you know that. You're brilliant in a lot of ways, but you still have a penis, which means for all intents and purposes, you're still an idiot."
"We're done talking about this." I gestured to the Wagner's large oak front door, where Jordyn emerged from their all-brick house, her long blonde hair billowing in the early morning breeze. Jordyn danced on the line of that dress code appropriate, her plaid uniform skirt just a hair too short for her long, tan legs, and her grey sweater draped over her shoulders in a casual elegance only she could master.
Rochelle gave me one more warning glance before sliding out of the passenger seat as Jordyn approached my car. I had my steering wheel in a death grip, bracing myself for the inevitable. They hugged, but I knew by now that was just a bullshit part of their girl code of conduct. My existence was the only thing that mandated their diplomacy, but that didn't deter them from trading passive aggressive verbal punches. Jordyn took the first swing.
"Oh my god, you got great color at cheer camp, look at those tan lines. I'm jealous."
"Did you do something to your hair?" Rochelle was next, all sugar and none of her usual spice. "It looks so much shinier than the last time I saw you."
For a moment, they resigned themselves to the quiet stillness of the morning. Warm summer morning or not, I felt the frigidness of their cold war from where I was sitting. This wasn't anything unusual. Same old battle, new weapons.
"After you, hun." Jordyn gestured to the back seat of my coup, which could only be accessed by crawling over the folded over front seat. While I'm sure that was the reason Rochelle even got out of the car, that's not how Jordyn saw it. She saw it as her way to wedge herself beside me by any means possible.
"Oh no, I insist." Rochelle gave Jordyn a pinched smile. "The backseat gets way less wind."
I let out a heavy sigh and cranked whatever ambiguous rap song came through the speakers, hoping they'd take the hint. "I hate to interrupt this lovely passive aggressive knife fight, but we need to get going. Chris will actually shit himself if he's late on the first day of school."
It was far from a ceasefire between them, and Rochelle knew that, which was why she surrendered the passenger seat to Jordyn. Lose the battle, win the war.
We drove away from the street that had raised the three of us, taking one last dive into the little rivers and estuaries we'd known our whole lives before being washed away into the ocean of actual adulthood. Truth be told, the thought of that alone was what kept me sane. Wash me the fuck away from here.
Chris was already waiting for us on his front porch and came running down the length of his immaculate front lawn, dodging sprinkler heads while balancing his backpack and his gym back with half of his blazer hanging off of his shoulder. He dumped his bags in the trunk before hopping over it and sliding into the backseat.
We took a long, round-about way to school, dipping down tree-lined side streets as we passed around our usual morning blunt. Jordyn lit it and held it to my lips, letting me take a long hit before passing it back to Chris.
I felt Jordyn work her hand through the hair at the back of my neck, and part of me was worried if she tugged too hard in one direction, my head would just come tumbling off my shoulders. I felt the wind hit me differently as we coasted along the side streets, intertwining with the music as it poured from the speakers and did circles around my head like a halo. There was a subtle normalcy to it all. The air. The sound. The high. All was right in the universe. My universe.
Everyone had their own cars to drive to school, but our carpooling had nothing to do with sustainability. Despite our bullshit, we were a tight knit pack, and we traveled together. Showing up to school in my car, walking in with me on the first day of school had a certain level of clout that asserted dominance and attracted attention. I knew that. So did everyone else.
It didn't help that the two-door BMW convertible my parents got me for my 18th birthday was such a blaring, unsubtle Cornell red that I might as well have had a siren strapped to it. Everyone knew when I pulled into my front row spot in the senior parking lot, and they circled like vultures to roadkill.
I pushed a button on my dashboard to close the convertible top, using the temporary cover to duck into my backpack and put some eyedrops in before getting out of the car.
People flocked to us the moment my shoe touched the parking lot pavement. The New Livingston Day School was the go-to private school for the entire county, so a lot of faces just blurred together with all the generic how was your summer and did you do something different to your hair omg it looks great. It was hot and I was drunk for most of it, and no I didn't, thanks. There were too many people breathing all over me and it was making me itchy.
Jordyn, Chris, Rochelle and I were quickly joined by Anthony and Cal as we trudged up the stone steps and swung open the heavy oak front doors. There was something to be said about schools that looked more like gothic cathedrals than actual schools - tradition, legacy, and Ivy League acceptance percentages came before everything else, and that shit practically oozed from the ivy-coated stone entranceway of the massive building. A building far too large for its 800 students. A rush of air conditioning and the smell of citrus cleaner hit me as we stepped into the lobby, the soles of our loafers squeaking against the freshly scrubbed linoleum. Light poured in from the windows wedged between the tops of the faded, pale blue lockers and the high ceilings. Everything looked old, but smelled new. New Livingston preserved the allure of something historical and tradition-steeped while maintaining modern standards.
Rochelle bopped away to greet her cheer squad, enveloped in hugs and squeals and high ponytails. Jordyn was pulled away into a small circle of girls that tried to be her but never would be. She gave me a longing glance as I walked away, feeling myself being sucked into the vortex of way too much attention for this early in the morning. The only thing that prevented the four of us from being deemed as actual blue-blooded royalty was that nobody bowed to us as we walked by them in the hallway. The high-fives and jeers were a modern enough rendition of that.
The school had a pretty strict dress code that wasn't just limited to the dark pleated pants, white button up shirt, ties and blazers we should be wearing. But like most rules, they didn't really apply to us. I'd get a sideways glance from Principle Maddox if she caught me in her laser line of sight, a silent warning for tuck your shirt in, fix your tie, and whatever other dress code atrocities I was committing, but that was all it ever was.
This year was no different as she stepped in front of our group, a whole foot shorter than me but somehow managing to look down at me with her dark, narrowed eyes. Then again, her neck was craned so far upwards at me I could practically see into her hooked, witch-like nose.
"Mr. Gunther," my name sounded like some dark spell in her mouth - I could only hope to make it to my first period without growing gills or webbed feet. "Where is your blazer?"
I rolled down the now wrinkled sleeves of my shirt and gave her my best gigawatt smile, like something right out of a toothpaste commercial.
"You know, Principal Maddox, it's hanging up in my locker." I clapped my hands to my chest. "I got here early, and I just wanted to really soak in the first day of my last year of school here, so I did a few laps around the hallway."
Whether or not Principal Maddox believed my bullshit was irrelevant. Her football star, soon-to-be valedictorian student was untouchable, and that's all she needed to know. Someone like Anthony, however, she could graze with a 10 foot pole if she felt so inclined. She gave me a curt nod before turning to him.
"Are the new skylights too bright for your eyes, Mr. Higashioka?" She gestured to the sunglasses that slid down the bridge of Anthony's nose.
Cal snickered beside me, and I jabbed him in the ribs with my elbow.
Anthony stood up rigid and perched the sunglasses on top of his mop of dark hair. "Oh no ma'am, I just..."
Smoked too much pot before school and didn't put in eyedrops. Anthony was never one to plan ahead.
Principal Maddox held her hand up to stop him. "Please make yourselves at least slightly presentable before class. All of you."
We grumbled a collective yes ma'am before she eyed us one more time and stalked away. We took that as a sign to part ways, and I let out a sigh of relief that I didn't even know I'd been holding in. I dragged myself to my locker by the library on the far end of the front hallway and threw my backpack into it.
Jordyn seemed to materialize beside me and leaned against the locker to my left. "Sucks we only have one class together this year."
"Yeah," I shrugged. I felt myself starting to come down from my high, and I ripped open a protein bar I pulled out of the mesh side pocket of my backpack.
"You okay?"
The concern in her voice was jarring, even though it shouldn't have been. She placed a hand on my wrinkled shirt sleeve.
"I'm fine," I responded a little too curtly. "I didn't eat breakfast, I'm just a little hangry or something."
Jordyn smiled and gave my tie a subtle tug. "If you want, meet me in the library during second period study hall?"
A smirk pulled at my lips. "You have a way to satisfy my hunger?"
"Something like that." She grazed her hand up my arm as she walked away.
I rattled my head from the gutter and slammed my locker shut. I had a bullshit computer science class first period, but I had business to take care of first. One last little adjustment to set my world back on its axis where it belonged.
All the seniors had their lockers in the front stretch of hallway that was flanked by the cafeteria on one side and the auxiliary gymnasium on the other side. I shouldered through the thinning crowd of kids scrambling to get to their first period, looking over the tops of people's heads until I found the one head I was looking for.
Leaning casually against her locker and surrounded by her own little posse was Kaia Greene, laughing and twirling a lock of dark brown hair around her finger as the girls around her hinged on every word she said. For a moment I wondered if that's what I looked like from afar, like the warm little center of the universe that everyone orbited around.
I swallowed whatever lingering feelings I had about the questionable decisions I made in Kaia's car over the weekend and strode over to her, instantly feeling the sting of four other pairs of eyes glaring up at me. Without so much as a flinch, I narrowed in on her.
"I need to talk to you." I paused and glanced at the other field hockey girls, most likely freshman or sophomores since I didn't recognize them. "Alone."
Kaia gave them a quick nod, and they dispersed like scurrying mice. She didn't bother turning her body to face me, and I had to pry my eyes away from how well her crisp white shirt clung to her athletic frame. She made a showing of looking down at her gold designer watch.
"You have two minutes, Dallas Gunther. Unlike you, I have AP classes to get to."
I worked my jaw and stood in front of her, forcing her to at least look up at me. "Listen, about last weekend...can we just-"
"Forget it happened?" She let out a soft sigh, pinching her lips into a frown. "Consider it forgotten."
I lowered my voice. "I mean it. You really shouldn't have seen me like that, and whatever I said, whatever I did..."
"Don't think I'm going soft on you." She folded her arms over her chest, and it felt like she was trying to burn holes in my shirt with her eyes. "I don't like being indebted to other people, least of all you. That ride home was what it was - a favor repaid. Like you said before, we're even."
I stood up straight and rolled my shoulders back. "Right. For now, at least."
Kaia scoffed. "What?"
"Well, you're bound to need me for something else in the near future," I shrugged. "And then all will be right with the world."
Kaia pushed herself off her locker and gently put a hand to my chest. "You know what? You're right. I do need something from you."
"Really?" There was no use hiding the shock in my voice as I raised an eyebrow at her. I shouldn't have liked the feeling of the warmth of her hand through my shirt, but it softened me, even just for a moment. "What do you need?"
"I need you to sit as far away from me as humanly possible in Calculus." A fire glowed in her eyes, and she gave me a gentle shove with that same hand. "I am allergic to testosterone."
She let out one more frustrated huff before shouldering past me and down the now almost empty hallway.
"How do you expect to copy off of me if I'm so far away?" I called after her.
The echo of my voice was the only thing that responded. I stalked down the hallway in the other direction toward the library, still feeling the warmth of her touch slowly dissipate.
what you want from a devil like me, devil like me?
you see the devil don't mean to be evil
he just regrettably forgets to exceed expectation
devil like me / rainbow kitten surprise
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This chapter was far chunkier than I intended it to be, but it's almost like a reintroduction to all our kids now that school and bullshit has started. Back to enemies we go! You really didn't think Dallas and Kaia were going so soft so quickly, did you?
Autumn is a LONG season in New England, and tis the season for Hot Boy Shit™️
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