"This is the fifth time you've got detention this month!" Jazzy complains through the phone as I walk lazily down the hallway after my last class of the day let out. "My friends are gonna start asking me for gas money!"
"You should be giving them gas money anyway!" I stop at my locker for a moment, changing out my textbooks for the ones I'll need this weekend to do homework.
"You gonna give me the money for that?" Jazzy laughs as I hear the sound of chattering increase in the background. "Yeah, didn't think so."
I laugh too as I close my locker. I turn to my right to start walking down the hall but I see Michael and Asha chatting idly as they lean against the locker next to mine. They both smile at me, but don't move to draw me into their conversation, seeing that I'm still on the phone.
"I barely got money to put gas in the van, let alone put gas in your little friends cars, too." Jazzy mumbles something I can't quite catch so I ignore it. "Just make sure you call Kahlil and tell him to wait at Champions Care with the twins until I get out."
"Ugghhhhh you're lucky I have my house key," Jazzy groans.
"Love you too, ma," I laugh before I hang up.
As soon as I lower the phone from my ear Asha starts talking to me as if we were in the middle of a conversation.
"So everyone is thinking of going ice skating on Saturday, since the rink is still open downtown," Asha tells me, her phone twirling in her hand.
I frown, trying to figure out if I have the money for that. "Y'all, I don't get paid until next Friday, so I'm kind of running low on funds at the moment. Can't we do something free; like a movie night at your house?"
"I can cover you," Michael volunteers distractedly, dapping one of his old teammates on the football team with some elaborate handshake I can't even keep up with.
"No," I frown shaking my head, "I still haven't paid you back from when you bought my ticket to the premier of Get Out."
"Damn girl," Asha laughs, her bright white teeth shining brightly. "For someone with a job you never have money, huh?"
"That's because I always have shit to pay for." I stick my tongue out at her, wondering if I really need to manage my money better. "Unlike you I don't have an S.O. that buys me everything I want!"
"You sure you don't?" Asha mumbles with a quirk of her eyebrow, but a hard glare from me cuts off any other remarks.
"Don't sweat it," Michael shrugs finally looking over at me now that his friend is gone. "It won't even be that expensive. Besides, I'm sure you'll find a way to pay me back."
"I swear I will!" I promise, pushing off of my locker that I was leaning against to start heading further down the hall in the opposite direction of the parking lot.
"Where are you going?" Michael asks.
"Baez gave her detention," Asha answers for me, trying to hold back a laugh.
"Damn, she must hate you." Michael laughs loudly, not even trying to hold it back. I turn back around to glare at the both of them.
"Don't y'all have someone else to go annoy?" I ask.
"Nah I prefer annoying you," Michael smiles, a small dimple showing up in his right cheek.
"Same," Asha grins mischievously.
"Whatever," I laugh, rolling my eyes at the both of them as I start to walk backwards down the hallway. "Text me later if y'all end up hanging out tonight!"
They yell out their goodbyes before they walk to the parking lot, so I turn and walk down the hallway toward the detention room. It feels like people are staring at me again, although this time they're at least trying to be more subtle. Every time I focus on someone it seems as if I just missed catching him or her from looking back at me.
What is going on?
I shake that eerie feeling out of my head as I reach the door to detention, my hand resting on the handle briefly to collect myself before I turn it and head inside. Shills and the teacher supervising detention are the only ones in the room. I smile at that, grateful I don't have to worry about anyone else in the room listening to our conversations or interrupting us. Shills turns around to see whose walking in the door, his eyes locking on mine as I stroll down the aisle.
"What's up, Shills?" I smile as I slide into the desk next to him.
He smiles at my greeting before he frowns briefly. "I thought you were finally going to stop calling me Shills."
"And I thought you were going to stop calling me Killer," I shrug, "but it looks like old habits just can't die in this case."
His frown deepens as he starts to form some type of rebuttal but I wave off his response, not wanting to dwell on it. "So how's Chi doing? You haven't texted me any pictures recently."
A smile takes over his face and makes his eyes start sparkling immediately. "She's perfect! I mean, yeah, she's peed in my room a couple times, so I took her to start her home training classes after lacrosse practice the other day. She has another one on Monday afternoon, if you want to come."
He avoids eye contact with me at that invitation, suddenly finding the loose string on his backpack very interesting.
"I actually have work on Monday after school," I say apologetically. "But I was actually wondering if I could take Chi for the weekend. I'll be home pretty much the entire time so my parents okayed it."
His eyebrows crease at that but he nods anyway. "Yeah. Definitely. I mean, she is your dog and all."
"She's more like our dog, don't you think?"
His smile reappears, even wider than it was before. "Yeah. Our dog."
His cheeks almost look pink as he looks away from me. Is he...blushing?
I start to comment on his burning cheeks but the teacher at the front of the room interrupts us.
"Listen guys," he says, stretching his arms over his head before he stands up and scratches his stomach. "I love my job, and everything, but my weekend can't get started until I leave this place. So can I just trust that you've learned your lesson and won't do whatever it is that brought you here again?"
"Yes sir," Shills says, saluting the teacher.
"Don't be a wiseass, Jude," the teacher responds. I crinkle my nose at that; does Shills know this teacher? I don't think I've ever seen him around campus before.
"I hope I never see you both in here again. So...have a good weekend." The man says before he gets up and walks out of the room, the door swinging closed behind him.
The room is silent for a few beats as I try to figure out what happened. Did he just let us out of detention early? Can he even do that? Before I can question it Shills is out of his seat and grabbing my hand, pulling me out of my desk and toward the door.
"You heard the man!" He says with a fake authoritative air around him. "We can't start the weekend until we leave this place!"
He drags me down the mostly empty halls and through the big double doors leading outside to the parking lot. Once we're outside I'm finally able to pull my hand out of his and walk at a normal pace. But he cant' stop moving, jogging forward and then back to me before he jogs forward again.
"Calm down, Sparky!" I laugh at him. If Shills was a dog his tail would be wagging wildly as he ran circles around me. His cheeks flush again as he slows down a bit, reaching up to scratch his head.
"So did you want to leave your car here and ride with me or follow me back to my house or I can have somebody bring your car to my house and you can ride with me or do we need to drop it off at your house or what?" He finally takes a second to breath as he gestures vaguely in the direction of his car parked at the very back of the lot, and even from my vantage point I can see it parked haphazardly across two spots.
"What?" I ask. "No, I can't go back to your house right now. I still have to pick up my siblings from school and everything. I really can't do anything until one of my parents gets back from work."
"Oh." His face drops at that before it perks back up a couple seconds later. "Well, can I come?"
"You... want to come?" I repeat, almost tripping over my own to feet in surprise. "Why?"
"Why not?" He asks back, shoving his hands into his pockets.
"You know it's not really anything glamorous." I try to dissuade him from coming with him, although I really just don't want him to see this part of my life.
"I'm sure its not," he laughs as he starts to walk toward my van parked to our left.
"You really don't have to do this!" I call out, drawing the attention of the few people still lingering on the school grounds. I jog to catch up to him so I don't have to yell anymore. "We can just meet up later or something."
"Nope I've made up my mind!" He says stubbornly with a cocky smile. "You're stuck with me!"
His pace picks up a little bit as he walks determinedly to my van. I slow my walk even more, just watching him stand in front of the rusted paint of my scraper. I fight back a smile, shaking my head as I unlock the van using the key fob.
"I guess I am stuck with you," I whisper to myself, "huh?"
A/N Forgive me!!! But the fam is still at my house til after New Year's so y'all already know its crazy busy around here!
But I guess that drama Alan tried to stir up really didn't do anything huh? It looks like both of them have let it go and are just focusing on each other? Do you think things are going to stay like that? Does it look like Killer is finally accepting her feelings? Do any of y'all just have that eerie feeling that something is going to happen? You don't know what, or when, but something is going to fuck this up???
Well it's the holidays so what kind of horrible, sadistic person would I be to ruin the story at a time like this?? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Let me know what you think/predict!
Much Love,
Naomi