Saying things I should have said then. “Don’t be fucking stupid! You only have each other. Who are you going to turn to? Who’s going to have your back? You think it’ll be easy going back to before because you’ve always been alone—” I stopped, closed my mouth as if I’d swallowed a fly.
You could hear a pin drop.
“I mean…” Sparky broke the silence. “I guess we can let Pants be Dungeon Master, but he’s just so bad at it.”
The tall, gangly kid’s mouth dropped in indignation, his hand to his heart. “It’s called being realistic.”
“We always end up dead! In all of your campaigns…” Their conversation trailed off, as I realized what I’d done. Tweetie watched me intently.
“Right, yeah.” I slowly sat back down. “You should do that.” I went back to drawing, focusing on some terrible, lopsided skateboard.
“Are you okay?” Tweetie whispered.
I grinned. “Great.” I could feel her watching me, blue eyes headlights in the fog. Bright, searching, coming right at me.
I dropped the pen. I should never have sat down.
“Flip.” She touched my elbow from the floor, fingers light like even she wasn’t sure what she was doing. “Will you just be real with me for a minute?”
I laughed. “This is me. I’m real. All the time.” The way her big eyes narrowed, I knew she saw through me, through my hollow laugh.
I stepped back. Stupidly, foolishly, I missed the touch.
“Flip—” She reached out for me again, but I made sure to quicken my pace, leaving the solarium as she called after me. I headed outside, but first, I made sure to grab a bottle of tequila from the kitchen.
TWEETIE
I woke to the sound of grinding wheels. It was three forty-five in the morning, and someone was skateboarding. I climbed over my desk, unlatching my window to see who was using the ramp at this hour.
Flip.
I paused, arm outstretched. He’d told me over and over that he was done skating. Yet it was clearly him. In a short-sleeved shirt despite the cold, milk chocolate hair inky in the night. He ground the edge of the ramp and I got a flash of his board’s deck—bright pink. My grip slipped.
Was that my board?
I didn’t know anyone else who had a bright pink deck at Patchwork. Flip, who apparently didn’t skate anymore, was skating with my board.
Anger hit me first. Who gave him permission? But as I leaned on my sill, it dissipated. I once got to see a video of him skating back in his heyday. Aggressive. Untamed. Wild and unafraid. He did moves no one had ever seen or tried since, cracking through the air and imprinting on my memory.
Watching him now, the sadness was so stark, like picking up glass with my bare hands.
I don’t know how long I stayed at the window, seconds blurring into minutes. The love he had was glaring. So palpable it hurt. Yearning dripped from his shoulders.
There was a melancholy beauty to him, like I’d stumbled upon a lumbering beast.
Pearly moonlight was chiffon on his olive skin. In low-riding tight gray jeans and checkered shoes that had seen many days, I could’ve watched him for hours. I’m always real, he’d said, but that was such a lie. Earlier in the day something had messed him up, bad. I saw it in his eyes then and I saw it now. But what?
Seeing him skate, it felt like I was getting closer to the real him.
He glanced my way, then did a double take when he saw me. Tripped over my board, slamming hard into the wood. Slowly he stood, our eyes locked.
We stared. Him up from the ramp’s valley, me down at him from my window. My gauzy curtains fell on my head, but I didn’t move. Stuck on him.
Why?
Why give up something you love so much?
Suddenly, he kicked up the skateboard, put it under his arm, and walked inside.
I breathed, needing to let out the steam building inside my lungs.
I’d just shut my window and gotten my heart under control when there was a knock at my door. I jumped, smacking things askew on my desk like a scared cat.
“It’s not…” It couldn’t be him, right? I was rigid, staring at my door. Heartbeat racing, hands gripping the desk.
I was still in his shirt. I meant to take it off but then I’d lain down. Let the feel of it lull me to sleep.
A moment passed, and I was sure I’d imagined it. There was a party going on, after all. I could hear the reckless music, the occasional crash of something shattering to the floor.
I righted everything on my desk, putting pens and pencils back, stacking magazines in their place.
There was another knock. My hand froze on my Walkman, looking over my shoulder as if a bogeyman was going to get me.
I opened my door a crack. Flip was outside, board under his arm. An indecently hot sheen of sweat on his neck that only highlighted the cording muscle.
If anyone else had taken my board I’d be pissed, but somehow he was so sexy holding it, the line in his forearm flexing. Like he should be holding it. I bit my lip and opened the door all the way. He looked me up and down, practically licking his gaze over me. There were no sheets to hide my bare legs this time. I tugged at the hem of his shirt, then paused, hoping he didn’t notice.
Of course he noticed.
His cheek feathered slightly. “Sleep well?” It was said with the same cocksure attitude I’d become accustomed to, like he already knew the answer, but it was missing the lightness.
Some kind of heaviness weighed on his eyes, held his shoulders down. It was the same I’d seen while he’d skated. I wondered what happened between now and a few hours before to make him so different than the Flip I’d come to know. His smile was hollow. A jack-o-lantern not even bothering to put in a candle.
He always acted like everything and everyone was a game, life just another trick to master and tame.
But I was beginning to think that was an act.
I wanted to ask if he was okay. I’d wanted to ask earlier but chickened out.
“What are you doing?” I asked instead.
“Returning your board.”
“Keep it,” I said instantly. Anything, so long as you keep skating. “You’re the best skater in the world. I don’t know why you aren’t skating, but…” I trailed off, feeling silly. “But I know when I feel broken, this is the only thing that fixes me.” I know he felt that way too, why else would he have suggested it the other day?
Flip handed it to me, so I took it.
But then he held on to it, so we both grasped it. My brows drew as I waited for him to let go. The longer he waited, the more I wondered if this was the moment.
I had no right to ask.
None at all.
Yet…
“Why don’t you skate anymore?” It was barely above a whisper. If he was bothered by my question, I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t tell anything by his face, actually. His always smiling, always in on some kind of joke face was completely blank, like the smooth surface of untouched vanilla coffee.
“If you answer my question,” he said. “I know you struggle with that.” My cheeks flamed, remembering earlier in the morning, well, yesterday morning now.
“Sure,” I squeaked.
“It’s not an interesting story. Guy gets big. Guy can’t handle the pressure. Guy flames out. The end.” I didn’t believe that. But he didn’t give me a chance to counter, immediately saying: “Now answer my question.”
“Anything.”
He tugged me an inch closer. “Why did you start skating, Tweetie?”
I thought it was going to be something hard. It caught me off guard. I could recite the answer in my sleep.
“You,” I said, but instantly clarified, hopefully to ward off sounding weird. “I mean, I didn’t know it was you at first. My dad had your first magazine and read it to me. You said skateboarding was an escape. You can go faster than cars. You can fly. If you go hard enough, nothing can get you. I wanted that. Someplace to go where no one could get to me. My parents
couldn’t find me. The world couldn’t find me. It sounded magical when I was a kid. I love my dad but he…had his issues.”
I wished he would give me anything. Full, pink lips straight, almond eyes black and stoic.
“Does that, um, answer your question?”
There was a split second where his face cracked, his brows caved.
Then he yanked the board, drawing me so close that the only separation between us was the wood, the grainy grip. I could feel the heat of his breath. See the veins throb beneath his forearm, snaking down to his strong hands.
“Take it off.”
“E-Excuse me?” My hard exterior vanished into a puddle. He dragged that unfeeling lower lip down with his teeth, filling it with sensual purpose. All the color drained into my cheeks.
The only thing between us was my board. Not enough space from his smoldering eyes, looking down at me from his nose like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to eat me or save me for later.
“That shirt doesn’t belong to you.” He tightened his grip. “Take it off.” I tried to step back, but he held my fingers over the skateboard like a vise. I scoffed. Anything to try and regain composure.
My plan was epically backfiring.
The whole idea when I took his shirt was to take back power, but here he was, siphoning it.
So I dropped the board and he released me. Grabbed the hem of his shirt and tore it over my head. While inside I was shaking, shivering. My heart pounding louder than the punk outside.
I acted like it was nothing.
Like I was always in a sports bra and tiny sleep shorts, even though he was the first to ever see me this way.
I thrust it out to him with one hand, eyes on the ground haughtily.
“Happy?”
One second…two…he stared, his amusement at my discomfort growing. But more than that, something reckless and untamed grew in his silence. If I didn’t know better…pain. He was out of control himself.
Dust floated in the air like star shavings. I heard murmurs just outside my room and sweat grew on my chest. Anyone could walk by any moment. King going to bed upstairs. Daniel to his room across the hall. One of the boys to the bathroom.
My false confidence broke, the crack spreading like a spider web as I looked at him.
I wished I hadn’t.
Wished I hadn’t seen the way he was watching me. His hand hadn’t strayed from its position, frozen mid-grab after I’d handed the shirt to him. His entire being was frozen—but his eyes were hot, fiery, blazing. A conflagration of action, intent, demanding I know what his body refused to act on.
In his eyes I saw the war. A battle to the death between what he showed the world and what lay beneath the flames.
My lips parted.
My breath caught.
He dropped the shirt at my feet. “I always wondered what you looked like under all those clothes.”
Thirteen
Thrash: An aggressive style of skateboarding.
FLIP
“You’re skating again?”
I came to a crashing halt at Daniel’s voice. He and King were at the valley of the ramp. When had the sun come up?
Excitement revved Daniel’s usually silky voice. Even King’s brows lifted in anticipation.
Tweetie was a few feet behind them.
Her eyes narrowed on her board.
Silence passed, her brows drooping as she came to stand next to Daniel and King. I kicked it over to her. The levity before fractured as the weight of my actions broke through. Daniel and King’s brows furrowed as Tweetie took her board.
I rubbed the back of my ear. “No. I’m not.”
Daniel’s face dropped.
King released a bitter, closed mouth laugh. Without a word he turned back and went inside.
Pity. Concern. Daniel and Tweetie may as well have the same face.
Screw this.
I walked past them, rubbing my neck furiously, refusing to look back. I didn’t know why I had this goddamn handicap. I actually preferred when I couldn’t touch a damn board. To this. Having to steal hers.
I didn’t know. I didn’t know why Tweetie was the only one who could bring it out of me. I didn’t know why I couldn’t skateboard without her.
I didn’t know.
The night before, when I’d brought her board inside, my blood buzzed. I’d tested it beneath my foot, and suddenly I was breathing again.
I’d been trapped in a sarcophagus for ages, but now I saw sunlight, my blood was pumping. Tweetie ignited something dead and buried.
So after that, I thought maybe I was cured. For the first time in years, skating didn’t fill me with dread. In the morning, I tried skating on a random board. And another. And then another.
I couldn’t.
I could only skate on Tweetie’s. While she was still sleeping and the rest of the house was silent, I grabbed her board again. I told myself I was just going to skate for a few minutes. I needed that rush. It had been so fucking long since I’d felt it.
“Flip wait!” Tweetie called after me. I kept walking, but she must have run because moments later she clung to my bicep. “Just stop.” Reluctantly, I turned. Beyond her, Daniel watched, brows pinched.
“You can be a really broody jerk sometimes,” she said, almost under breath. I raised my brows, but she was already plowing through to the reason she’d caught up to me. “Look about last night—”
“What about it?” I plastered a smile on my face.
She eyed me the way she had the night before. A way that said she wouldn’t let me pretend anymore. But then, Tweetie had always been like that.
Small. Fierce. Precocious.
I closed the distance between us, filled with an urge to break every rule.
Daniel’s out-of-focus figure came into view.
I exhaled and took her hand off my arm.
“I can handle it,” she called to my back. “Whatever it is you think I can’t, I can.”
TWEETIE
Oh, share your fears. Oh, you belong to me. Oh, I want you. Oh, I’m so. Full. Of. Shit.
I slammed my knife hard into my bagel.
“Little girl—”
“What?” I snapped, looking up. Daniel’s eyes popped, and the kitchen came into focus. Everyone—King, Daniel, Bacon, Sparky, and Pants—stared at me. How long had I been in my head?
“We think maybe you should apologize to that bagel,” King said gently. I looked down. The inside was completely hollowed out. Crumbs lay like shrapnel on the dark granite. It was a disaster. I’d completely forgotten to even put schmear on it. Just ramming my knife at it over and over.
I sighed.
Dropped my knife.
“Nervous about your competition tomorrow?” Daniel asked.
No. “Yeah.”
King settled his hand between my shoulders. “This time will be different.”
I glanced up the stairs.
I knew my problem, and it wasn’t nerves.
“Maybe,” I said.
After some video games, some more stewing, some watching Sparky accidentally light his lunch on fire and learning how he got the nickname Sparky, and some more glaring at the stairs, I climbed them, determined to solve my problem.
I kicked open Flip’s door. He sat up, the magazine he’d been reading falling to his lap. It was the one magazine I’d been featured in. I almost forgot why I was there, so startled to see him reading it. It was months old. Why did every part of me want to get to know him when I should be pushing him away?
I grabbed the nearest soft item and threw it at him—a towel.
“Hey, you!”
He caught the towel, raising a brow. I hated that brow. That stupid, hot, perfectly shaped and cute and cocky like him brow, and—I loved it. Dammit.
“Me?” He gently set the towel beside him.
“Yeah, you. Stay away from me.”
He looked left. Then back at me. “You’re in my room.”
“Don’t try and twist my wor
ds around and—” I fumbled. “Stay away from me. Just don’t come near me anymore. Flip, Tweetie, ten feet of space at all times.” I stretched my arms out, showing him.
So of course he did the opposite. He stood up. Set his magazine purposefully on his desk. Eyes narrowing on me. I kept my arms spread wide because I didn’t know what else to do.
Until he was right in front of me and I had to tilt my chin, to see past his sharp one.
My arms still wide like I was starting a group hug.
“When was the last time you broke the law?” he asked, perfectly pink lips hooked right, making his right eye pinch slightly, glittering with mischief.
He always had me on my toes.
Not asking: why are you here, throwing towels in my face? Instead he’s poking at parts of me I very much want to know. I’d lived at Patchwork, caged by rules they placed on me as they broke them themselves.
“Um…” I should put my arms down.
“You’ve never broken the law.” His grin grew wider, exposing a few wickedly white teeth.
“Yes, I have,” I responded, maybe too quickly. He tilted his head, a soft understanding lighting his eyes. “Well…I jaywalk all the time. I guess that doesn’t count.”
He gave me his hand. “Do you want to?”
FLIP
“This is the richest neighborhood in town,” she said, a hint of fear tingeing her lips as we passed through the wrought iron gate to Heaven’s Court. The excitement was evident on her face, though. The last time I was here with Tweetie I was dragging her back through gates, not opening them to lead her inside.
“Wanna turn back?”
“Hell no.” She beamed, lips bright, cherry red. Fuck, Tweetie in the winter was something to drive a man insane.
We stopped in front of a three-story Victorian. Unlike Patchwork, this home spread down the street, demanding attention, each level stacked in perfect symmetry, with sky blue shingles and early winter snow that settled on the slate roof as if it were powdered sugar poured perfectly from the heavens.
“Whose house is this?”
The family behind the strings. The one I never should’ve had, but was thrust upon me, and I foolishly believed could be real.
Skater Boy (Patchwork House Book 1) Page 13
