Skater Boy (Patchwork House Book 1)

by Mary Catherine Gebhard

  My eyes must have eaten my face.

  “Jesus,” Daniel said under breath. Romeo exhaled cigarette smoke and shot Daniel a look like What?

  “What is happening…” I said it more to myself, but Daniel answered anyway.

  “As much as King would like to lock you in your room until you’re sixty, we all agree, that’s not exactly fair.” I made a noise like Right. “So, Happy Birthday—you’re getting the sex talk.”

  After thirty minutes of my personal hell had passed, the white paper was scribbled with everything from the word penis to UTI to an amateur drawing of a uterus courtesy of Romeo. It looked like a wilting tulip. Daniel had attempted to draw something inside of it, but now it looked like a Shel Silverstein drawing gone awry.

  “Understand?” Daniel said, wiping sweat off his brow.

  “I…” I looked at the page. “Yes?”

  “She should know about the male G-spot. Write that down.” Romeo gestured with his third cigarette. “We haven’t even begun to cover fetishes.”

  King and Daniel shot him daggers.

  “Nope. No. We’re done.” I stood up, waving both hands. “You have nothing to worry about, okay? I’m not having sex until I’m in love. True love. I thought…” I thought the last boy was the one. I was an idiot. I won’t make that mistake again. I’ll wait until I’m one hundred percent sure.

  “No offense, luv, but you thought that popped collar-wearing choad was the one a few days ago.” Romeo squinted, scrunching up his red lips in a way that read, You know I’m right.

  “I have a checklist now,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “It’s foolproof.”

  Number one: he can’t be a skater.

  Every skateboarder except King, who’d taught me, had been a massive, colossal douche. They either treated me like dirt or were nice to me because they expected me to be a pro ho.

  Number two: he can’t be involved in this life.

  I could never tell them that. I loved King and Daniel and Romeo with all my heart, but every boy I’d met broke my heart and they’d done it because of where I’d lived, who they thought I was.

  The next item was the most important.

  Number three: no kissing until I’m absolutely certain they love me.

  Pretty self-explanatory.

  King folded his arms. “Let’s hear it.”

  I shook my head. “That’s mine to know.”

  “Maybe it needs to be spell-checked,” Romeo added, raising his brows suggestively. I glared, so he threw his hands up in surrender. “Well then, let’s eat some fucking cake.”

  After too much birthday cake and more presents, we sat around as Romeo’s newly cut vinyl played a powerfully melancholic song.

  “Someday you’re going to be famous,” I said to him, as his voice filled the room. When he stopped thrashing to sing, really sing, it was no wonder he was called a god.

  He laughed. “If I ever sell out, you lot have permission to put me down because I’ve obviously gone rabid.” The record ended, and all at once they stood, heading toward the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To give you your last birthday present,” Romeo said, and Daniel elbowed him while King shot him a glare.

  “You’ve already given me so much.” Too much.

  A magazine I’d been eyeing from King.

  A bracelet from Daniel.

  A joint from Romeo, which King promptly confiscated, much to my dismay.

  And a new set of wheels for my board from all of them, my favorite present.

  “Well, what is it?” I asked when the silence pressed.

  “It’s a surprise.” King placed his hand on my shoulder. “You have a comp to sign up for this week, focus on that.” My shoulders fell and I wiggled myself out of his hold. They’d been forcing me to go to those signups for a year now, and for a year, I’d lost and been laughed at.

  “I think I’m going to take a break from them.” I kept thinking about what the stranger had said to me, even as I continually failed.

  You’re the best one here.

  He’d been so certain, and that made me certain too.

  But that didn’t match up with what the world thought. I was officially past Flip’s age when he’d first entered a competition and I was watching my opportunities pass me by simply because of my damn gender.

  “They won’t laugh this time,” King said.

  “That’s not why I don’t want to do them,” I lied, unable to look them in the eyes. “Wait, why won’t they laugh?”

  Another pause, then Daniel said, “We’re going to have a polite conversation.”

  “How?” All competition officiants told me no, but one in particular had made it his mission to make sure I knew I didn’t belong.

  Do you need help, little girl?

  This is a male competition.

  Maybe the mall would suit you better.

  Can’t have you crying and ruining it for the rest.

  He lived in Heaven’s Court. You couldn’t get past the gate unless someone let you in. So of course he was the most important, without his say-so I’d never enter a competition anywhere.

  When no one responded, I pressed. “Does it have something to do with your reputation? Are you going to do something?” I looked between all three of my gods, trying to find an answer.

  King looked away.

  They all did.

  I chewed on the inside of my mouth. The rest of the town may call them Corrupt, but there was a reason the underground revered them as Rebel Gods. They always offered shelter to anyone who needed it. They were only a few years older than me, had been only teenagers themselves when they took me in, but they raised me.

  So why was everyone so afraid of them?

  Finally, King looked back.

  “Those are rumors, Tweetie,” King said.

  The air from the open door drifted in. Cold. Tickling.

  “Let me come, please. I’m sixteen. I’m not a kid anymore. I can handle it.” They gave me soft, patronizing smiles. I wanted to scream.

  I wanted to demand they tell me.

  But then they would never see me as anything but a child.

  King's face hardened. “Just go tomorrow. Sign up.”

  “Sure,” I said through gritted teeth. I waited until they left. The moment the door shut, I ran to my room and pushed my window open.

  I was done being shackled to Mount Olympus.

  Sixteen

  Catch: Stop the board from rotating while in the air.

  TWEETIE

  I followed them until they reached Heaven’s Court, the fanciest neighborhood in all of Heaven Falls. Somehow they’d opened the gate without effort and I’d sprinted after before it closed.

  Then I got lost.

  One minute they were in my sights, the next it was just breathtaking Victorian mansions, sprawling like they were entitled to the land. I forgot I was here to follow them. I knew about this place—everyone knew about Heaven’s Court—but seeing it was another thing entirely.

  Some people jokingly called the neighborhood I lived in Patchwork Court, and now I understood. The differences almost as stark and important as the similarities, like yin and yang. Both our sidewalks were cobblestoned, but unlike ours, where moss and flowers grew without care, here stones were carefully and purposefully placed. Maybe the designs were meant to be beautiful and breathtaking, but to me they were sad.

  From free, to caged.

  Movement to my left caught my eye—the three of them heading toward a particularly decadent home. I made my way.

  It was massive, with pearly gray shingles and an eerie beauty like the ghosts of kings and queens. In fact, the whole neighborhood had that lost-in-time eerie, regal beauty. Like discovering a perfectly preserved abandoned palace, whose only residents were long dead.

  It was so quiet I thought maybe I’d mistaken what I saw, when I heard voices, what sounded like a scream.

  Fear raced up my spine.

  I should go
home. This wasn’t for me. This haunting and beautiful place where screams drifted on the wind. My Corrupt, my Rebel Gods, hadn’t opened the gate for me. I’d snuck in.

  But I ran up the porch, tried to quiet my breathing, hid behind a column. Through a great paned window, a crystal chandelier hung in the gray dark, glinting in the moonlight.

  “And you’ll tell her yes.” I froze. That was definitely King's voice—no, his growl. So I had seen them but, it couldn’t be coming from inside the house?

  How did they get inside?

  “Kingston Ayers—we can work something out. I know your father—” he broke off in a cry. I didn’t know that voice and it sounded distressed. I’d never heard a grown man cry before.

  Kingston Ayers?

  I had the strangest feeling that I was being followed myself, but every time I turned there was nothing—no one.

  I spun around again.

  Trees, swaying ghostly gray in the night. Fancy streetlights dotting empty lawns before each mega house, before an emptier street. Like an oil slick.

  I gently pushed open the door. It creaked.

  The entryway would have taken my breath away if not for the cries coming from deep inside the house. I felt like I was at a haunted house at the fair with King again.

  “You’ll say you’re happy to have her in your competition.” That was Daniel. I’d never heard him speak like that before. He was always so nice and sweet, but now it was low, steady, and…dominating.

  I paused just before the kitchen, afraid of what I would find in the iron blue dark.

  “Yes,” the man cried again.

  Sucking in my breath, I looked around the corner. King, Daniel, and Romeo surrounded a man. I covered my mouth with two hands, stifling my gasp.

  It was the man from my competition! The one who kept telling me no. A face which I only knew to be twisted in amused contempt was now broken with tears.

  Can’t have you crying and ruining it for the rest.

  “Glad we’re on the same page, mate.” Romeo took his lit joint and leaned back, giving space for Daniel to grip the man by the chin. King wound his arm, fist heading right for—I covered my eyes, but the man cried out.

  The breath I’d been holding left me. Too loud, I instantly thought.

  Silence, save for the man’s whimpers.

  I peeked through gaps in my fingers.

  And all three of their heads had twisted to mine.

  “What the fuck are you doing here.” It wasn’t a question. I opened my mouth to come up with an excuse—any excuse—yet King wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were above my shoulder. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. Get her out.”

  Who was he talking to?

  “Way ahead of you,” a new voice said, and then I was yanked back by my shoulder, dragged out of the kitchen, out of the decadent entryway, back into the night.

  It was too dark and he was wearing too much black. A hoodie shrouded his head, a bandana covered his mouth. He’d dragged me out of Heaven’s Court and silently brought me back home, his grip on my wrist tight.

  I trusted him only because my gods did.

  But why did I feel like I knew him?

  Now we were just yards from the house, weaving between the abandoned Victorians that made up Patchwork Court. Overgrown vines sprinkled with snow twisted through broken glass windows, shadows a thick velvet curtain.

  “Who are you?” I asked to his back. The house glowed in the distance, the night eerily quiet. No cars on the street, no party at Patchwork to be our soundtrack—nothing. It was strange. Whereas Heaven’s Court was apparently calm and spooky, Patchwork was usually lively. Loud, filled with life and music and lovely debauchery.

  “Who are you—” All at once he spun, dragged me to him, just as a motorcycle whizzed down the sidewalk. He pulled me against his chest and away from danger.

  He uttered some kind of curse as the bike’s buzzing faded into the night.

  Then it was quiet again.

  Just us, the sound of his breathing and my own.

  All that was clear in the night were his eyes. Like shiny, chocolate pearls. Eyelids that were lazy in the way they fell almost to his thick lash line, low and entitled.

  Beautiful.

  And like everything else about him, familiar.

  He didn’t let me go at once, fingers curled into the fabric at my shoulder. Staring at the road.

  Then slowly, he met my eyes, and they stole my breath. I’d never had anyone look at me the way he did. Like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to push me away or pull me closer. Like he was holding back a bay of torment and the only thing that could cure it was me.

  That scared me. It wasn’t not knowing who he was, or his grip tightening on my arm, or being dragged miles by a near stranger—but the look beneath his heavy lids.

  I licked my lips and his lids dropped.

  Then all at once he leapt off me, putting feet between us. Like he was terrified and startled by me.

  He dragged hands down his hoodie, let out a ragged breath, and our eyes locked once more.

  “Happy Birthday.”

  Seventeen

  Carve: Making a sharp turn without lifting your wheels.

  FLIP

  What the fuck?

  What the fuck was that?

  That was too close. The sun was rising a bright, bubblegum pink in the sky and I paced back and forth in the shadowy trees of Patchwork’s backyard, brain still trying to process just how close I’d come to kissing Tweetie.

  When I brought her back from Heaven’s Court, I was a second away from it. She’d licked her lips and I thought she wanted it too—but she was only sixteen.

  And I’d known her since she was a fucking child.

  I opened my palm, looking at Tweetie’s bracelet. It fell when I’d pulled her from the street.

  I kept pacing, the embers of my joint falling like fairies to the frosty ground. I knew I shouldn’t keep coming back here. She was old enough now to deal with her own nightmares. A sixteen-year-old didn’t need someone like me.

  Instead I bought her a birthday present and made Romeo lie to the others because his moral compass was the most warped.

  I liked seeing her face light up when she unwrapped the wheels.

  I went nuts for the way she screamed when she realized how good the brand was.

  It was so. Fucking. Wrong.

  After they’d opened presents, I’d waited for her to go to bed, but like an unfinished charcoal drawing in the night, she pushed open her window. Climbed onto the roof, hoisted herself down, then fell. I shouldn’t have followed her, but I did. Hidden in the shadows as she followed her gods into Heaven’s Court. That’s what I was now, her shadow.

  You can’t tell a shadow to leave.

  Even if the shadow is bad, even if the shadow ties you to a past best forgotten.

  It just…is. Always.

  Now there was movement in her bedroom and I shifted, eyes locking on her. Tweetie finally going to bed, probably. She tore off her shirt, exposing a flat stomach, the top of her underwear riding on her hips, peeking past perpetually baggie pants.

  I hissed and quickly looked away, heart thudding.

  I’d have to tell them Tweetie needed to shut her fucking curtains.

  “Flip.” King’s voice cut into the cool, dark air. The three of them were back.

  “Don’t say it.” I held my hand up. “I’m done.” I stopped pacing. “I’ll stay away. For good.”

  I was losing myself.

  In her.

  A feeling of want growing inside me.

  When they didn’t talk, I looked up. All of them wore matching frowns.

  My shoulders tightened. “What?”

  Was it possible they knew already? Somehow they’d figured it out before me.

  King stared at me, hard. “We need you to stay the night.”

  I couldn’t believe I was stuck as a glorified babysitter for the girl I couldn’t get off my mind. If that didn’t sum up how t
wisted this was, I don’t know what would.

  The guys weren’t finished handling all the biased comp officiants and were afraid she’d follow them again, which meant I was here.

  At least Tweetie had a bedtime.

  And, as if God heard me that very moment, Tweetie appeared on the stairs.

  I dragged two hands down my face. “God fucking dammit.”

  I sank deeper into the couch. Of course she had to break the rules the one night I was stuck here in my demented purgatory.

  It was brutal, but for a different reason than I’d thought. No one talked to Tweetie—and she tried. She tried to talk to so many people. Patchwork Girls made a point to glare at her, one in particular said something that made her face cave. The boys at the party avoided her. The dazzling look of excitement Tweetie’d come down the stairs with slowly dulled.

  She headed to the keg. Two people talked on the opposite side and again she tried to start a conversation. They looked at one another, then left.

  The party droned on, and Tweetie drank. She drank more, and more, and more. Clung to the wall, eyes on the floor, and was always quick to move out of the way to let people pass. My muscles tightened, watching her go from tipsy to outright drunk.

  I wished I could give her all my attention.

  Let her know how special she was.

  Songs changed, Tweetie making herself permanent wallpaper. I started to relax. She was the most well-behaved rule breaker in existence.

  Then some asshole approached her. I immediately sat up straight. Almost everyone had been ignoring her while simultaneously giving her all of their attention. Tweetie was at a party. Tweetie was never at the parties. The gods weren’t there.

  They knew what that meant.

  This guy apparently either didn’t know or didn’t care. I was betting on the latter by the shit-eating grin on his face. I leaned forward, watching their exchange. I had no reason to do anything. I was only here to make sure she didn’t leave.

  The dude said something and Tweetie shook her head slightly, taking a step away from him. He slammed his hands on either side of her head, caging her.