by Rachel Shane
Her only hope of making a friend was the soccer tryouts happening that afternoon. Thankfully, her parents’ untimely delay hadn’t screwed her out of this opportunity, too.
She hustled through the maze of hallways trying to find the gym, bypassing green lockers at every turn. Each cookie cutter hallway her shoes squeaked across looked like a clone of the last, made even more prominent by the lack of students packing the halls. A linoleum yellow brick road guided her in circles. She glanced at her phone and cursed under her breath. Tryouts started in one minute and she hadn’t even changed into gym clothes.
Harper turned down another wing that featured a poster she’d never seen before advertising Safe Sex via Free Condoms in the nurse’s office. Her eyebrows shot upward at how utterly cool her new school was—or maybe how behind she herself was. Up ahead, the hint of an L-wing caught her attention. A sign with an arrow at the end pointed to the gym. She amped her pace, her feet pounding against the spotted linoleum, but a muffled wail made her stop short. When she rounded the corner to the L-wing, she spotted a girl wedged in a small satellite alcove, her knees pulled up to her chest, face buried inside. The girl’s long dark hair draped forward, dancing as her shoulders hitched.
Harper glanced longingly toward the gym, then down at the girl. “Are you okay?”
The girl scrambled to her feet, wiping her tears and streaking her heavy mascara, before turning away from Harper to shield her face. Her cut off jean shorts and low cut tank top definitely didn’t pass the dress code. Her legs were stretched in a runner’s stance, as if she’d meant to flee, but another heavy sob ricocheted through her instead and the girl pressed a hand to the concrete wall to steady herself.
Harper risked taking a step toward her and placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Let me get you a tissue or something.”
The girl spun on her heels to face Harper. Puffy bags hung under her red-rimmed eyes and a pink hue spread across her olive skin. “I don’t need a tissue. I need a miracle.”
Harper flinched when she heard the faint bleat of a whistle sounding from outside. The start of tryouts. But she couldn’t abandon this girl. Wouldn’t. A smile jumped to her face, warm and coaxing. She’d also been voted Most Smiley in her eighth grade superlatives. And Most Congenial. And Best Sneeze, weirdly. “Well, I happen to be very skilled in performing miracles. Just last year I helped my younger brother get a date to the seventh grade dance and that is about as miraculous as it gets.”
The girl laughed. “Then how are you at getting revenge on evil boys who take a picture of you naked at a party and then threaten to send said picture around the school if you don’t write their English essays this semester?”
The girl’s words were like a stake driving through Harper’s foot and pinning her in place. She and her friends back home hadn’t exactly reached the sans-clothes part of their dating lives yet. Still, rivalries at Harper’s old sleep away camp had practically trained her for this day. “Getting revenge?” she asked, raising a brow. “Or getting one step ahead?”
The girl tilted her head as another sniffle escaped. “I’m listening.”
All thoughts of soccer try-outs fell away in favor of finding a friend who could show Harper the ways of Whiskey Falls because Harper clearly had a lot to learn. “We steal that cell phone of his and delete the photo from it. Threat annihilated.”
The girl tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear, her lips curving into a wicked grin. “His name’s Connor Cunningham and he’s got football tryouts right now. I’m sure his phone’s in his gym locker.” The girl outstretched her hand. “I’m Poe by the way. And yes, my mom has a thing for the author.” She rolled her eyes.
“Harper. And my yes, my mom also has a thing for a different author,” she said, referring to her namesake, Harper Lee.
The corners of Poe’s lips quirked, a small smile fighting its way past her frown. Poe’s smile was infectious and Harper found herself returning it. Solidarity bloomed between them, and a nervous flutter warmed Harper’s belly.
“Wait here.” She spun around and headed toward the gym with a skip in her step.
Even though she wasn’t going to soccer tryouts, she still felt like this was a form of trying out. For the role of Poe’s best friend.
To save her potential new best friend from unwanted exposure of the boob variety, Harper had to play dirty—and in this case dirty meant mingling with smelly gym socks and used jock straps. If she got caught, she hoped she’d only have to endure the wrath of horny teenage boys who interpreted her presence in their locker room as a good thing. Not a trespassing thing.
An ear placed to the locker room door resulted in only silence, and a quick glance at the field outside confirmed the football team and was already outside. Her chest cinched tight at the sight of the groups of girls gathering for soccer tryouts on the adjacent field. She had to look away. At her old school, she’d never been the queen of ditching class, but here she had no reputation to uphold. She could be the bad girl this time. Twisting the knob would be the first step down a dark path. It felt good to do something really wrong and get away with it.
Harper strolled down the long hallway where alcoves of lockers splintered off into their own little cliques. Even lockers had a social class system. She pinched her nose at the raunchy aroma: a mixture of body odor and Axe body spray. Eau de Ew.
She stepped over land mines of discarded shirts and deodorant canisters to get to the locker marked with Connor’s name. It was just like the personalized one she herself received in gym class earlier today. At her old school, each student received an anonymous locker number, but Whiskey Falls prided themselves on personal attention. Harper prided them on being dumb as hell. Every locker in the bank was popped open, all contents ripe for the taking. She bounced on her toes while she slid Connor Cunningham’s backpack out of the cramped space.
Harper dug through his bag, sweeping her fingers past crumbs and textbooks, condom and candy wrappers, until she found her prize. His phone. The unfortunate part of her plan to save Poe meant she would also save Connor from felony charges. Anyone who used sexts as blackmail deserved a swift kick in the nuts…from a cellmate.
Just as the object lit up for her commands, the door to the locker room flung open. Footsteps and chatter alerted her to the rush of boys returning early from tryouts. Very early. They’d only been outside for five minutes. She bolted upright. “Shit,” she muttered under her breath as she ran through scenarios for getting out unscathed: cause a distraction, play dumb, or show cleavage. Her head darted around like a squirrel at each new voice that joined the chorus. Plan B triumphed over the other options: hide.
Harper pried open one of the full-length lockers, tossed a gym bag onto a wooden bench with a heavy thump, and squeezed her big butt into a space that hadn’t been designed to contain it. She pulled the door shut with a metallic snick right before the boys charged the area. The cloying stench of BO swarmed around her.
The enclosed space amplified the pulse ticking in her veins. Her head bent at an odd angle and her awkward crouch would tone all her muscles by Cross-Fit standards. She’d always assumed the first time a boy undressed in front of her, she’d be helping, not hiding.
“…Those fuckers at West Bitchland. Has to be.” The voice sounded close—too close—and she flinched, a difficult endeavor in the tight space. Metal rattled, and Harper dug her fingernails into her arms.
“But West Moorland doesn’t have tryouts until next week. No way they got their shit together in time to prank us this early.”
Wet sloshes squished outside and water dripped onto the linoleum with little plinks.
Harper twisted her body, wrist whacking the wall with a clang, in order to peer out of the three slats in the locker’s door. Two boys bent over the bench in the middle, untying their shoelaces and giving Harper grand views of their sculpted butts. Connor Cunningham and his partner in grime, Eli McGowan. Eli had been in Harper’s third period Bio class. Before he got sent to th
e Principal’s office, anyway. Their soaked clothes clung to them, showing off every muscle in Connor’s case…and lack thereof in Eli’s case.
“It’s not a big deal. We’ll resume tomorrow.” Brett Emmich, the nerd from Harper’s Spanish class whose phone number was warming her pocket, stepped into view, holding up his hands as if he were directing traffic. Harper stifled both a groan and a breath of relief. He brushed his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes. The metal between the slats chopped off his neck and torso, an image that probably mirrored the thoughts of the other boys by the way they rolled their eyes behind his back.
“Tomorrow we tryout. Today we get those fuckers back.” Connor straightened, tugging off his sweaty gym shirt and wasting the view of his toned abs on the rest of the guys.
Harper tuned out the conversation by sliding her arm down the wall of the cold metal locker and jamming her elbow into a corner in order to maneuver enough space to lift Connor’s phone into her view. Her back ached from bending oddly and tingles spread along her ankle. It was locked with a passcode but anyone dumb enough to blackmail with texts probably wasn’t smart enough to use a hard to guess code. Sure enough, she guessed right on her third try: 3333. The blue glow emanating turned the green locker into a murky yellow color, like polluted lake water. She swiped through the apps until she found the photo program.
Bare breasts filled the screen, distracting Harper from the beer-laced sloppy smile her potential new friend wore at the top of the image. Poor, Poe. Harper vowed never to go gallivanting off into another room with Whiskey Fall’s most notorious player. Her thumb shifted to the trash can icon with as minimal movement as possible, as if even converting food to energy might be loud enough to get her caught. She flinched at the whirr the phone made when it deleted the photo from existence, but the chatter outside worked to mask it.
“Are you crazy?” A loud voice drew Harper’s attention back to the slats. “Today’s too soon. We need time to plan.” Eli tied his hemp necklace back around his neck. “We need something epic.”
“Something that doesn’t just disrupt their tryouts, it disrupts their life,” Connor added.
“Or you could try not pranking them and beating them fair and square instead.” Brett’s back came toward the locker until he blocked Harper’s view of the room, encasing her in utter darkness. “On the field. If you make the team that is.”
She punched the phone back to life and tapped the texting app. Her own phone was in her purse in her regular locker, so she’d have to use Connor’s. She scrambled in her pocket and pulled out the slip of paper with the number Brett had given her earlier. She typed his number and a text: SOS. Trapped in locker 142 - Harper. She pressed send, and then promptly deleted the text. Her shoulders tensed as she waited for the message to deliver.
A high-pitched beep announced the arrival of her text on Brett’s phone. A moment later he peeled himself off the locker and spun around. His big blue eyes squinted in her direction, and even though they made her breath catch, she forced herself not to look away. He clapped once. “All right. Coach just said everyone needs to get out now.” He wiggled his cell in the air as evidence. “The school needs to, uh…”
Harper stifled her groan. If he paused for one more uncomfortable beat, she’d be screwed. She readied her defense tactic just in case. Toss the phone at Connor’s nuts. When he dropped to his knees in pain, she’d knock him unconscious with a swift jab to the pressure points in his neck. Self-defense techniques came in handy against bad guys and boys with bad reputations.
“Fumigate,” Brett finished. His head bobbed, nodding to corroborate his own lie.
No one made an effort to move, but that was probably because Brett had used the worst motivator in the history of party-clearing techniques.
“Fumigate your farts?” Eli asked, and then cracked up at his lame joke.
“Guys. Come on. Skedaddle.” Brett clapped again as effectively as a substitute teacher busting up chatter. “Toss your pinnies in the bin so I can wash them before tryouts resume.” Harper snickered. She’d wondered what Brett was doing here but now it all made sense. He was the team’s bitch.
“Where the hell is my phone?” Connor’s butt danced in the air as he rummaged through his locker. Harper held her breath, squeezing the object in her palm. “You’re acting suspicious as all fuck.” Connor stormed toward Brett and slammed him against a locker across the way, the sound loud enough to make Harper’s teeth snap. Brett did his best impression of horror movie slasher victim, mouth parted in a silent scream. “What did you do with it?”
Crap. Harper’s fingers shook, but she forced them to pop open the email program and navigate to Connor’s Sent mail. There sitting at the top of the inbox was the little note he had sent off to Poe this morning. You write my English essays for me this semester, no one else sees this photo. Deal? He attached the incriminating photo. Harper deleted it all with a sharp jab of her finger. Her insides swelled with victory. One person saved, one to go. Well, two if you counted Brett.
“Let me—let me check the field,” Brett spat, his voice high-pitched. Connor let go of him but kept his middle finger raised in the universal sign language for I’m onto you. Brett scrambled out of view, sneakers squeaking.
A few moments later, the wail of the fire alarm bleated, clanging off the metal lockers and reverberating against Harper’s skull. Fire? Really? The timing was too coincidental but the scent of smoke drifted through the slats, making her cough. A new kind of fear took over. No longer a fear of getting caught but about not getting caught in time. Harper jammed her shoulder against the locker but it wouldn’t budge. It was stuck.
The boys scattered, abandoning backpacks like casualties of war. She rattled the locker uselessly. A stampede of footsteps covered the sound. No one would hear her. She jammed Brett’s number into Connor’s cell but it rang and rang before going straight to voicemail. Harper spotted Brett’s phone sitting on top of the bench. She pounded against the door until she became breathless.
A minute later, Brett brought his face close to the slats and winked, letting a wicked grin crest his face. And here she’d assumed he had cracked under pressure. Her mouth curved upward into the same devious grin. She liked when people did unexpected things. It meant she had to stay on her toes.
Brett jiggled the lock, grunting as if he were trying to pull it open with his bare hands.
“You need muscles to do that,” Harper said. “Or a crowbar. I assume both are in short supply.”
Brett let out a breath as he released the locker. “I can do it. These aren’t bulletproof.” Through the slats, Harper watched Brett crack his neck to both sides and hop in the air twice. The locker next door clanged when Brett leaned his foot against it.
“Now what are you doing? Besides failing miserably.”
“It’s called leverage.” Brett’s face strained as he pulled hard at the locker. Metal scraped, an ear splitting sound. The locker burst open.
Harper tumbled out of the space and crashed into him, knocking both of them onto the wooden bench. She caught a whiff of the cologne he must have recently re-applied. Placing a palm against his scrawny chest, she pushed herself into a standing position. “Wow, you have balls after all. Good to know.” She smoothed down her skirt. “What happened on the field? Tryouts usually last more than three minutes.”
“I know, but someone turned on the sprinklers and soaked everyone. They suspect a prank from the other team, but…” He shrugged in an off-hand way. “I needed some way to assert my authority over them.” He winked.
Holy shit. He’d set off the sprinklers. Maybe he wasn’t such a lost cause after all.
Harper sniffed the smoky air. “Did you start a real fire?”
“Had to make it believable.” Brett pulled out a yellow plastic lighter from his pocket and pointed it toward a garbage can at the opposite end of the locker room, where a bunch of papers sizzled. He leaned in close to her—too close. His warm breath sent goose bumps down her neck. “
So…what exactly are you doing in here?”
“Making a new friend.” Harper tilted her head at him. “Two actually.” She explained about saving Poe as she scrolled through the phone and selected the “Reset phone to factory settings” option. She also erased everything stored on his cloud. Connor at least deserved some sort of punishment. Losing all his precious photos and Pokémon Go high scores should do it. She wiped her hands as if ridding herself—and Poe—of that problem.
Brett stood there, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, perfecting the nerdy chic vibe. Against the green lockers he looked like a movie star waiting to be dropped into a CGI action scene and not the timid boy cowering away from the rest of his classmates in Spanish.
She raised her eyebrow and pointed to the flashing fire alarm on the ceiling. “We should probably get out of here. Want to come with?” she asked, not because she felt like she owed him, but because there was a guy with a secret bad ass side beneath his goody two shoes exterior.
He nodded a little too vigorously and ran the ten paces it took to open the door to the hallway for her. Harper held her breath in case a congregation of boys waited just beyond the door. When only cheery posters filled with bubble letters greeted them, they exchanged smiles and relaxed.
Two girls who wore too much makeup passed by them and eyed them as if they were a crazy mirage, then burst into giggles. Brett slowed his pace as if to give Harper some space but she slowed too, staying in sync with him step by step. She’d made her choice of friends, no matter the consequences to her reputation. She marched through the hall with the kind of confidence she used to exude at her old school. There, she was queen bee. Here, she had a clean slate.
