“I know you are,” Suzie said through gasping laughs. “And that’s what’s so funny.”
I hadn’t stopped laughing long enough to respond.
“You are,” Matt insisted. “I mean, maybe not cool in the conventional sense.”
That set me off all over again. “What other ‘sense’ is there?”
He shook his head, ignoring our laughter. “I mean, no one knows how tough Margo is or how badass Suzie can be or—”
“You think I’m tough?” I asked as Suzie mouthed “badass?” to me with wide-eyed shock.
“Yes and yes,” he said, amusement making his exasperation adorable rather than persnickety. “You guys are smart and funny and brave and—”
“Aww.” I slapped a hand over my heart as I leaned over and rested my head against his arm. “That’s so sweet.”
Suzie was nodding emphatically. “It really is. Thank you, Matt.”
He dropped his head with a laugh. “You still don’t get it. I know all that about you guys but no one else does. No one knows how…how fun you guys are.”
Suzie and I shared a look and I think she, like me, didn’t know what to say to that. Matt was a softie at heart, he always had been, but neither of us was used to hearing this sort of non-ironic sentimentality.
“Easy, Matt,” I said, nudging his arm. “You’ve got a solid ten months until graduation. Don’t use up all the sappiness too soon.”
Suzie nodded with a straight face. “Premature sentimentality is not a joking matter. It affects one in ten men.”
Matt playfully slapped her upside the head. “Shut up.”
She shoved him back and soon they were trying to push one another into the pool, but neither of them actually succeeded. At least, not before we were so rudely interrupted.
“What up, losers!” Suzie’s brother shouted it in a low voice like he was a sports announcer. His three friends who followed him out back thought he was hilarious.
“Dale, what are you doing here?” Suzie said, all laughter forgotten as she scowled over at her annoying little brother.
And by “little” I mean in age only. Though everyone referred to them as Irish twins, thanks to their close ages, Suzie and Dale were exact opposites in looks. While Suzie was short and skinny, Dale was tall and well-built. While we’ve already established that Suzie wasn’t cool in the conventional sense, Dale most definitely was.
Well, “cool” was subjective, I supposed. Personally, I’d rather spend time with just about anyone else on the planet than Dale Bryer, but that didn’t make him any less popular. He was a jock, plain and simple. He played on the basketball team and seemed to be constantly surrounded by a small crew of guys and girls at any given time. So yeah, by conventional standards, he was in an entirely different league than Suzie, or me, or Matt.
A fact he just loved to point out every chance he got.
“Mom said I was allowed to have people over, not you,” Suzie said, coming to her feet and hurrying to cut her brother off as he headed toward her phone, which was currently plugged into the outdoor speaker system and playing the soft indie rock that Suzie loved so much.
“Chill, dork,” Dale said. “What my hardass mom don’t know won’t hurt her.” He directed this lovely last bit to his friends who laughed appreciatively like he was a standup comedian or something.
Suzie was not amused. “I’m serious, Dale.”
“I’m serious, Dale.” He mimicked her in a high-pitched voice as he easily reached around her, pulled the plug out of her phone and stuck it into his own. Two seconds later the music switched to something awful—some sort of hip-hop song with a bass beat that hurt my ears.
“Dale!” She chased after him as he headed back toward his friends, her red curls bobbing as she ran to keep pace with his long strides. “We’ll both get in trouble if—”
“Not if you don’t rat me out, dork.” And you won’t. He didn’t say that part but we all knew it to be true. Much as Suzie and Dale were constantly at one another’s throats, they were also siblings, as well as the son and daughter to a…well, I wouldn’t use the word hardass, myself, but some might.
Suzie’s mom was strict and kind of terrifying. Her dad was a little more laidback but he let their mother take the reins when it came to punishments and let’s just say she put the dungeon at the Tower of London to shame. Oh, she wasn’t into corporal punishment, but the slightest infraction of her rules had been known to lead to a months’ long grounding, and her favorite means of torture? The removal of any and all technology, which was equally painful for the videogame-loving Suzie as well as her social-media addicted brother.
I supposed there were two ways that kids could go after being raised for more than a decade under such a strict parent. Dale had chosen the path of rebellion, while Suzie had opted for the other extreme.
But for all her good-girl tendencies, Dale was right. She’d never once ratted him out, because as she put it—there was such a thing as a bro code. Like, a literal bro-as-in-brother code, not the other kind that forbade a guy from hitting on another dude’s girl.
Anyway, Matt and I knew without a doubt that all her threats—while impressively shouted and interspersed with curses that would make a sailor blush—were all just a bunch of hot air.
The problem was, Dale knew it too. And so did all his friends. Which was likely why they were paying her no mind, already turning their attention to some other task that apparently involved opening the back gate, which led to the street behind their house.
Matt came to stand beside me and I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that we stood there gaping in shocked silence for several moments. I don’t want to sound super sheltered or anything but…maybe I was, because this was the first time I’d ever seen a keg before.
Well, the first time in real life, I mean. I watched plenty of movies, thank you very much, so I knew what the large metal thing was without having to ask. It was safe to say Matt did too, judging by his “whoa,” muttered under his breath.
Whoa. My thoughts exactly. Okay, okay, so maybe a keg showing up at a back-to-school party wasn’t such a big deal…for literally anyone else. But a keg showing up at Suzie’s house and at our back-to-school party?
We were officially in unchartered territory here, folks.
“Do you think Suzie’s going to start frothing at the mouth?” Matt asked as we watched her turn beet red with rage at the sight of the keg.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe. Should we intervene?”
He frowned down at me, his dark brown eyes filled with indecision as he tipped back his silly sunhat. “This seems like a sibling thing, doesn’t it?”
I had a feeling my expression was just as indecisive. As two only children, Matt and I were forever perplexed by Suzie and Dale, and their bizarre love-hate relationship.
“Maybe we should let them work it out amongst themselves,” I said. We both turned back to see Dale holding the remote for the stereo over his head, dangling it just out of her reach as our petite little redheaded friend tried to leap up and snag it.
“This is sad to watch,” Matt said.
I nodded. “Agreed.”
Finally, Suzie stopped taking the bait and she glared up at her smirking brother, her arms planted on her hips. Her mighty warrior pose was only slightly diminished by her short height and the fact that her T-shirt and shorts were wet from the pool and clinging to her in a way that looked more than a little uncomfortable.
“Why do you have to be such a jerk?” she demanded.
Dale leaned down. “Why do you have to be such a loser?”
“I am not.”
I half expected Dale to retort with an ‘are too’ but while they came this close to childish bickering, they stopped just short.
Dale took a step back and threw his arms out wide. “Live a little, dork. It’s your first party.”
Suzie looked around with a horrified expression and it was only then that I saw more of Dale’s friends trickl
ing in through the back door.
“This isn’t my party,” she said. “Those aren’t my friends.”
“That’s because you don’t have any friends.” He looked over at me and Matt. “No offense, losers.”
Matt looked down at me. “Uh, none taken?” he muttered.
Dale turned back to Suzie as I shrugged. “I don’t think he expects a response.”
Sure enough, Dale was already trying to talk Suzie into going along with his version of a party, which, to be honest, looked a lot more like what a high school no-parents-around sort of party was supposed to look like. I mean, in the conventional sense, of course.
With the music and the newcomers, Matt and I only caught snippets of the argument going on between brother and sister, but it was clearly escalating quickly. What started as a fight over what course this party should take—raging kegger or tame pool party—soon rapidly descended into well-worn topics.
“Why do you have to always make everything about you?” Suzie said.
“Why do you have to make such a big deal out of everything?” he shot back.
I shifted closer to Matt. “Um, at what point do we intervene?”
Matt shook his head. “No idea.” His attention was still on the keg—or rather, the rather impressive crowd gathered around it.
“You never take responsibility for your actions,” Suzie was shouting in the background.
“Seriously, dork, why can’t you just learn to chill for once.”
“I am chill,” Suzie shot back in a shrill tone that no one in their right mind would describe as “chill.”
Dale threw his head back with a taunting laugh and I cringed on Suzie’s behalf. Everyone at school thought Suzie was all quiet and meek, but Matt and I knew better. The girl had a temper. Anger made her cheeks turn red as she marched around, following her brother as he greeted newcomers with red Solo cups filled with beer.
“I can’t look away,” Matt said.
“I know,” I said with a wince. “It’s like a train wreck waiting to happen.”
We were so focused on the Suzie-Dale drama that Matt and I both jumped at the sound of laughter coming from behind us.
“What do we have here?” a low voice drawled.
Ugh. My skin crawled at the familiar voice.
Joel Hodgins, Suzie’s next door neighbor and one of the football team’s star players.
I turned around slowly and faced the guy who gave new meaning to the term “meathead.”
He was sneering as he took in the sight before him. “I can’t believe it. You guys are trying to throw a party.” He burst out in a gut laugh that had Matt straightening and me clenching my fists.
Most of our classmates had outgrown the whole mocking bully stage. These days their particular form of torture typically came from whispers and backstabbing, and they almost always stuck to their own social circles.
Joel here hadn’t gotten the memo. He was like a cliché straight out of some bad eighties movie. I’d never had much of a stomach for bullies. “Hold my beer,” I muttered to Matt.
“You don’t have any beer,” he said.
I’d been making a joke, but obviously it hadn’t translated. Whatever. I had more important things to worry about. Like making sure Joel didn’t make a bad situation even worse for poor Suzie. She already had her hands full with a jerky jock of her own.
It wasn’t until I was right in front of him that I realized a key strategic error.
The bikini.
The stupid skimpy bikini that was only ever supposed to be seen by Suzie and Matt—not Joel, and certainly not Dale’s followers.
Crap, where the hell had I put that towel?
Joel was eyeing me with a lecherous smirk that made my skin crawl, but I refused to cower. I straightened my shoulders and held my head high as I glared at him. “Get out of here, Joel, you weren’t invited.”
That made him laugh harder, his eyes never meeting mine as he took his sweet time eyeing me. “Not bad, Margo. I had no idea you were hiding a killer body under that God-awful band uniform.”
I refused to look down to see what he was seeing. I mean, I knew what he was seeing. There was no doubt in my mind that Joel was mocking me because my body was far from killer. I wasn’t super overweight but I also wasn’t stick thin like Suzie. I was somewhere in between with curves in all the right places, but also in some not-right places too. There was more padding than I’d like around my hips and butt, for example, and a belly that refused to lie flat no matter how much I tried to suck it in. So yeah, I knew exactly what Joel was seeing because I’d looked in the mirror before. But the self-conscious urge to look down and evaluate myself was real.
I resisted.
“Whose idea was this?” Joel asked, jerking his chin toward the party behind us. Matt had come to stand at my side—for moral support, I guess. Joel reached over and slapped his shoulder. “This your idea, man? You suddenly turning into a badass on us?”
He laughed at his own joke, and I straightened further, annoyed on Matt’s behalf, even though Matt seemed to be taking it in stride. He just eyed Joel like he was an interesting science experiment, nonchalant as ever.
Joel jerked his chin up at me. “I’m going to have the guys over from the team later. Come on over, we’ll show you what a real party looks like.”
I glanced over at Matt because what the…what? Neither of us had ever been invited to a football players’ party before. When I turned back he was smiling at me, and it was gross. It was beyond gross.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ve seen you hanging around Jason’s house when he has the guys over. Don’t pretend you’re not dying to hang with us.”
Jason. The mention of his name made my annoyance levels rise approximately twenty degrees. “I wasn’t hanging around his house,” I said. “He’s my neighbor.”
Joel didn’t seem to hear me. “You’re totally stalking him. I saw you crash his party last week, trying to get all up in his business.”
“I was telling him to turn down the music,” I said.
My logical and truthful response fell on deaf ears.
“He’ll probably be coming to my party tonight,” Joel said. “You don’t have to stalk him to get him to talk to you.” He eyed me again. “You just need to wear that.”
I turned to Matt because I needed to make sure I wasn’t the only sane person in the county. “I live next door to Jason. What am I supposed to do, evacuate my home every time he has a party?”
Matt’s lips were twitching in amusement as he shrugged. His eyes said, “don’t let this moron get under your skin.”
Too late. Between Joel’s idiocy and Dale’s voice tormenting Suzie behind me, I was ready to say “Goodbye, Felicia” to everyone with testosterone in the general vicinity.
Excluding Matt, of course.
I was vaguely aware of Suzie’s pitch growing ever higher as she tried to be heard over the music. “I’m not afraid. I never said I was afraid.”
Oh crap. I resisted the urge to look back. Joel needed to be dealt with but…what was Suzie not afraid of and why did I get the feeling Dale was pushing her buttons?
Here was the thing about my quiet, sweet friend Suzie. She’d never been able to back down from a challenge. Anyone who’d known her for more than a minute could tell you that. Suzie would never back down, and she would never admit to being afraid…of anything. Maybe that was why she was so into videogames. She lived for a challenge. Of course, most people didn’t know that because most people didn’t look past the cute little redhead façade.
I didn’t know what Dale was up to, but I had to get back to Suzie before she did something stupid to prove a point. Or worse, something smart to make Dale look stupid. Basically, I needed to get back to Suzie before she did…anything. Her voice was reaching dog-whistle levels and this couldn’t end well.
“Get out of here, Joel,” I said one last time before turning to leave.
“How are you going to make me?”
I stopped mid-step and spun back around at the taunting tone. “Seriously?”
Was he seriously picking a fight with me? I mean, Joel might’ve been a big burly brute but even he knew better than to pick a fight with a girl. But one look at his leering expression clued me in to what he meant by that taunt.
Ew. I didn’t try to hide my disgust. “Don’t be a perv, Joel. Just go home.”
His smile grew unbearably smug as some of his friends came over to join him. Wonderful. Just what I needed. More dumb jocks getting an eyeful. Joel’s perviness went up a notch now that he had an audience. “I’ll get you an in with your boy Jason if you give me something in return. What do you say?”
His friends laughed as I gawked up at him. He was joking. I knew he was joking, but I still wanted to punch him in the throat. “You wish, Joel.”
“Come on,” he taunted. “You can be the first clip on my new YouTube channel. I’m thinking of calling it Geeks Gone Wild.” He waved a hand at the scene behind me. “This right here is gold, babe. A bunch of dorks trying to party it up. It’s hilarious.”
I squinted at him in disgust but he wasn’t looking at me anymore, he was looking over my shoulder. “Oh no way. No. Way.” His eyes widened. “Is that Suzie Bryers?”
He burst out laughing as I spun around.
Oh holy God. What on earth was she doing?
A kegstand—that’s what she was doing.
Suzie Bryers, my best friend and a girl who I knew for a fact had never touched a drop of alcohol before, was currently being held up by her ankles by some of her brother’s friends as she chugged beer straight out of the tap.
I ran over so quickly I lost track of Matt. I hoped beyond hope that he was beating the crap out of Joel, but I definitely wouldn’t have placed bets on it.
Matt was absolutely mightier with a pen, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, I reached the keg just in time to watch them lower her to the ground to a small round of applause. Suzie wiped her mouth and then she looked up and her gaze met mine.
Oh no. Oh no no no.
I read her like a book and then what I knew without a doubt was that she was going to hurl and it was going to happen any second. “Suzie, come help me find some clothes to change into,” I said, quickly taking her by the arm and leading her in through the house that was as familiar as my own. When we reached the hall leading to her bedroom I shoved her into the bathroom and we made it just in time.
Love at First Fight: Geeks Gone Wild #1 Page 2
