Dylan rose to his feet. “Get out.”
Chad stood also, emitting a harsh laugh. “Are you seriously going to let a little trick like that come between us?”
Dylan pressed his fist into the palm of his other hand in an attempt to keep it from flying toward Chad’s face. “Get. The fuck. Out.”
Chad came closer, deliberately taunting him. “You really don’t know, do you?”
His eyes narrowed. “Know what?”
“Angel is a cheap slut, dude. Why do you think I didn’t mind when Travis tried to get on her? She gives it up to anyone.”
Dylan found himself searching Chad’s face for signs of deception, and saw none. “Like who?”
He smiled a dark, humorless smile. “Me.”
Dylan’s vision blurred with anger. He didn’t want to know any more details; he wanted to drag Chad out into the front yard and kick him until he vomited blood. “When?” he asked, trying to control his rage.
“A couple months ago,” Chad said, reaching out to massage Dylan’s shoulder in a way that was hardly relaxing. “But don’t waste your time. She wasn’t any good.”
Chad always bragged about his conquests, but he’d never said anything about Angel. Why? “You encouraged Travis,” Dylan said from between clenched teeth, knocking Chad’s hand away. “You told him to hold her down.”
“She was loving every minute of it,” he boasted, no longer smiling.
“No,” Dylan said with complete assurance. Angel may have been with Chad, at one point or another, but she hadn’t wanted Travis. She’d kicked and screamed and fought like a wildcat when he tried to force his mouth over hers.
“Are you mad because I threw you both out of the car?” Chad asked softly, getting in his face. “Or because you never got your turn?”
Dylan shoved him backward, his heart pounding with adrenaline and his muscles poised for action. When Chad didn’t tackle him, Dylan went to the front door. “You’re a pig and so is Travis,” he said, throwing it open. “Now get the fuck out.”
Chad’s lips tightened, making him appear more like a petulant child than a boy on the cusp of manhood.
“You’re nothing without me, bro. You’re like a ghost at Palomar High.”
It was true, and the words stung. Dylan lifted his chin, refusing to let it show. “Have fun in summer school.” He may have been invisible, especially to girls, but Chad didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of passing Algebra without his help.
Chad slammed his fist against the door, puncturing the cheap wood. Dylan waited for him to make the next move, his pulse racing with trepidation, but the hotheaded quarterback didn’t take the exchange any further.
Swearing under his breath, he left.
Dylan watched as the Nova roared to life, peeling out of the driveway and spitting gravel across the parched front lawn.
Angel pulled the last load of laundry from the washing machine, humming an unnamed tune as she carried the basket outside into the morning sunshine.
On a day like today, clothes dried faster on the line, which was good, because the dryer quit last week. It couldn’t keep up with her brothers, who’d never met a mud puddle they didn’t like, or her little sister, who loved to change clothes and play dress-up.
Her dad had taken all of her siblings to the movie theater in Chula Vista, so Angel had several hours to herself, a rarity on a Sunday. After she finished the laundry, she knew she should try to get some studying done. Since Yoli started kindergarten, Angel had been taking correspondence classes to complete her GED. She was no whiz kid like Dylan Phillips, and with only two years of high school under her belt, she had a lot of catching up to do before she felt confident she could pass the equivalency exam.
What she really wanted to do, rather than hit the books, was pull her acoustic guitar out of the closet and flesh out the melody that had been flirting with the back of her mind for the past few days. Enticed by the prospect of spending some quality time with her 12-string, she made haste as she hung up the sheets.
In addition to trying on and discarding every item in her closet on a regular basis, Yoli had taken to wetting the bed lately.
Angel smiled grimly around the clothespin in her mouth. She disliked the extra work, but appreciated the fact that she no longer shared a bed with her sister.
When a shadow appeared on the other side of the sheet, showing the outline of a man, taller than her brothers or her father, she stumbled back a step. Her legs got tangled up with the laundry basket and she went down hard, landing on her butt in the dirt.
Dylan Phillips towered over her. The sun behind his head and the sudden tears in her eyes made it difficult for her to read his expression.
“Did you fuck Chad Pinter?”
A surge of anger replaced her fear. After a question like that, she didn’t need to see his eyes to know his mood. She glanced toward the house, wishing her father, and his shotgun, were home. “That’s none of your business,” she said, rising to her feet. He didn’t offer to help her up, and she was certain now that she’d made the right decision in spurning him.
Of course, he took her response as an admission. “You-you said you weren’t looking for a boyfriend,” he sputtered.
She dusted off her stinging backside. “I’m not.”
“You said you wanted someone older,” he continued, incredulous. “He’s younger and more immature than I am!”
“Yes,” she agreed, shuddering.
Dylan closed the distance between them, taking her upper arms in his hands. His fingertips burned into her bare skin as his blue eyes searched hers. “Did he…” His throat worked convulsively. “Did he force you?”
Her emotions welled up, too close to the surface. She felt the absurd longing to rest her head against his chest and cry. Denying herself, and him, she held her body stiff in his arms. “No,” she said, her tone bitter. “I knew what I was doing.”
And she had.
She’d known exactly what she was doing the night she accepted a ride from Chad, and she understood what he expected from her in return. He suggested they park at the Graveyard, and she accepted, knowing just what he wanted.
He’d been taking sips from a pint-size bottle of whisky, and so had she, but neither of them were drunk. She wished she had been.
It was Christmas, and Mama hadn’t sent any gifts, or a single card, or bothered to make one simple phone call.
Angel held herself together throughout the festivities, putting on a smile for her siblings, waiting until everyone else went to bed to call her mother. The conversation had been brief, but devastating. A baby wailed in the background. Angel’s new sister.
She hadn’t even known her mother was pregnant.
Angel remembered running down Calle Remolino in her best dress, tears streaming down her face, breath puffing out in the cold night air. When Chad pulled up in his Chevy Nova, she’d jumped at the chance to go somewhere else. Do something else.
At the Graveyard, he didn’t even have to make the first move. She was the one who had slid her hand along the nape of his neck and brought his lips to hers. And although she hadn’t liked the way he’d kissed her, shoving his tongue too far into her mouth, or the way he’d touched her, with rough, fumbling hands, she’d encouraged him. Desperate for it to be over, she’d torn at his clothes. When he moved away from her to put on a condom, she’d almost lost her nerve. Then he was stretching out on top of her again, pushing into her, hurting her.
She’d cried out and shoved at his shoulders, changing her mind in an instant, but he’d merely held her arms over her head and continued. Tears had rolled down her cheeks, and she’d prayed for him to finish quickly, but she’d ceased struggling and she hadn’t said no.
She never told him no.
