And then that hot day in April came, when the spark happened, when that intangible shift in the universe occurred as he did tricks just a few feet away from where I was sitting on the steps. I’d been thinking about it for a while now, but it felt like the right time. I convinced the boys to let him come with us on one of our freeway rides after school. They readily agreed. They’d watched him do his board tricks and light up fat blunts during lunch and before school for weeks on end, smoking right under security’s noses. Naturally he’d hang out with us, they said.
Naturally, my ass. It was my idea.
“What did you really do?” Max asked him the first time he came out for a ride. The air that day was thick with exhaust fumes that got stuck inside your throat. Connor sped ahead of him to do a few wheelies. Max pedaled hard to catch up, his sweat-soaked Looney Tunes shirt sticking to his back, his dark hair matted against his neck. I trailed behind, just close enough to hear them.
“What do you mean?” asked Connor. He kept his focus ahead, on something across the horizon. Max panted like a bulldog and pedaled faster, nearly running over a spare tire on the side of the road.
“At your old school,” Toby broke in, a familiar sneer on his face. “St. Francis. Don’t play dumb, man. You know what people say.”
Connor squinted up at the burning blue sky, rolling his neck around. I watched his jaw clench up, the square muscle pulsing. “People say a lot of things, don’t they?”
I cleared my throat to let the guys know I had this. “Just a couple things about getting kicked out and all that.” I paused to see how he’d react. “Breaking the principal’s nose, you know…”
Connor’s face remained unreadable. “If I had touched the principal’s nose, would I even be walking around right now?”
Max was gasping for breath at that point, trying with all his might to ride as fast as Connor. “So, is any of it true?”
I opened my mouth to say something else, but Connor did a quick circle around us before pedaling fast ahead, trailing dirt and dust behind him as he rode into the edge of the sun.
2.
Max was sweating bullets and the car hadn’t even pulled up yet.
Toby and I stood watch, hands in our pockets, trying to assume an air of nonchalance. A James Dean casual, cool, don’t-fuck-with-me stance. Usually we did these deals alone, under the cover of dusk, but Toby had insisted Max come at least once and stop being such a pussy about the whole ordeal.
“Do we have to do it here?” Max whined. He wiped his face on his Star Trek t-shirt and pulled his beanie down over his face. Toby yanked it off his head.
“Cut it out,” Toby growled. “I told you if you wanted to come, you had to be cool about it.”
I gave Max a pat on the back. “It’ll be fine, man. Just relax.”
Max cracked his knuckles like he always did when he was nervous and took a deep breath. He tried his best to turn his face to cold, uncaring stone. The Shop N’ Save parking lot was just off the freeway, the roar of engines and occasional honks of angry drivers echoing across the wide expanse of concrete. It was cooler now that the sun was beginning to set, the sky a blend of buttery yellow and smashed orange.
I checked my watch. Toby glanced over his shoulder, then stiffened suddenly, nodding in the direction of the store.
Jess was here. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She was trailed by Anna and Lizzie, her two faithful, pretty-girl companions, and something about her was different. The bounce in her step was still there, the girlish way she popped her bubblegum and twirled her hair—yes, that was it! Her once raven-colored hair was now a bright, platinum blonde.
It was just hair, just hair, I kept telling myself, girls always change their hair, but for some reason it made me feel itchy all over, like when someone pronounces your last name wrong and you really want to correct them. She looked like a piece of candy, a bright, sunny popsicle. She looked like all the other bimbo girls at our school.
She looked like her fucking sister.
“Hey boys!” Anna called out. She wrapped an arm around Max, and he blushed the color of his scarlet beanie that Toby was now pulling apart by the threads.
“What you up to?” Lizzie asked. Every time she spoke, it made me think of a wind-up toy, dizzy and spinning and squeaking.
Jess smiled at me, the secret Jess-and-Jack smile, the smile she usually gave me when we were alone in her room or my room playing Xbox or smoking pot or staring up at the ceiling, talking about our darkest fears and secrets and dreams of escape from this shitty little town. She couldn’t be here. The car would pull up any minute, they’d see the girls, the girls would see them, and the whole world would explode.
“Nothing, just business,” Toby said, leaning into Lizzie. She rolled her eyes and shot a knowing look at the girls. What the hell was he doing flirting now? Didn’t he see how precarious this situation was?
“Five minutes, Tobe,” I said, but it came out more like a cough. The girls frowned at me in confusion. Toby just shrugged. My eyes kept falling back on the freeway, watching for that one, burnt orange SUV to pull up any second now. For now, I could only see a blur of beige and black and white speeding down the road. Why did everyone pick the same damn color for their car?
“So, who wants pizza?” Max asked. “I’m really hungry. Matter of fact, I could definitely
