Page 14 of All the Ugly Things
“She’s telling you you’re hurting her, Josh.”
“Out of my way, Malloy. I’m taking her home.”
“She want to go home with you?”
“No,” I growled and kicked Josh in the shin. He wobbled back enough he let go of my arm but he was fast. One of the state’s best high school quarterbacks. He already had offers for college. Full-ride scholarships. There was talk of him being the next Brett Favre, which pissed off Chicagoland’s Bears Fans.
“She’s my sister, dick,” Josh said, hands fisted and looking ready to charge Keaton. “And I’m taking her home. She’s only a freshman.”
Kill me. Kill me now.Had a hole in the ground opened and swallowed me whole, I wouldn’t have minded.
He glanced at me quickly and then dismissed me with a shrug. “My bad. You get my concern though, yeah?”
“Fuck off, Malloy. You got my keys in that bag?”
I’d noticed it on the way in and he had two straps wrapped around his shoulders now. If you drove, you handed over your keys. Keaton’s parents might not have cared about the parties, but that was their one rule. Any drivers who drank crashed in their rec room.
“You been drinking?”
“Anyone else going to get my sister home?”
Keaton sighed and looked beautiful doing it. He was a senior, varsity running back. He and Josh didn’t hang out much unless it was places like this I guessed, but I hadn’t spent a lot of time around him. I didn’t blame him for not knowing who I was. Up until this year, I’d been a middle schooler. Who paid attention to little kids?
But I wasn’t a little kid now, and Josh was ruining my chance to grow up.
“How many have you had? You good? Swear it?”
“Yeah, I swear it.”
“Or, we could stay and keep having fun.”
Josh skewered with me a glare, making me feel about two feet tall. “No. You can go to parties like this in two years.”
I glanced at my brother then. Sweat lined his temple and his breath smelled like raccoons had died in his mouth.
“You sure you’re okay to drive, Josh?” I asked.
He’d been getting in trouble for drinking lately. Pretty sure Dad had busted him for other things too. He lost his car for a month and over spring break, he went somewhere to feel better.
When he came back, he’d put on weight and didn’t look so antsy. He told me he went to football training, but I wasn’t stupid. Dad had spent hours while he was gone screaming at my mom about how badly she screwed up in raising a son worth a damn outside of football and was throwing away his future. The rehab facility he went to was thrown out in the argument while I locked my bedroom door and huddled in the corner like a terrified child. But when Dad got pissed like that, no one was safe.
“I’m fine, Lilly.”
“Don’t make me regret this shit, Huntington.”
Keaton tossed Josh his keys, tagged with his name and Josh hauled me off toward his truck parked in the street.
“I hate you for this,” I muttered. There was no more point in fighting it.
“You’ll thank me someday. And promise me, you ever go to a party or place like this and need help, you’ll call me. I don’t give a shit where I am, I’ll always be there to take care of you, yeah?”
“Whatever.”
Josh stumbled and let go of my arm. He tripped over something in the yard and laughed a strange laugh as he righted himself.
“Damn. Where’d that come from?”
I didn’t see anything, but it didn’t matter, Josh shoved me playfully and then shouted, “Race you!”
