Page 80 of No Saint
“Fuck you, Zepp!” The fridge slammed shut before Hendrix stormed back into the room. “I’m drinking your soda, you capitalist traitor. And you…” His eyes narrowed on me. “Weirdo isn’t ringing your bell tower if I have anything to do with it.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and headed to the stairs.
“I don’t even know what he’s up to.”
Zepp chuckled to himself. “Ah, don’t worry about dickhead. He’s been extra moody since Lola started working. Let’s go get the beer and take selfies with One-eyed Gerald to really piss off Hendrix.”
We picked up beer and a yard flamingo. Hendrix was like a toddler. Give him a present and he forgets all past transgressions. We set up the house for the party, Hendrix propping the flamingo he’d named Carl the Second against the boarded-up fireplace. People slowly trickled in, and with each passing hour, the music pumping through the speakers grew louder. By the time I’d downed five beers, the living room was packed. Aside from there being no half-naked girls dancing on the sofa, it didn’t feel that much different than the parties Zepp had thrown in high school. With no parents to bitch about trashing their house, theirs were the parties everyone wanted to come to.
Hendrix shoved his way through the crowd, Carl the Second tucked under his arm. He stopped beside me and belched in my ear.
Fucking idiot. He was never going to grow up. I shoved him hard enough that he collided with the person behind him. “Asshole. You could have wounded Carl.” He stroked the plastic bird’s head. “And to think, I was coming to show you the pack offresh meat I invited just for your stumpy ass.” He jutted his chin toward the entrance.
My attention drifted to the group of girls at the front of the room. All in skin-tight clothes and enough makeup to make a hooker look like a virgin. That was his plan to keep Jade from “ringing my bell tower.”
“Dude, I’m not?—”
“Don’t give me that load of horseshit. I’m trying to save your ass from certain Medusa-tainted doom.”
Lola wedged herself between us. “Why am I a Medusa now?”
“Not you. Weirdo.”
She glanced at me. “Jade?”
I gave a nod as I lifted my beer to my lips.
“Ah, you guys were so good together.”
Hendrix’s eyes looked like they were going to explode out of his head. “No, the fuck they were not. He’s lucky she didn’t sacrifice him to her goat god or some crap back in high school.” He pointed at me. “He went all sniveling pussy after they started doing whatever it was they were doing. She’s Queen Medusa of Weirdos and?—”
“Seeing as I’m your ‘Medusa,’ those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
Hendrix’s head snapped to the side, his glare aimed at his girlfriend. “You’re a different breed of Medusa. Doesn’t count.”
It had counted for two whole damn years when anytime we mentioned Lola’s name, Hendrix would sucker punch the shit out of us.
“If you say so. Just save the man the emotional turmoil.” She thumbed toward the group of girls. “And the STDs.”
“Are you telling me youwanthim to be with Weirdo? The girl who took a shit all over his heart like some cheap litter box!” Hendrix scratched his feet over the floor. “Just like that.” Hendrix grabbed my shoulders and shoved me forward. “Goforth and spread your stumpy seed. Earn those pimp stripes back, you Quasimodo-fuck!”
Stopping Hendrix when he was on one of his rants was as likely as stopping a metric ton of shit from rolling down a hill. “Yeah. Okay.” I turned toward the kitchen. “But you know I’m not into blondes.” My gaze drifted to Lola. “No offense,” I said, then headed through the kitchen onto the back porch.
People crowded the small space. I couldn’t handle one more person asking me why I wasn’t at the game—everyone from around here knew I played for State, knew I shouldn’t be here on a game day.
I grabbed a beer from one of the coolers strewn around the porch, then made my way down the steps, toward the rickety old trampoline.
The rusted springs underneath the faded protective padding groaned when I hopped my ass onto them. From there, I could see the party. People I had gone to school with, drinking and laughing. All of them stuck in Dayton and not seeming to mind. Like they’d accepted their fate and settled with it. Zepp had. Hendrix had. Tipping my drink back, I wondered how the hell I’d manage if I ended up back here in this shithole, living, if I was lucky enough, paycheck to paycheck.
Another sip, and I lay back on the still-warm-from-the-long-gone-Alabama-sun trampoline, staring up at the night sky through the thicket of pine trees overhead. Peace. My dad said all a man needed in his life was peace, and it was easy enough to think about the peace money could bring. Get a degree. Get drafted and…peace. But some part of me was starting to think that maybe there was more to that serenity than cash.
“Money can’t buy happiness, but poverty can’t buy anything.”
A burst of laughter drifted from the party, and I turned my head in the direction of the porch. No one here had a pot to pissin, and yet, when I looked at them crowded together, swaying in beat with the music and smiling…they seemed happy.
I had been happy here. Happiest with Jade. That thought snuck in without permission, and damn if it didn’t make my drunk mind wander. If I got myself straightened out and got drafted, what were the possibilities? A house in The Hills, a Lamborghini parked up front. First class to Tahiti, Paris—places I’d never heard of… Money could buy all of that pre-packaged, forced-down-your-throat happiness. Until last week, I’d believed that would be enough to make me happy. Now, the only person I saw in that house, those cars, the airplane seat beside me, was Jade. Take her out of the equation, and well—another swig of beer—it didn’t seem so damn happy. Just lonely. Like I was right then. Like, if I were being honest, I had been since I’d lost her. I thought about Jade, sitting alone in her room after her parents had gone to bed. I wondered how her dad was.
She’d never blocked me, hadn’t cut me out, which made me feel like less of a pussy when I took my phone and shot off a text, asking her what she was doing.
Watching the news
