Page 50 of Road Queens
“It’s not about my memory; it’s about how you, Sean Beane, are walking around with a target between your eyes until you change your name.”Your beautiful dark eyes.
“Is that what it’s about? Because I’m not following your, ah, logic.”
She waved away his irrelevant comment. “Like I said, we met a bazillion years ago. We clicked, we came to be best friends, the end.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A bazillion years ago ...
“Ow! Fuck! Get off me!”
“Let go. Leave her alone.”
Amanda froze in the act of rooting through her backpack. The first voice, that was Sid whatever-her-last-name-was. The other one—New Girl? Hard to tell; she didn’t talk much. But who else would be dim enough to jump into ... into whatever it was?
Rather than her usual oh-my-God-I’m-late-I’m-late-stupid-snooze-button White Rabbit–inspired gallop up the steps that led to the school’s double doors, Amanda pivoted
(Enh, what’s one more tardy? I’ll tell the ’rents I was framed. Or doing a good deed. Something.)
and followed the voice around the corner to the parking lot.
Smoker kids picking on somebody again. Ugh, think they’ve figured out they’re clichés yet? And how do they not have frostbite? It’s twenty degrees, and every one of them thinks winter-weather-appropriate clothes are uncool.
Just as she got close, she saw Jeff Manners
(Ugh.)
in his winter getup
(Vestwithsleeves, T-shirt, faded jeans.)
hanging on to Sidney’s wrist (“Get thefuckoff me!”) and the new girl
(Whoa, tall.)
walking right up to him. Zero hesitation.
Before she could say anything, Jeff jerked Sidney’s wrist close to him, hocked a loogie into her palm, then slammed it against the streetlight
(Ewww ewww ewwwwwww!)
where it stuck fast.
“Later, bitches.”
Walking, talking cliché. Jesus wept.
“Don’t run off just yet,” the new girl said with a smile, then stepped into Manners so they were chest to chest. Well, boobs to neck. Which was bad. People underestimated Manners’s pure viciousness because he wasn’t much bigger than a fire hydrant. Unfortunately, he was three-fifths stone muscle, one-fifth belligerence, and one-fifth loogie. And he never minded mixing it up.
Ask Lane Carlson, who had four inches and twenty pounds on Manners; Jeff managed to break his wrist anyway. No basketball for Lane last season. It was a miracle the squat shithead wasn’t expelled and indicted.
“‘Don’t run off’? No time now, bitch, but I’ll fuck you after.”
New Girl’s smile widened, and she brought her knee up. Hard. Manners hit the pavement like he’d been tossed from the roof, and Sidney started laughing so hard, she almost lost her balance, pinned in one place as she was.
“Jeez, that’s nasty,” the new girl—Cara? Cassie?—said, motioning to Sidney’s hand, still stuck like a fly in glue.
“Realnasty,” Sidney chortled. “Keep up the good work.”
