Page 8 of Riot Rules
God, I hate my father. Like, fucking HATE him.
“NOW, LOVETT! Get your Limey ass down here, man! I ain’t fuckin’ around.”
I might hate Pax, too. Just a little bit.
The Edmondson Lacrosse team has plenty of reasons to paint a dick on our door. At some point, all three of us have done something to piss off the kids at the neighboring high school. Pax has fucked half of their cheerleading squad. Wren’s fucked the other half. I made it my business to fuck the lacrosse team captain’s girlfriend last semester, so—
Okay, okay. Fine. Hindsight.I’mat least seventy percent responsible for the sloppy blue dick that was painted on our front door, but let’s not dwell on that, okay? We’re going to a party. I’m still ‘injured’, so I won’t be participating in tonight’s little escapade. My job is to provide moral support and keep an eye out to make sure we don’t get busted. I can handle that. Be nice if we could all just stay at home, polish off a bottle of whiskey and play Xbox, though; these Edmondson parties are the worst.
In the car, pulling up to the farmhouse, Pax is so geared up that I’m waiting for him to break out a map and start talking about pincer moves. Neither of his parents are in the military, but he plays way too muchCall of Duty. “Okay, Wren. Divide and conquer. The moment we’re through the front door, we separate. I take the upstairs. You take the ground floor. Once we find our mark, we take care of business and then get the fuck out of dodge. Lovett, you see anything suspect and you text us both 911. You got it?”
“Yeah. I got it.” Sarcasm 101, boys and girls. I roll my eyes. “Thank you for the fifteen-thousandth recap. I know what I’m supposed to do.”
Pax rolls up to the house and finds a spot in the make-shift parking lot slash field at the back of the house. He kills the Charger’s engine andlooksat me; this is the Pax Davis trademarklook. The one he uses to disembowel his enemies. He opens his mouth, no doubt about to say something scathing and salty, but then he pauses. He gives me a once over and his nose wrinkles, like he’s just registered the tang of something spoiled in the air. “Yo, what are youwearing?”
“What?” I run my hands over the front of my black bomber jacket. “I’ve had this for ages.” This is not a lie. I’ve owned the jacket, the t-shirt and the jeans for well over a year. I’ve just never worn any of them.
“You look like you’re trying to fit in,” Pax says disapprovingly.
“That’s the point. Was I s’posed to show up in a button-down and an ascot? I’m sure I’d have gonetotallyunnoticed wearing a Tom Ford suit to a fucking kegger.”
He snarls. Wren, who’s been staring up at the farmhouse, huffs loudly. “Come on. Let’s go.” I had hoped he might put a pin in this nonsense, but I should have known better. He thrives on this kind of chaos.
The three of us get out of the Charger. The smell of smoke and cooking meat floats down the slope from the house, and my stomach rumbles, reminding me that I forgot to eat earlier. Doesn’t matter, though. Fingers crossed, we’ll be out of here within the next hour and we can grab some food fromScreamin’ Beanson the way home.
These thoughts are all background noise. I’m still stewing over Pax’s commentary on my clothes. Itwasintentional, my choice of attire for tonight’s outing. Yeah, I wanted to make sure I didn’t stick out like a sore thumb, and I have a way of doing that a lot of the time. But…Christ, the comment Carrie Mendoza made at the hospital four days ago lodged itself inside my head and has been rattling around in there ever since, irritating the shit out of me.
I own regular clothes.
Informal clothes.
Clothes that werenotsent from Brooks Brothers of London, in neat garment bags to save them from getting rumpled.
At leasthalfof my clothes are casual.
Yeah, your workout clothes,a smug voice reminds me.
Asshole.
“Okay. This is gonna be a shit fight, so be ready,” Pax says. “Half the fuckers at this party are on that lacrosse team. They’re gonna raise hell if they find out that we’re stepping onto their turf. You both know what that means, right?”
Some people are always ready for disaster. Some people are always prepared for an emergency. Pax Davis is always ready for a brawl. His hands are fists more often than they’re not. His teeth are permanently bared at the world.
“Means I should be back at the house, in my bed, with an ice pack resting on my dick. If I tear my stitches—”
“Stitch,” Wren corrects me.
“—I’m gonna be livid. And not just a little bit. A whole lot.”
Pax frowns at Wren. “Has he always been like this? I don’t remember him being such a little bitch.”
I have him pinned up against the side of the car in a flash, a handful of his shirt in my fist, my forearm across his throat, cutting off his air supply. “If you’re that keen for a fight, all you had to do was say so, man. It’ll be really annoying, having to go get fixed up at the hospital again, but it might just be worth it if they end up admittingyou, too.”
“For fuck’s sake. You’re both fucking ridiculous.” Wearing a very bored expression, Wren peels me off Pax, sighing as he corrals me up the hill toward the party. “We’re here to bait Edmondson, not each other. We don’t need to bring any of this bullshit back toourhouse. Yeah?” He looks at me, eyes hard. He’s expecting an answer, so I give him one.
“You know me. I’ll probably be ordained Pope when the current one dies.”
Satisfied, he nods. “Andyou? You’re going to behave?”
