Page 11 of We Shouldn't Be Together
“You’re running your mouth,” Jamie says like the top dog she is.
“Did you really just question whether Jamie had Kai’s back?” Tyler asks with a silent laugh.
As I watch Lewis wince and rub his arm more than I did when my wound was fresh, I almost forget Milo’s in the room.
My brother moves behind my armchair on the way to his bedroom. “Back flipping?” Milo mumbles.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s nothing,” I mutter, selecting my character from the setup menu.
“Sounds really freaking stupid,” his voice trails toward his bedroom.
I look over my shoulder at him. “For the record, I made the flip. I just landed on the edge of my skateboard and it up-ended.” I place my hand over the bandage. “I cut my arm on a cement corner, and it punctured me.”
Letting go of his cat, who escapes into his bedroom, Milo winces like he’s sorry he asked. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
I groan and turn back to the TV. “Ugh. Piss off, you loser.”
“Does this have to be so loud?” Milo complains.
Hearing him pad his way toward my bedroom, I bark, “Don’t even think about touching the stereo.”
Parker and Lewis burst into laughter at my words, and on cue, Milo slams his door shut.
After we select our characters, Jamie hits pause as our game begins. She leans forward, eyeballing me. “How come it’s so easy for you to tell that story when,” she taps the spot below her eye where my scar is, “you can’t fess up about how this happened?”
I shrug, hitting the pause button to start the game. “Because you guys can’t handle that story.”
“Oh, boo!” Parker grumbles, and Tyler throws a pillow at me.
I bat it off. “Hey! Injured man here.”
“Stop it with the sob story,” Jamie says, sitting forward as she moves her character. “I’d be beating you right now, stitches or no stitches.”
I press the buttons in the combo move I googled during one of the boring classes at school. “James, you’re deluded.”
She sits so far forward that I’m waiting to hear a thud. “Watch me!”
Okay, looks like she’s done some googling too. But I watched a gameplay of the moves she’s pulling, and I know how to beat them.
“You guys have gotta learn,” I say, pummeling Jamie’s character into the ground. “I can beat every single one of you with one arm compromised.”
They all groan dismissively, and when a winner banner flies across my character, I turn to face Jamie, and she mirrors my grin.
“Best of three?” she suggests.
Another round of groans circles the room when I tell her it’s on. The guys know from experience that when Jamie and I get competitive, an afternoon easily turns into a very long night.
3
AsIstandonMain Street, after school, I’m thankful for the text from my brother. “I gotta go,” I tell my friends. “Mom wants me home ASAP.”
Camila scoffs, popping her hip. “But you said you’d come with me when I try on that red dress at Cynthia’s Boutique. You need to help me decide if my hair should be up or down when I wear it.”
It’s like the fifth time she’s trying on that dress. She’s been waiting for her dad to get back to town so he can pay for it. But it’s almost five o’clock, and it was horrendous enough surviving school with these two sniping at me.
“I’d love to,” I say, placing a hand on the space above my heart. “But Freddy made it sound urgent.”
Yvie lifts on the balls of her feet, grinning. “Freddy’s coming?”
