Boys & Things

twelve

There’s a big cloud of smoke that smells rancid. As it fades, I can see a bright green Charger fly around the street corner. I blink. My body goes numb and I can’t move. Everything is swirling. Breathe, EJ, breathe. But the air smells like exhaust and it tastes even worse. My body inhales anyway, a sharp, deep breath that burns my throat and makes me cough.

Henry is gone. Someone took him. Henry is gone.

I feel a body beside me. “They picked an awful getaway car,” Tate says. Tears spring to my eyes and I’m coughing and crying and I can’t breathe. The edges of my vision get black. I’m pretty sure I’m hyperventilating but it’s like I’m not connected to my body. “Whoa, are you okay?” I think I manage to shake my head. The next thing I know, I’m sitting on the curb and Tate is forcing my head between my knees. I fight him at first but then give up. After a few moments, everything clears. Fresh air feels like a godsend in my lungs. I wait until my breathing is semi-normal before I look up at Tate.

He’s not looking at me. It’s not in a mean way. More like he’s trying to give me privacy and still make sure I’m okay. For now, I’m grateful that he can’t see my red eyes. Tate is perhaps the hottest guy on the planet and on a good day, I barely meet subpar. And it’s always my luck that I see him when I look like the monster that hides in the closet. Or a 13-year-old boy in the closet.

“I know that car,” Tate says after a moment of silence. He looks at me. “It’s Xavier Juarez’s.” I know Xavier. He’s one of the guys who used to pick on Colin. Before Colin got bigger than him. He’s a scary Mexican football player who doesn’t know any Spanish beyond the obligatory “hola”. But I’ve never seen that car before. He normally rides a motorcycle. “We’ll get Henry back.”

I look Tate in the eye. “You already lied about helping me with Colin,” I say, getting up. Blood rushes from my head and my vision fuzzes for a second before clearing up. “So stop lying. You don’t help anybody but yourself.” I start to walk towards Xavier’s house. Everyone knows where he lives; his parties are legendary. And even though I’ve never been to one (or been invited for that matter; I’m a leper) I’ve seen enough flyers with his address emblazoned in dark ink to know where it is. There’s only one East Fresia Ct in the whole town.

Tate jogs to catch up to me. “EJ,” he says. He grabs my arm. I wrench it from his grasp but I stop and look at him. “I’m sorry for lying to you about Colin. If I could help, I would. But I wouldn’t even know where to start.” I put my hands on my hips and wait for him to get to the point. The sun blazes down on us and I’m aware that once again, I brilliantly forgot sunscreen. “But I can help with this.”

I give him a wary look. “Oh, yeah? How?”

“I know where Xavier lives,” he says.

“Big deal. I know that, too.”

“I have a plan.”

“You do?”

He hesitates. “I will,” he says. I start walking again. “EJ, wait! Give me a minute. I’ll figure something out.” I cross my arms over my chest. My heart is still thumping a little faster than normal and sweat is prickling on my skin. My brain is going too fast and as a result, everything is slower.

“You have one minute,” I tell him. “Actually, less than that.” Because I’m starting to get nervous. I look in the direction the car sped off in. Relax. You know where Xavier lives. You’ll get Henry back. Don’t worry. “Time’s up.”

“Wait! I-I got it.” I raise my eyebrows, waiting. “Okay, so I’ll go inside and see what’s up. Xavier and I aren’t friends, technically, but we’ve partied together and we have similar circles.” To be honest, I don’t know what “circle” Tate is in. He doesn’t have good friends, just people he knows. People invite him to things and hang out with him because he’s cool but, thinking back on it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him hang out with anyone one-on-one, and never more than once or twice. “If it’s something swingable, I’ll text you and you can just grab Henry from the backyard, no problem,” Tate says.

“And if it’s not ‘swingable’?”

“Then we go to plan B.”

“What’s plan B?”

He tells me. “Oh. Okay. Can we just do plan B from the get-go?”

“No,” Tate says. We start walking about. “I don’t want to resort to that unless we absolutely have to.” I roll my eyes but don’t push the matter. It’s not far to Xavier’s house. Everyone lives relatively close to the park; our town isn’t a city. The only people who live anyone else are the people in the trailer park on the outskirts of town and all the farmers.

“Do you really think this will work?” I ask as we walk to Xavier’s house. “Plan A, I mean.” We enter the richer part of the neighborhood. All the houses in this part of town are mini-mansions. Three story brick wonder houses with fancy yards and prize-winning flowers. The costs of tending those flowers is matched only by the gas-guzzling cars that sit in their driveway. Where the wives have their flowers, the husbands have their flashy automobiles. The most popular car I can see are those new Chargers and Challengers. But there’s a few Hummers thrown in and some old school vintage cars in mint condition. I can’t help but admire them as we walk pass.

We turn a corner. “It’s kind of a long shot,” he admits, “but we have to try.”

“And plan B? Could we pull that off?” I’m skeptical of both plans but at least plan B involves me getting even.

“Sure. With my brains and your… uh, you, what could go wrong?” I shoot him a glare but he winks at me. The memory of the kiss flashes through my head and I look away. Tate Armstrong is a dick. It doesn’t matter that he’s the most amazing kisser ever. He’s still the most dickish dick ever.

At the end of the street, I can see Xavier’s bright green car. There’s some other cars in the driveway and parked on the street. But Xavier’s car is free and clear. Which is exactly what we were hoping for.

When we’re about three houses down, Tate pulls me into the side yard of a particularly fancy mini-mansion with an overflowing garden of flowers I can’t even name. It’s a good hiding place, minus the lady across the street who’s watering her grass and shooting us suspicious glances. Tate runs over the plans again and reminds me of what I need to do, should plan B have to come into effect. “That would be stealing stealing,” I tell him, not all that unhappily. He stole from me first, after all. I just want to make sure that Tate is okay with the whole idea.

“Don’t think of it as ‘stealing’, think of it as… ‘extreme borrowing’.” I roll my eyes. “And anyways, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“I hope it does,” I mutter under my breath. “That bastard deserves it.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Go forth, my child, and reconnaissance on.”

Now it’s Tate’s turn to roll his eyes but he leaves me to crouch alone in a flower bed.

Tate strolls up to Xavier’s front door and knocks. After a few moments, the door opens. I can hear Henry barking inside and my heart lurches. I want to run to him but I can’t. If Henry’s inside, that probably means that plan B will be a go and if I blow my cover, then the plan is ruined. So as much as it kills me, I stay behind the recycle bin. As soon as Tate crosses the threshold of the house, I pull out my phone to wait. It only takes a few seconds before it goes off.

Plan B. You sure you can do this?

Just make sure you don’t fuck up in there.


I glance over that the lady. She’s definitely watching me. But it’s not like I can go up and be all, “No, I’m not about to steal anything, I’m actually just smelling the flowers.” We don’t have that kind of time. So I close my eyes, take a deep breath, run through the instructions in my head, and sprint towards Xavier’s car. We thought about going after the motorcycle but ix-nayed that idea pretty quickly. The woman across the street runs into her house and I know that she’s calling the cops, or worse, Xavier.

I open up my cell phone and call Tate as I work the ruler in between the window and the door. But then I notice that the door’s unlocked. I throw open the door just as Tate answers.

“Get out,” I say breathlessly. “The lady across the street saw me and I think she’s calling the cops. Or Xavier. So hurry up, I’m almost done.” I snap my phone close and toss it on the seat. I brush the wires together until I hear the car start. Tate closes the door calmly behind him, waving over his shoulder and then runs to the car. He’s just getting in when the door flies open and Xavier’s standing there, breathing fire.

“Go, go!” Tate yells. I step on the gas and the car lurches forward into the one in front of us. Shit. “Do you know how to drive?!” I put the car in reverse and skid out of the driveway. The back end smacks into his other neighbor’s trashcan and spills the contents all over the road. Xavier runs towards us but we’re already racing down the road. “The fuck was that?!”

“I’m sorry, okay!” I scream at him. Tate grips the handle with one hand and repeatedly runs his fingers through his hair. I went through driver’s ed but that was, like, a year ago, and I failed my driving test. After I flunked it, I didn’t want to try anymore so I just didn’t. I don’t go anywhere in the car so I haven’t exactly been keeping up with my skills. But hey, like riding a bike, right? As I take a corner, the wheel pops the curb. Well. Maybe not like a bike, per se. Tate inhales sharply.

Just as Tate said before, this isn’t a very inconspicuous getaway car. It’s bright green and a hot Charger. Plus Xavier owns it so that’s probably like a thousand dollars’ worth of security on this car. If only Xavier had thought to lock it.

“Where are we going?” I say after we’re a few miles away. I glance in the rearview mirror every five seconds, sure that there will be police sirens wailing behind me any minute. But nothing shows up.

“Just keep driving.” Tate’s voice is all tight. I risk a second to glance over at him and find he’s white as a sheet. The hand that’s not holding on to the handle for dear life is clenched in a fist. His face is shiny with sweat. I think of how he was polite to me when I was freaking out so I don’t say anything. I just drive.
♠ ♠ ♠
some of this is old
a lot of it is new
the entire next chapter will be new
merp i'm excited

also if anyone wants to fangirl over teen wolf with me, please feel free
i love fangirling