Page 2 of Rival Season
“On it.” I pull out my phone, which is hooked up to the loft’s Bluetooth speaker system, and put on an old school rap playlist at top volume.
Cassie whoops in delight, immediately belting out at the top of her lungs, remembering every word of the song…which probably came out before either of us was even born.
My first car—a beat up piece of shit that I worked three part time jobs around my schoolwork for almost two years to be able to afford—was so ancient, it had a cassette player. Which had an old rap mix cassette jammed in it. The car’s radio was broken, too, so Cassie and I ended up listening to a whole lot of DMX and Tupac that year when I drove her to the middle school every morning.
Probably not the best listening material for a ten-year-old in hindsight, but it’s still one of the rare memories from our childhood that makes me smile.
“What’s first?” I yell over the pounding bass of the music.
“Grab the sauce!” She yells back, shimmying to the music as she opens all the cupboards, finally pulling out a big pot.
I grab a jar of marinara and twist the lid off, just as Cassie comes up behind me and accidentally knocks into me, jostling my arm.
“Agh!” She yells as a shower of tomato gunk slops out, somehow splattering the floor, the walls, and my crisp white t-shirt all at once.
I laugh. “If this isn’t some kind of sign that I don’t need to learn to cook, I don’t know what is. Can we order takeout now?”
“Since when do you give up after one minor setback?”
“True.” I look down at my sauce-covered shirt and shrug. “I’ll get changed and we’ll continue this disaster then. But you can explain to Noah, Ally, and Fisher when they get home later that the crime scene in the kitchen was your idea.”
“They’ll blame you anyway,” Cassie says with a smirk.
We both know she’s right.
I go to my bedroom and then pull off my shirt and dispose of it in the trash can. No way that’s salvageable.
As I’m reaching into my closet for a clean one—black this time, to avoid any further spaghetti stains—the doorbell rings.
And rings again, and again.
I only hear it over the music because it pings through to my phone. We recently had a high-tech security system installed in the loft, after a guy who had hurt Ally in the past turned up in San Francisco and started harassing her. Noah and Fisher ran the asshole out of town, but we decided an extra layer of security in the loft wouldn’t hurt—especially as Ally is home alone when we travel to away games. It’s an added bonus that we can now pre-check who’s at the door…and I already have a good idea who might be ringing the doorbell so aggressively.
I pause the music and open the security app on my phone and smile at the sight of 2B—the woman who lives below us—standing in the hallway, hands on her hips.
“Hey Cass, can you get that?” I yell. I don’t want her to leave before I can mess with her a little.
“Sure,” she calls back, and as I’m reaching for a T-shirt, I hear the front door to the loft open.
“Where is he?” 2B’s irritation is so clear, I hear it all the way from the bedroom. It makes me smile that she doesn’t even bother with a “hello.”
“Where’s who?” Confusion peppers Cassie’s tone, and I walk out to the hallway, my clean shirt still in my hand, so I can eavesdrop for a minute before making an appearance.
“Any of the meatheads who live here will do,” my downstairs neighbor clips. “But I’m going to go ahead and assume the smirky one with the tattoos is responsible for this—when it’s noisy up here, it always seems to have something to do with him,” the woman huffs. I wish I could see her right now. I caneasily imagine her sour expression, a reddish flush painting her cheeks to illustrate her frustration.
“He’s just getting changed, but I can grab him for you?”
“No. Don’t do that.” 2B’s harshness softens a little in the face of Cassie’s kindness. “Just…tell your boyfriend to keep it down.”
“Definitely not my boyfriend.” Cassie’s voice has gone from sounding confused to downright amused now.
“Of course he’s not.” My neighbor sighs. “Let me rephrase: tell that insufferable guy you’re ‘just hooking up with’ to keep it down.”
“Um, what? No. Ew,” Cassie starts to sputter, and I take that as my cue to round the corner and stalk towards our red front door with a gold-embossed 3B at the top that’s currently wide open. For no reason other than to mess with my annoying-but-hot downstairs neighbor, I don’t bother to put my shirt on first.
“Bubbles, what a pleasant surprise,” I say as I let my eyes travel lazily up and down the tall, willowy length of the girl from 2B. Today, she’s dressed in a preppy blue and gray plaid skirt paired with a navy sweatshirt. She’s wearing a white collared dress shirt underneath like the sweatshirt was too casual on its own. While her outfit is perfectly neat and put-together, she’s wearing her glasses and has about three pencils threaded in her messy bun, holding her wild brown curls back. “Looking extra bubbly today, I see,” I add with a smile, and her green eyes narrow as she scowls back at me.
“Put a shirt on, Playboy,” 2B snaps. “I don’t want to talk to your bare chest.”
