Page 14 of The King (Masterpiece Duet 1)
“Thought you had Fridays off.”
“Jessica’s baby has a fever.”
Brennan sighs. “We barely get to go out.”
Guilt rises inside me, because I kind of prefer it that way. Hanging out after school and making out on his couch. Every time we go to a party it’s another chance to take things further.
Brennan wants that. Maybe even deserves it, after being so patient. But I can’t give it to him. Can’t end up like Jessica with a baby. I don’t think Brennan would bail the way Jessica’s boyfriend did, but it’s too big of a risk.
I put my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t say no.” And I didn’t want to. “Besides, you know I need the money.”
Something flashes across his eyes. Frustration. Futility? “What will you make? Twenty bucks? I could give you that if you spent the night.”
My hand snatches back. “Excuse me, I’m not for sale.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I mean the job’s total shit and you know it.”
“Well it’s the only one I have.” I whirl away so he can’t see the hopelessness on my face. There’s only so much humiliation a girl can take in one evening. I stare out his window at the rows of dark windows, the broken bricks. The west side is a tumbled-down maze, not even fit for living, keeping us trapped.
There is no exit strategy. No way out.
Brennan’s arms wrap around me, slick and dirty with grease but comforting all the same. “I’m a fucking idiot,” he murmurs into my hair. “I know you’re doing the best you can.”
“I just want to…” Escape. Fly to the moon. “Graduate. Then we can make plans.”
“Okay,” he says, because he understands my desire to finish school. He has his GED and he’s studying to get certified as an automotive technician. He’s a high achiever among our friends. And he’ll never know that my dreams are so far beyond this.
That I long for the impossible.
“I should get going. I have to change first.”
He turns me in his arms, his strong hands warm with familiarity, painful with certainty. He presses a kiss to my mouth. I part my lips, and he takes the invitation, pressing his tongue inside, opening me. I let him, let him, let him. That’s all I know how to do anymore.
I like his kisses the same way I like boxed mac and cheese and my worn mattress at home. They mean I’m safe and comfortable, if not quite happy.
He pulls back like he always does. Maybe sensing I would finally snap if he pushed.
It’s his own form of safe and comfortable.
His eyes search me. What does he want to find?
He traces my eyebrow, his finger agreeably callused. His expression is a little awed. “You’re the prettiest girl in the west side, you know that?”
“And out of the west side?” I ask, not because I’m vain enough to think I am. Because I want to know when we resigned ourselves to this. When we noticed the iron bars around our lives and decided not to rail against them.
His smile is sad and tired. “Out of the west side you wouldn’t be with me.”
It’s an arrow straight to the heart, because he’s right. And he deserves better. Don’t we both? I throw my arms around him and squeeze. We need friends in captivity.
* * *
Brennan takes me home on his motorcycle, the roar of the engine bouncing off pavement and brick. I mold myself to his body, my eyes squeezed tight in his helmet. There’s a perverse thrill as we race through the darkened streets. Both of us know this is as fast and as far as we’ll ever go. One slip on slick gravel is all it would take. And the worst part is the faint sense that we’re waiting for it. Wanting it. Pushing the boundaries in the hopes that we leave on our own terms, young and free.
We arrive at my apartment building, sudden stillness almost violent after the rush.
The crumbling concrete of the curb shifts under my feet.
My ears ring as I take off the helmet, placing it on Brennan’s head and tapping it into place. “I dub thee Sir Brennan. Go forth into battle.”
He grins from beneath the visor. “If I’m a knight, what does that make you?”
“The princess, of course.”
Kissing never works well with a helmet on. Someone’s forehead ends up smacked. Instead I kiss my palm and press it to his mouth, the way lords and ladies did with handkerchiefs.
A chaste kiss.
Then he’s off in a cloud of exhaust, his noble steed lovingly restored and shining.
The diner is only a couple blocks away. I have plenty of time to change before my shift. Then it will be a monotony of grease and coffee, miles to go on the same black-and-white tiles with my tired feet.
