Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THEN
T he Mustangs make it all the way to the state championship, and the town is bursting with excitement.
June Danvers paints the front windows of her café bright red and attempts to outline a fierce Mustang with a white window marker, but it comes out looking more like a soft pony with wings.
Gus Romano gives the team free pizza for an entire week, keeping the celebration alive each night as the boys demolish his inventory, forcing him to pull the plug on the whole thing only four nights in.
Mayor Moore hosts a pep rally right in the middle of the town square. The bridge club decorates the (newly constructed) gazebo with red and white streamers and the marching band plays somewhat sloppy renditions of “Sweet Caroline” and “Eye of the Tiger” as sweet old Maeve Meadows twirls giant mounds of red cotton candy onto white paper cones from a machine that looks like it came out of a 1980s catalog.
Jason, of course, is thrilled with all of it. “Isn’t this fucking amazing?” he yells over the noise, tipsy from the vodka Ethan snuck into his punch. His tongue has turned so red it matches the letterman jacket he wears casually over a pair of nice jeans. He’s loose, high on dopamine or endorphins or whatever it is that oozes when over a hundred people are fawning about your very existence.
He nearly trips over his own feet as he sways to the swelling crescendo of the band, and I can’t help the laugh that spills out of me. Because he’s right—this is fucking amazing. “Be careful,” I warn, winding my arm through his to steer him toward a half-empty plastic table, adorned with a centerpiece bouquet of red balloons. Wells has been sitting there idly all night, looking increasingly impatient with the festivities.
Jason sinks into the seat next to him and slaps him on the shoulder. “Dude, isn’t this fucking amazing?”
Wells frowns at him before arching a brow at me.
I shrug, knowing that he also sees the plastic cup Jason clutches tightly in his hand. Wells rolls his eyes. “Really, Jay? Right in the middle of everybody?”
Jason looks confused. “What do you mean?”
Wells shakes his head and crosses his arms over his chest, one booted foot tapping anxiously on the ground. “I think I’m going to head home soon,” he suddenly declares. “Do you think your parents could take you and Layla home later?”
This has Jason’s face twisting into frustration. “What the hell, Bennett? Why can’t you just enjoy the limelight for fucking once in your life?”
My heart sinks at the idea he might leave early. Jason clearly can’t drive, and I’ve never been alone with him and his parents before.
Wells scoffs. “You think I care about any of these people?” he asks. “You think I really give two shits about the people who give absolutely zero shits about my family?”
Jason’s face falls. “Wells . . . we’re going to state. Of course they care about you.”
“Oh, they care about me now that I’m on their precious winning football team?” He glares at Jason, and my heart thumps hard in my chest. I sit in the chair on the other side of Wells, the cold plastic a shock to my bare thighs where my cheer skirt doesn’t reach, and brace for the argument I know is coming. Wells has little patience for Jason when he drinks, which, to be fair, is valid. When Jason drinks, he becomes . . . someone else, someone I don’t even like sometimes. But Wells is more wound up than normal, which is saying a lot. And he’s right—people have treated his family poorly for as long as I can remember.
“Hey,” I say quietly to Wells, and they both look my way. “Are you okay?”
He takes a deep breath, his brown eyes murky with distrust. “I just . . . I think I should go home.” Something over my shoulder catches his attention, and his eyes widen in surprise. “Fucking dammit,” he mutters before shooting out of his chair and marching past me with a wild look on his face.
“Oh hey, Wellsy boy,” a familiar voice croons, and I turn around to find Rhett stalking toward our table. He’s dripping in cockiness, his dark cowboy hat riding low enough on his brow that it mostly hides his smug gray eyes as he appraises his younger brother. “I was hoping to find you here.”
“What are you doing?” Wells asks, voice low and urgent as he steps into Rhett’s personal space. Eddie and Martha Brown eye them suspiciously from the table next to us, and my stomach flips with nerves.
“Who me?” Rhett counters, his face a mask of innocence. “I thought the whole town was invited to this little shindig. Why wouldn’t I be here to support my youngest brother?” His eyes sweep the scene before landing expressly on the gazebo in the distance as more and more people crane their necks to see. “Huh, that gazebo looks a little different. Did they rebuild it or something?”
“Rhett, what the fuck?” Wells asks, shoving Rhett in the chest. “Quit trying to start shit.”
Rhett’s expression shifts from bland amusement to anger in half a second, and he shoves Wells back. “What? Afraid we’ll give them all something new to talk about?”
“All right, all right,” Sheriff Joe calls out, winding himself through the growing crowd. Jason must realize this is turning more serious because he rises from his chair and moves to stand behind Wells. I stand too, but my feet are rooted into the ground as I watch Sheriff Joe lock his gaze onto Rhett. “Mr. Bennett,” he says loudly over the low murmuring around us. “Always a pleasure.”
“Mr. Bennett is my father,” Rhett replies a bit haughtily.
“Oh yes, I know your father well.”
It seems to be the wrong thing to say, because Rhett’s eyes smolder as his lips press firmly together.
“Rhett, chill out,” Wells tries, his own expression slipping into one resembling fear.
“Is there a problem here?” Mayor Moore steps up from somewhere to the right, eyes bouncing back and forth between the sheriff and Rhett.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Sheriff Joe says. “It looked like Rhett and Wells were on the verge of a physical altercation.”
“I’m here to support my brother, not fight him,” Rhett spits out, face flushed. “But I forgot how hard it is to exist in this god-forsaken town without somebody worried about what the Bennetts are doing.”
“Rhett,” Well snaps, his tone near pleading.
“Dad.” Jason gives his father a pointed look.
Mayor Moore looks from Rhett to Jason to the sheriff before settling his gaze back on Rhett. “Look, son, we don’t want any trouble, and I don’t think you do either. You’re welcome to stay and support our Mustangs, but if I catch a whiff of any funny business, there will be hell to pay. Am I clear?”
Rhett’s expression is so thunderous it sends a shiver of nerves through me. “Crystal.”
Mayor Moore nods. “Come on, Joe,” he says. “Let’s go find our wives—I think I saw them head toward Eleanor’s flower booth.”
The sheriff finally tears his eyes away from Rhett, like a dog called back to his master.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” Wells whisper-yells as we all make our way to the parking lot in front of Sandy’s Sundries. It’s one of the bigger parking lots in the vicinity of town square and where Wells parked his truck a couple of hours ago when we arrived. “Mom told you to cool it with your town escapades. ”
Rhett scoffs, his shoulders high and tense beneath his black leather jacket. “You think I’m going to listen to that horse shit? These people have been mocking our name since before either of us was born, Wells.” He pulls a small silver flask out of the front of it and twists off the cap to take a swig.
Next to me, Jason sighs. He seems to have sobered up in the last few minutes, the loose and bubbly joy flattening. He’s lucky no one smelled the vodka on him. “I don’t know why it always has to be like this,” he says to no one in particular.
Rhett wheels around, pinning him with a look so heated I’m nervous he might be about to hit him. “I expect you wouldn’t, golden boy,” he spits out.
“Jesus,” Wells mutters, reaching a hand up to press gently against the center of Rhett’s chest in a move that’s half support, half warning. After a beat, his eyes soften. “Did you ride here?”
Rhett takes in a deep breath through his nose before letting it out in one swift whoosh . “Yeah.” He tilts his head toward the smaller lot that’s reserved for June’s Cafe, where his motorcycle sits waiting.
Wells tosses his keys toward me, and I’m surprised when I catch them. “Follow me in the truck?”
“I can drive, you moron,” Rhett argues, but Wells shakes his head once, firmly.
“No, especially not after that shit you just pulled. I’m not about to watch you get taken away in handcuffs.”
Rhett rolls his eyes, but hands over his keys. Wells looks at me again. “Follow me?” he asks again.
“I don’t—” I begin to say, unsure of how to break it to him that I’m still too young to drive.
“She doesn’t have her license,” Jason says for me. And it feels like both a relief and a curse, because while the last thing I want is to be responsible for Wells’s truck, I hate the way his face falls at the realization.
“Oh,” Rhett says, delighted. “You like ’em younger, Jay?” He wags his eyebrows knowingly, and my face grows hot with embarrassment.
This time, Wells isn’t soft about shoving Rhett’s shoulder. “Don’t be a dick,” he says, turning back to me. “Sorry, Layla.”
I shrug. “It’s okay.”
Wells looks at the ground as he thinks. “Okay, new plan. We’re all going in my truck,” he says, reaching a hand out to take his keys back from me just as Rhett reaches to take his from Wells. Wells clutches Rhett’s close to his chest and throws his shoulder between them, his other hand clumsily wrapping around my wrist in pursuit of his own. This misstep clearly shocks him somehow, because he’s quickly pulling his hand back, keys in tow, as if I’ve burned him.
Jason sighs again, like he might be regretting his bootleg liquor and subsequent inability to be a second driver. Good , I think. It’s not that his drinking bothers me, it’s that he’s a little selfish about it, not thinking it through beyond the simple want for a drink. This isn’t the first time he’s put Wells—or me—in a pickle. I know he couldn’t have anticipated Rhett’s little parade of rebellion right through the heart of his father’s pep rally, but was spiked punch really necessary in the first place?
We all silently serpentine through the café’s parking lot and climb into Wells’s truck. Rhett takes the front seat, and after Jason shuts his door opposite of me in the back, he holds his hand out between us, face up. Despite my flare of annoyance, I take it. I know he’s looking for comfort to salve over his remorse, and I suppose as his girlfriend it’s my duty to offer that to him.
But I’m still irritated.
The lack of any conversation extends the whole way to my house, and when Wells pulls up alongside the curb, the front porch light kicks on. Mom must have been watching for me. “Thanks,” I say, catching Wells’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He nods once before his eyes flick elsewhere, and I turn to look at Jason. “I’ll see you Monday?”
His mouth ticks up with an effort to smile, but it’s flat and doesn’t reach his eyes. I wonder if I’ve done something wrong in all this. “Yeah,” he finally says after a beat that feels too long. “Definitely.”
Inside my mother is waiting for me, but she’s not alone. “You’re home early,” she remarks, brushing Annie’s wet hair from where she sits on the floor in front of Mom’s legs.
I shrug, unsure what to say. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Who was that in the truck?” she asks with a tone that feels casual but I know isn’t. I’m not surprised that, even in the middle of brushing my sister’s hair, she was still able to not only hear the truck pull up, but inspect its occupants. “Rhett.”
Her eyes jump to mine. “The wild one?”
“Aren’t they all?” I volley back. It’s meant to be sarcastic, but she misunderstands.
Her smile curves high. “Touché.”
I try to tamp down the guilt as I climb the stairs to my room.