Page 150 of Five Brothers
My heart hammers against my chest. I look down to my fingers wrapped around the wrist with the bracelet, my pinky brushing against the long bones in the back of Macon’s hand.
Jerome turns and walks away, back to his booth, and the arms around me fall away as I twist around and look up at Macon. Hishead is turned, watching Jerome, his eyebrows lowered as he stares. Army, Dallas, and Trace linger out of the corner of my eye, the pulse in my neck throbbing as my back and my arms still buzz under the skin everywhere he touched.
Without looking back down at me, he leaves, and I hesitate until Army finally arrives and takes my hand. My fingers gone limp in his, I barely hear him ask, “Are you okay?”
All I can do is nod. Thoughts creep in that I don’t want to face.
It felt like him. Exactly like him.
The couch …
But I shake my head clear. It wasn’t him. A part of me just wants it to be.
When I heard his voice, my heart wound up and started going nuts like one of those windup toys that bounce up and down, up and down, up and down. I was just surprised. He doesn’t normally do things like that.
He did it for Jerome, unable to resist carrying on their high school pissing contest. Not for me.
“All right, everyone!” someone calls over a loudspeaker. “If you have a team, please make your way to the east parking lot! The Forty-First Annual Bug Jam will kick off in ten minutes!”
Army starts leading me away, and I see Trace tip back and empty his bottle of beer.
The pads of my fingers still vibrate, feeling his bracelet.
Déjà vu washes over me.
Macon is just still a mystery I’m trying to crack, so my imagination is going wild. I know it wasn’t him.
“Participants must be eighteen years or older, spectators—”
“So what did he say to you?” Army asks.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
Macon rarely speaks to me.
But then I realize Army is asking about Jerome. “Oh, um …”I look up and shake my head clear. “Just some nonsense about how real chili has beans.”
It serves no purpose to repeat Jerome’s bullshit. Today is about fun.
“Dumb motherfucker,” he mumbles under his breath. “If it’s got beans, it’s not chili.”
I shake my head. “It’s just a stew.”
The announcer goes on as we approach the crowd, pushing our way through to the light green VW Beetle that I only know was made in 1969 because I watched Trace and his buddies restoring it one night last summer.
“The record is thirteen people,” the woman calls over the speaker. “Held by the Hurricane Ladies Book Club.”
“Named for all the hurricanes they drink while they pretend to talk about books they don’t read!” Baylor Kane, a senior at Marymount and the son of one of the moms in the Hurricane Ladies Book Club, teases nice and loud.
Everyone laughs, and I look around at who we have on our team. Aracely, Army, Trace, and Dallas. Liv and Clay walk up to join us. Someone must be watching Dex for a few minutes while we do this.
I arch up on my tiptoes, scanning the people behind me. Did Macon go home?
“And that’s not fair, either!” another guy shouts. “Women are smaller.”
“You’re pretty small,” another woman fires back.
“Ohhhhh” come taunts from the crowd, followed by some laughter and a chide: “There are children here!”