[IC] You Make Me Feel

[HeySeuss]

Jared took a moment of reading through the scenes, briefly, and said, "You know, it's probably a good idea to do act 2 scene 2, and go with that. The mob guy is having second thoughts and guilt and the wife is giving him hell for it. We need to probably come up with Jersey names to go with the Jersey accents, so maybe Mikey B. and his wife is Missus B. Or something of that nature, I don't know."

He took a bottle of water from the offerings and sucked that down, somewhat dried out from the day and always eager to hydrate, while he rolled it over in his mind, "But yeah, the whole element of, 'where do we stash the guns?' looks good there, Ms. Andrews might actually appreciate it." He had to stifle a yawn in there; and had to apologize for it.

"So yeah, unless you like the first scene better, I say we do that one, because she'll want more out of us and this has a greater range of emotional response." That was his mother's psychology stuff coming through, involuntarily enough, "since the guy's having this massive anxiety issue over being caught now that it's done and the wife is a lot more pragmatic about the whole thing, but also a bit of a bully." Well, she dated Livingston, she could probably work that into it somehow.

As to the whole issue of when to work on it, he suggested, perhaps thinking that she'd prefer to have an ironclad excuse, "Perhaps we can work on it at lunch or something, since we both have a lot going on with extracurriculars and other courses. It'd be nice to have a study hall, but this will have to do. I'm sure Ms. Andrews will allow us to read off from the notes, but it might be more impressive if we do without. Since we're rewriting a bit, we can sort of improvise, if that's good with you."

[SirensCall]

Ricki was glad that they decided on the second scene, it was the one she liked more, personally, and she was just as glad that he liked It too. She was writing a few things down in her journal before she nodded. "I think act II scene II is the better of the two." She said, and she mulled over his name choices. "Mikey B. And Missus B, has a certain ring."

She smiled to herself, "Well, being a bit of a bully might pose some challenges, but I'm sure my girls could help me channel my inner bitch." She chuckled, and she couldn't help but to like working with someone who didn't look to her to answer everything and do it all. Considering she normally got paired with David.

Soon the door came open. "Babe! We're here and we have some-" Krista began just as Ricki was about to say something else to Jared, but Krista stopped. "Oh, hi Jared. Didn't realize anyone else was here?"

Krista gave Ricki a look and Maureen sent her a sly smile. "I thought you didn't tutor today." Maureen laughed.

"Not tutoring, hot shot, we're working on our English project." Ricki said, and Krista and Maureen just headed up to her bedroom, and Ricki sighed. "Sorry about that, they're crazy. But lunch works, and there are plenty of quiet places to work. Just have to know where and when." She said, "I'm sure by tomorrow I could have most of it written for our needs and we could compare notes? I know you're probably tired, Adam tells me that you guys get worked hard at practice when he gets her for his tutoring sessions."

She wrote down a few more things, and she closed her journal, and she walked with him to the door. "See you tomorrow." She said, and once Jared left, Maureen and Krista came down the stairs.

"Chinese time!" Krista exclaimed, calling the order.out place and placing their order and Maureen held up a bag.

"And when we're done eating I'm going to have some fun with your hair." She smiled. Ricki just nodded and sighed.

[HeySeuss]

The ride down the hill on bike with the evening coming was business as usual for him and it was at least downhill stuff. He cut through some woods on a trail and came out to near route 168, the Sierra Freeway, though he didn't get on the freeway itself.

That's when he noticed a truck, one set up for off-roading, had been following him for some way since he left Ricki's, and so he decided to just take some sharp turns and see what happened. It was vaguely familiar.

Still following. In fact, when he started moving to try to avoid the truck, the brights came on and the engine started roaring. When Jared got the bike onto dirt, the truck followed. Jared wasn't sure what the hell was up, but he decided to run that bike toward 168 itself, but didn't account for the steep berm that dropped off suddenly, leaving the bike to sort of drop off and go airborne with him on it. He managed to land the bike, but hard and in a way that twisted the wheel, because he'd turned the handlebars a little too much, not being some sort of BMX guy. He came away with a scrape or two, but the bike? That wheel was bent.

It was the side of 168 now, but that truck came barreling through and managed, on landing, to crush the bike some more. Jared was screaming, "WHAT THE FUCK, MAN!" as Livingston put the brakes on and stormed out.

"You MOTHERFUCKER!" and came right at him. Livingston tackled to the ground, but Jared threw a punch to the fucker's nose.

It was crazy, and it seemed like Livingston was going to fuck him up in a crazy rage when the sirens howled out and a voice yelled, "FREEZE!"

--

"What was going on out there?" he was asked several times at the California Highway Patrol station, and several times he explained how he'd been riding home, and the truck came out of nowhere to start following him, he took four turns and that's when Livingston started to chase him, even as he got off the road and booked it.

He had no idea where Livingston was.

"Am I under arrest?"

The cop said, "Not yet."

That helped. So much.

Later, a different cop, the guy that'd arrested them, straightened out a lot of that -- the guy on the bike, Jared, had been defending himself when he stopped the fight, on the side of a highway no less. The Lieutenant came through, bald head, crisp uniform, and told him, "Look, you aren't being charged for anything, because this is a clear cut self defense case. But I want to make sure you get a statement down and...well, you don't have a bike that you can ride anymore. So your mom is on the way..."

"Wait," Jared put up his hand, "you guys called my mom?" Oh, shit. What Moira was going to do when all this got back to her was something to behold and he was hoping to actually figure out what to tell her before he had to tell her.

"Well, yeah, I did." He put out his hand, "I'm Rick Masters, I'm dating Moira."

It was a weird way to meet the dude that was seeing your mom; he knew she was dating, but he wasn't around enough to meet the dude and kind of avoided it. When you were growing up as a single child of a single mom, you became protective of your mom and tended to view dudes as The Devil. Nevermind that in this case, the dude was The Man, and he was actually springing him.

"Uh, is she freaking?" Jared managed lamely.

"Well, a little, but I told her it was definitely not your fault, and that's how the report reads, because that's also what happened. But I have to ask...what the hell has a state senator's son so pissed off at you that he was trying to run you over with a truck on the side of the Sierra Highway?"

"You know," Jared said ironically, "I'm still trying to figure that one out myself."

--

Livingston got off. Of course he got off; he had football hero status as well as his dad swinging in with the local prosecutor. It smelled like an affluenza case in the making, but there was an offer to pay for medical treatment, even though a couple scrapes was nothing, and a general vibe of 'please hush up about this to the press.'

Moira was Boston Irish, she wanted to make a fight of it, "Oh, that fuckah thinks he can hush this thing up with a little money? It's attempted murdah fah cryin out loud!" but the promise that Livingston was going to have a leash around his neck, just a very soft leash, seemed to placate her. It wasn't like they were letting themselves be paid off, but the system was going to make it go away one way or another -- the local prosecutor had zero interest in charging this as an adult crime and juvie was probably not happening either.

But keeping it hushed up and out of the papers that a state senator's son went off the chain like that wasn't the same as hushing up the rumor mill. Jared's phone was hardly the center of a rumormill, but people were hitting him up, people he didn't even know, for the story. He wasn't sure what to say, except that he gave Carl the details and Carl texted back, "Dayummm that muthafucka be crazy."

What pissed Jared off was that he was down a bike, and it was a pretty decent bike that got him places. He wasn't sure to handle that. Temporarily, at least, Carl was giving him a ride. It'd work for a while.

The next day at school, Livingston wasn't there, which made life a whole lot easier -- facing people at school was not something Jared really wanted to do, but he went anyway. Gabe looked awkward in class, like he wanted to apologize or something, but Jared just gave a pantomimed fist to the chin with a smile, which was his way of saying, shut up about it already and stop being awkward.

But that didn't stop it from being awkward and it didn't shut everyone else up either.

[SirensCall]

Once Jared left, Ricki sighed and shut the door behind him, barely moving from the door once the doorbell rang again. Food, thank god. After paying for the food, Ricki turned to see that Krista and Maureen were coming down the stairs, both with huge smiles on their face as Ricki set them up at the large island in the kitchen. Maureen smiled to her friend. "So, you're actually going to allow me to do your hair and everything for tomorrow?" She asked, just for total clarity.

"Yes, Maureen, got to slide into the skid if I want to make this go away fast. Who knows, I may like the fashion after all." Ricki said, and Krista shook her head.

"They're seeing you as a tramp." Krista pointed out. "Every girl asks one.of two questions. One, how could you cheat like that, and two, was he that good in the sack."

Maureen wiggled her eyebrows. "Well, obviously we all know the answer to the second, but for those who won't believe her answer to the first, let them see her how they want to."

"Its a pity really," Ricki said, toying with her food. "No one sees things as they are, but how they are perceived to be. It's stupid."

Krista rolled her eyes. "You were blind at one point, babe."

"Because I thought there was more to David than what you told me? There was, but when I hit my low, he couldn't handle It. I can't say that I didn't enjoy my time with him, but he couldn't understand any of it."

Maureen and Krista nodded as they ate, and soon they were dragging her upstairs and into her bedroom with en-suite bathroom. Her room was large, lined with collages of her with her friends, and her brothers, and her being herself. Along with the photos, some smaller paintings see posted about on the lavender walls. Her large bed was against the wall to the right of th door, her dresser on the adjacent wall. On the opposite wall of the bed, a tv on a stand with loads of movies stood, and the wall across the entrance held a large window. In front of the window was her desk with computer and printer. Beside her dresser were two doors, one a closet, the other leading to her bathroom.

Her room was neat, almost.oddly so, and Ricki began to realize that she hadn't really been in her.room aside from sleeping.and.readying herself for the day.

"Come on, baby doll, let's get this show.on the road!" Maureen exclaimed ,and took Ricki by the hand.

--

It couldn't have been long into Maureen dying Ricki's hair a slightly darker shade.of brown that their phones.began buzzing. Ricki had been quite content, reading some articles on Cosmopolitan's website when she finally groaned at the message. Her heart near sunk at the site of It.

Dudes! Livingston off the rocker!

Ricki looked.at the contact as Krista and Maureen began texting away to get details. "Alright, we have ten minutes to get this together before I've got to wash your hair out." Maureen said, and Ricki bit her lip.

"I can find out real quick." Ricki said, and Krista shook her head.

"No babe, we should get a general idea of what happened first, then you can go directly to him." Krista said, and Ricki rolled her eyes, sending the text.

She saw no reply, no shock there, so she went to the next best person on her list. She got a.near immediate response and.she sighed, heavily. "No kidding he went off his.rocker. Lets just drop it." Ricki said, her eyes attaining a.slightly worried glaze.

After reading over her shoulder, her friends simply agreed. "No phones?" Krista suggested. The three.all gave an agreeing nod and shut their phones off as they continued with their night.

"Remember, I'm a tramp with class." Ricki broke the.unnerving silence, and from there the night went on nearly normal.

--

Ricki didn't want to go to school, she didn't want to deal with the drama. She sighed, her curled, darkened locks flowing with her movements as she walked to her first class. She was wearing herself much differently. Her eyes were highlighted with dark lining and white shadow, and she was wearing a short dress with a denim jacket with layered.necklaces and bracelets. She was near wobbling in her wedges, but still, she sat in her seat in the English class, barely making eye contact with anyone,

She could see David was absent, which was good for the moment, but Gabe still looked almost mortified to look her way and just before the bell, before Andrews entered the room, She shot him a text.

Dammit, Gabe, grow a pair.

She heard his phone go off, and once he read it, he looked at her before she turned her attention elsewhere.

She wasn't going to ask Jared about his.endeavors, understanding that it wasn't her business, and also that he may not want to talk about it all. She was glad, however, to see he was okay. That much was a relief.

Soon the bell rang and Andrews came into the classroom.

God, let this day be over soon.

[HeySeuss]

"Man, school's gonna be awkward today."

"Why's that?"

"Montgomery crying the blues about Heather Voss and all that."

Jared shrugged, "Probably sinks it with her, unless he has heretofore unknown powers of charm. I mean, I dunno, you're the one that's been going to school with these guys for a while."

"Heather Voss has options and Gabe is a slick motherfucker, but he's not a world class ladykiller, even if he is a pretty decent playah. Like Tasha says, the man is a dog."

"That's what she said about you."

"Yeah, well I guess she's right," Carl grinned but then went serious. "You worried about Livingston?"

"I dunno, man. I hope he's not there. Dude's crazy. I mean, I feel like I really gotta kind of watch my back around him, because he's pretty unbalanced and it's not just that he doesn't like me. I mean, that shit where he ran me down on my bike, what was that? Was it just because I went up to Ricki's and was coming out of it?" He flexed his fingers on the hand that he used to punch Livingston; there were bruises on it from the hit he gave him after the tackle.

"I dunno man. But you're getting like this reputation for being the king of disaster around here. Not like you slept with Ricki, but it's like if you're the school's ironman or something. I mean, Tasha said Livingston's nose was broken."

"I didn't know that," Jared told him, "But I didn't really have time to check the damage."

"Well, someone living near the highway recorded some of it and caught the part where he trashed your bike and tackled you. Looks like you gave him a real good punch."

"Yeah," Jared told him, "And to be totally honest, it felt kind of good." Jared wasn't the kind of guy to get into fights, and he could take a hit himself, but he felt like slugging Livingston for scaring the shit out of him and just the pent up aggression in general from the last week or so of events.

"I bet it did. He always was an entitled prick."

"And he trashed my damn bike."

"So buy another one?" Carl supplied helpfully, as they pulled into the school parking lot. "I mean, you made decent money at the restaurant, right?" Which was why Carl was driving.

"Yeah, I dunno, I kind of want to hang onto the cash for savings."

"You oughta just get a car man, then your busted ass wouldn't be bumming rides off me."

"Yeah, I guess. I dunno. I'm trying to save for college. Anyway," Jared said, glancing out at the school parking lot, where knots of people were already assembled and his arrival was noted, "We better get the day going."

"Oughta be a lively one."

"Give me boring, man."

"Could be worse, you could be Gabe or Ricki. Shit, they probably made a scarlet letter for her in home ec or something."

--

In Ms. Andrews' class, David Livingston was conspicuously absent, Gabe was trying not to make eye contact. Jared didn't try to get Gabe out of his shell, mostly because they could talk later, when there weren't eyes all around. In any case, Ms. Andrews arrived and the class was paying attention to her.

Morning announcements went by in silence, the Pledge was said and all that and then, class commenced.

"So, hopefully there was some work done on your projects, since they are due on Tuesday and Wednesday. Gabe, I am reassigning you because of...things." There was a moment when she made eye contact with Jared and he gave a minute shake of the head, hoping that people weren't actually watching that back and forth, "Anyway, try not to put working on this assignment off until the last minute."

Luckily, current events wasn't a hot topic with Ms. Andrews and the class moved on from there to Shakespeare, specifically to Richard III. Since the theme of that play involved Richard of Gloucester acting like a traitor, someone, a Livingston fan apparently, coughed, "*Jared*" for some reason.

Well, that was bound to be coming.

--

The other periods weren't quite as excruciating, or maybe he just got used to it. By the time lunch rolled around, people were forwarding a rendition of Kanye's "Gold Digger" with Jared's face in place of the various chicks dancing. It wasn't that well done or that popular; some of the football guys got a kick out of it, but Jared was a sideshow compared to Montgomery, Voss, Livingston and Trenton.

Speaking of which, the lunch room was watching everyone way too much, and Carl and he were getting their salads off the salad bar when Jared suggested, "You gonna sit with Maureen, dude?"

"Uh, I--uh, yeah, man."

And that's how they wound up approaching the table of shame.

"Ladies, do you mind company?"

[SirensCall]

Ricki was oddly thankful to have Andrews first period, especially with the drama going on around school. She was going to slid into the skid as best she could, that was, until, it inevitably got to her. The background coughs about Jared actually got to her. He wasn't part of any of this, ad he didn't deserve any of the shit he was getting. And Gabe was rightfully passing her off by not doing anything other than twiddling his thumbs, so to speak. Would she have to do this all herself?

Her journal was opened, and though she wasn't fully focusing on the classwork at hand, She was writing up more dialogue for the project. As best she could, she was trying to gauge MacBeth to a modern mob vibe, and it would definitely be an A worthy project before the end.

Her phone vibrated in her jacket pocket, something She was growing accustomed to ignoring. She had a feeling it was more messages about what ensued the day before. Between her and Gabe, and the shit that went down with David and Jared, Ricki couldn't be sure what to expect, but she did know this. Let them try their hardest to get her to say something wrong, she was ready to play this game. Far too ready.

--

Her next class, Art, was where it began, but she had Maureen and Krista to back her there. It was the first taste people were getting of this part of her.

"So, Ricki," one of the guys in front of her began when Dancy took a call in class. If she remembered right, his name was Nick, "What's your deal with going from little angel to this?"

Krista looked to Ricki who had bit her lip. "You are aware as to what they say, right?" She asked, and he gave her a look. "You didn't know? All good girls have a bad streak, and it's about time I get to live mine out."

"So... what are you doing tonight?" He asked, and a few girls shot Ricki looks, but her answer got some giggles.

"Oh," she began, a smirk on her face, "you see, I have standards, doll. And let's be honest, you don't meet any of them."

"A slit with standards?" A girl behind her scoffed.

Maureen turned. "At least she makes it known she has standards, unlike you. You've slept with what? Half the basketball team?"

The girl sent a glare and Ricki just smiled to herself as she continued on with her
sketch. Krista nudged her, and Ricki looked to her. "You sure you're going to be able to hold this up?" She whispered and Ricki nodded.

"Well, with Gabe flaking out on this whole ordeal and trying to be invisible, one of us has to own it. Besides, it's just a bit of acting. We were in Drama club for three years." She hushed her reply.

"I just worry about you." She said, and Ricki nodded.

"I know, and I appreciate it." She nodded, looking at Krista's sketch. "Wanna trade for a bit? I am a little stuck on mine and you've been going over the same line for a while."

"Thought you'd never ask."

--

Lunch came relatively quick, but Ricki was glad that her fourth period teacher let them go a little early, so she managed to slip into the lunch room with little attention. Krista and Maureen weren't far behind, but as the room began to fill, eyes were everywhere, and Maureen sighed. "Did you see what's going around?" She asked, flipping her phone toward Ricki and Krista.

A tasteless video of Golddigger with Jared in the back. "Wow, real creative." Ricki faked her enthusiasm a little too badly as Krista chuckled.

"Hey, at least it's better than the other videos.going around about you." She said, and Ricki rolled her eyes.

"You know, I think my favorite.one was, Oh wait, I have them all equally." Ricki said, and Maureen leaned over the table.

"Be ready for some real shit." She said, and Ricki tossed a look to her before she saw Carl and Jared join them. The Question came as a slight bit of surprise to her, but she nodded.

"Company is good." She answered, "Especially when it's good company."

Krista nodded. "Amen to that. Where's super puss?"

"Probably barking up Heather's tree. I don't see what his deal is anyway." Ricki rolled her eyes, and soon a hand clapped her shoulder, and she turned her head to see, um.., Nick, god she needed to remember his name. He was there, and she sighed, deciding to ignore him, though he was there.

"So, Jared, I have some notes for you to look over on our project, if you want to look them over now." She said.

"Ricki?" The male voice came, gentle turning her shoulder towards him.

"Oh, where are.my manners? Did you need something?" She asked.

"Yeah, what are you doing tonight?" His question echoed from earlier, and she sighed.

"I'm busy, actually." She said, and one of the guys buddies came up.

"Too busy for this guy? Really? Just like you were busy with Montgomery?" The guy quipped, but Nick shook his head.

"Nah, looks like her flavor of the week is this guy here."Nick said, "if you didn't know."

It struck a nerve, and Ricki stood. "Well, at least I don't prey on those who already have issues. As if either of you haven't had a moment of weakness. In fact, didn't I pull the two of you out of one the closets when you were both drunk at a party a few weeks back. Talk about embarrassing." She said, and it got a few looks, including from the two before her.

Krista stood, "Ricki, they're not worth it."

"Be that as it may, I don't think should get by with what they were saying." She's aid.

"At least we're not easy." Nick coughed, and Ricki bit her lip, and she nodded.

"Really? I'm easy because I slept with one guy? Oh god. Call the police, I guess it's a crime all of a sudden. When you get the full story, then maybe you have some right to say something." She quipped, sitting back down, and Krista shot a look over to another table and the guys backed off. Ricki had barely noticed the eyes.on them, and Maureen stood.

"What are all of you looking at?" She hissed, and.gradually the onlookers went back about their conversations.

"Ricki?" Krista asked. "Are you okay?"

Ricki nodded. "Yeah. Just sucks is all."

She pulled out her journals, and Krista looked at the others. "C'mon guys, I know a better place we can eat lunch." She said, standing. Ricki looked up to her. "Besides, we're all too good for this shit anyway, too petty."

Ricki sighed, picking up her journals, as Krista grabbed her hand and looked to Jared. "Well, c'mon, don't you two have an English project to work on?" She said as she nearly dragged Ricki ahead. "Babe, you don't have to keep it up. Its bothering you."

"No, what bothers me is that Jared got pulled into this because David is psycho right now. He has absolutely nothing to do with this. And I know it's my fault that it happened. Right now is when I wish my brothers were still going to school here ,then all I'd have to do is say the word and It would go away." She said, and Krista gave her a look.

"Babe." She said, opening the Art room door and she saw Ricki smile a bit, Maureen half dragging Carl behind them.

"Really, Krissy?" She asked.

"This is further off than the choir room." Ricki pointed out, and she sat in her usual seat, looking down as she opened her journals.

Peace and quiet, for the moment.

[HeySeuss]

Jared intended to say something like, "Who you calling easy?" but decided that it was best to keep his mouth shut while Ricki and the girls handled the really inept pickup lines. Suddenly, the ladies and Carl were clearing, but Jared took a little extra time leaving.

It was funny enough, because Nick didn't have any really nasty things to say to Jared to his face -- there was the Gold Digger thing going around, but the one where Jared gave Livingston a really nasty hit to the face after being taken down, in addition to the way he could take a hockey stick to the face and keep going apparently made an impression around the school. It wasn't like he was actually some sort of goon.

"Hey Nick," he called out as the dude was about to leave.

"What?" It was an aggrieved sort of what.

"Do you shrink a couple inches when the viagra wears off?"

Nick and his buddy, whoever the guy was, were juniors and they were just a couple of dumb kids trying to make themselves look good by picking on someone to impress others, and that seemed to be back firing. However, Nick decided to get in Jared's face, or close to it and say, "Fuck you, man, just because you got there first doesn't mean you're better than me."

"Get out of my face," Jared shot back; lately, the sort of alpha dick stuff was wearing on him, and he didn't generally describe himself as the sort of guy that was ready to swing, but being physically assaulted by a hormonal douche tends to change the calculus a bit.

And Nick seemed to relish the chance to act like the tough guy, especially after getting turned down by Ricki. Jared's response gave him the opening. "Or wha--"

That was when a teacher intervened, "Get back to your table, Stevens!"

Jared got his bag over his shoulder and rolled out, though he noticed Gabe trying to talk to Heather, and it didn't look like that was working out so well. He wanted to shake his head and say, "Get her in private, dude!" because the entire school was watching and that probably doomed it but he just let it go.

Carl sent a text; Art room when Jared was turning into the mens' room. On his way out, he ran into Heather Voss, who seemed...well, friendlier than he'd ever remembered her before.

"Hey, Jared, how you doing?" He wasn't sure whether to tell the truth, that he was annoyed and wanted the privacy, but that might lead to an unpleasant conversation.

"Oh, I suppose I'm doing alright. I just want to get work done on an assignment."

"I think I'll do the same," she said brightly, "Where are you headed?"

Therein lay the trap; a blonde, perky cheerleader with a sudden obsession about getting assignments done. Gabe was nowhere to be seen, but neither were her girls.

"Well," he said uncomfortably, "Ricki, Krista, Maureen and Carl are in the art room and Ricki and I have this thing we gotta work on for AP English..."

"Oh, really?" Heather said, apparently suspicious. "What's between you and Ricki? I mean, really Jared. There are rumors and the part about you getting attacked by David are apparently true." She glanced down at his hand, with the bruises.

"School, as far as I know. We have an assignment together. Livingston's got this complex going on." He wanted to get that off his chest all day long, but he'd been getting asked in public where he didn't want to feed the fire. But he felt Heather had a good reason to be interested, "But it's just schoolwork. I don't think she's actually seeing anyone right now."

"Well," Heather Voss told him, flashing dimples, "Neither am I."

Oh. Shit.

--

Luck would have it that some of Heather's friends went hunting for her, and found her about the time he had to reply to anything, dragging her back to the lunch room while he straggled into the Art room looking a bit flustered. One of the cheerleaders shot him a look that wasn't hard to figure out; it was the 'what are you doing?' look. He could handle the aggression from other dudes, but being mistaken for some sort of Nick Stevens who hunted down the vulnerable girls and swooped in like a vulture on a carcass seemed a very real and imminent danger. In addition to being a gold digger -- someone had figured out that hey, he and his mother had to earn their money and held it against them.

He wasn't feeling particularly productive when he got to the Art room, but tried to put a nice face on it, "Sorry, got held up."

"Hey, at least you aren't in detention," Carl said.

Apparently the Nick Stevens face-off made rounds already.

"It might be the highlight of his week, but I've got too much shit to do to be stuck in detention."

"Look at it this way, Jared, by the time you get to the Santa Clara game, we can put you on the goon shift."

"Ha-ha, shut the fuck up, you bender."

[SirensCall]

The art room was a nice change of pace, Ricki had to admit, and she sat there staring at the page in her journal. She began spacing out, her mind wandering.

The Music was thumping, loud, and the deck was full of people dancing, drinking, and having an all around good time. It was relatively nice to see, but all at once, Ricki wasn't having a good time herself. Her mind was heavy, and even watching the fireworks had cheered her up. Her beer in hand, She sighed, continuing to watch as this party continued on at full speed.

"And why are you looking so down?" The male voice came as a bit of a surprise, but her head turned to see Gabe taking the vacant seat beside her. "Its the Fourth of July, you're surrounded by friends, and your brothers are in for a visit."

"Just thinking. You know, all that shit with David. I didn't think he was serious about it, but I guess he was. How did her go from so nice to super douche?" She said, and Gabe threw an arm around her as she took another drink.

"I told you once football came in, he'd change. And the fact you won't let him into your pants pisses him off to no end. He feels entitled to ALL of you." He said, "I mean, he really isn't used to not getting his way."

Ricki's eyes rolled. "I'm not like that."

"Don't you think I know?" Gabe asked, and she gave a knowing look. "Hey now, just saying, we were almost a thing once."

"Yeah, but you didn't want what I did if you remember." She said, and he chuckled.

"What can I say? Your brothers scare the shit out of me." That got a light smile. "There we go."

"Shut up." She said, and he stood and took her beer and set it down before pulling her to her feet. "What are you doing?"

"We're going to dance, and you're going to forget all of this David drama." He told her, and she let him pull her out to the makeshift dance floor and she started dancing with him.

"Why are you being so nice?" She asked, trying to speak over the music was a little hard.

"Because, I get where you're at. Where do you think Erin and I were a couple months ago?" He pointed out, and Ricki nodded a bit, turning herself to fully face him once a slow song came on. It was odd, but it seemed to be in popular demand, and Ricki could feel her half tipsy self stumbling a bit as she danced with him. At least he was there to keep her up.

"Gabe?" She asked, and he looked.down to her.

"What?"

"Do you ever regret it not working?" She asked, but before he could answer she.managed to catch him in a kiss.

"Earth to Ricki!" Krista exclaimed, waving her hand in her face. Ricki blinked and jumped a bit, noticing that Jared was sitting in the room now.

"Sorry, kinda zoned there." She apologized, and Krista nodded.

"Obviously. You need to check your phone, super puss is trying to get you to answer him." She said and Maureen laughed.

"I'll answer him later." She said, and she looked to Jared. "This is what I have so far, I just wanted some input before I finished it up."

She heard the Art room door open and Krista's voice made her look up. "She really doesn't want to talk to you."

Go figure, it was Gabe, but he came in anyway.

"Busy." She said, and he looked to her before she looked away.

"What the hell?" He asked.

"What I've been thinking, but really, I'm busy. Kind of have an AP English project. Don't you too?" She spat and he looked at her before she sighed. "I'll be around after your practice. Adam's car is in the shop, so I have to pick him up for our tutoring session."

With thay she had dismissed his presence from her mind, even if he was still standing there, and Maureen walked up. "Now, out. We are avoiding drama, and you're just riddled with it." She said, and she and Krista practically shoved him out the door.

Ricki was having a hard time focusing, and she finally acted on it. They had maybe fifteen minutes left of lunch, so she pulled her apron from the door and started working on the rest of the first backdrop.

"You're going to have to excuse Ricki, she tends to be a little out in left field when she's mad." Krista explained, But Ricki spoke.

"Not mad, just really sick of this shit." She pointed out and Maureen nodded.

"Change in topic! So, what is going on after winter formal?" She asked, and Krista laughed.

"Nothing much can, it's like the one weekend Ricki's parents are actually in town. Want to get millions of pictures of their little girl." Krista laughed. "Her mom is still pissed that she's going stag."

Maureen laughed. "What'd your dad say?"

Ricki stopped and turned, and she cleared her throat. In a mock deep voice she responded, "Now, young lady, I know you're almost an adult, but remember you are still my little girl. Remember to say no to alcohol and if a guy tries anything you call me."

At this point Krista was nearly on the floor and Maureen was leaning on Carl. Ricki was sure the guys were confused, but Krista cleared it up. "Your dad? Guys should be more afraid of your.mom."

"I don't want any of the guys around my mom." Ricki laughed before she finally found it in herself to sit back down, feeling a little better. "I'm sorry about this," She said to Jared and Carl. "We're random as hell."

--

Ricki was glad once lunch was over, and the rest of her day nearly flew by. She still Getting.comments, but once she got in her car and headed home, a weight lifted off her shoulders. Once in the door of her house, she turned on the stereo, blast in some of her music. Flyleaf was the first thing that came on as she stripped out of her clothes, heading to her room and changing into a pair of her sweatpants and a white t-shirt. She pulled her hair up, singing and dancing around the empty house, trying to keep her.mind off things until her phone rang without looking she answered. "Hello?"

"I didn't think you'd answer." She paused near instantly. It was David. "Can we talk? Like really talk?" He seemed calmer, his voice quieter.

"Where?" She asked, putting him on speaker as She entered the bathroom and began washing her face.

"City Park." He said, and she sighed.

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

With that she hung up, and she slid into a pair of shoes before grabbing her keys and heading to the park. He wasn't hard to spot, his face a bit bruised and his nose looking worse for wear. She got out of her car and walked over to him, and she crossed her arms. "You wanted to talk?" She asked.

"Look, I can't say I'm sorry for what I did, because I'm not, but I have to know, why?" He asked.

"Why what, David?" She asked.

"Gabe." He said.

"Do you know how miserable I was? Gabe was nice to me, and I was drunk. What happened, happened, it was supposed to stay in the past, but it obviously didn't, but oh well." She said, and he nodded. "Why Jared?"

"Come on, Ricki, I know you aren't that dumb." He said. Ricki gave a look and he continued. "It was the way he looked at you that first day."

"Because of a goddamn look? You nearly run him over because of a look?" She asked, and he looked away. "You really are a piece of work, you know that? News flash, David, the world does not revolve around you, and the fact you think it should is pathetic and I feel sorry for you."

She turned to walk away, but he grabbed her arm, and she looked to him. The lookout f anger was apparent. "Don't you walk away."

"David, I'm done. I have my own shit to deal with because.of this, and because of you, people who shouldn't be involved are now." She went to move, but he didn't release her arm. "What are you going to do? Hit me? Throw me down? Bully me around because I am saying no? Because you don't deserve whatever it is you want from me?"

He was starting to hurt her arm, but a car horn caused him to let go, and she near ran to her car and took off, heading towards the hockey practice. She would just wait in the parking lot for Adam, knowing that heading home.wouldn't comfort her any.

The minutes just flew by and before she knew it, She saw the first of the hockey players leaving, and she going out and leaned against the hood of her car. It wasn't long before Gabe came out, and his eyes looked down to her arm.

"What happened to your arm?" He asked, and Ricki looked down and there was a bruise there.

Fuck. She didn't want to have to explain that.

[HeySeuss]

Practice made a lot of sense; sure, he heard Gabe's side of it, and the guy lamenting that Heather Voss let him know where he stood. When the other guys told Gabe to just get a move on with it, Jared stayed silent and out of it, mostly out of guilt -- which was why he didn't want to give Gabe advice. It would sound more than a little self-interested if he said anything.

Not that he had any idea what to do with what Heather Voss told him; it felt a little too much like he was playing the vulture, and there was the image of that Gold Digger video on his mind.

All that trouble was, at least, an incentive to forget about it by playing hockey. Work up a sweat, get wrung out, focus on the next breath rather than the problems far away. That was the gist of it, anyway. They had to play a game, and there was the whole element of the Winter Formal fast approaching, though that was at least a few games down the road; the season lasted late-October through March, maybe longer if they hit national level playoffs, and they were moving steadily closer to the December date of the Formal, which no doubt lent some of the weight to Gabe's concern.

Carl, however, was the one that called out serenely, while they were gabbing on the bench, "Y'all worry about winning the games, and the pussy will come at the formal son!"

That was pretty much what Jared said to Carl when he had pre-game jitters, but somehow having his wisdom reflected back at him gave him the focus he needed in the practice, "Yeah, don't let this bullshit with Livingston, or the women, affect the play. The better we do on the ice, the better we do with the girls. Capisce?"

--

When practice broke, Carl and Jared were hauling out their own equipment and packing it into Carl's car, which wasn't the largest for the amount of stuff they had to drop in there. Once in the car, with the music going, there was a moment to talk in absolute private about all the shit going on that day.

"Man, I just hope Montgomery keeps his focus with all this shit." Carl said.

"Yeah, well he's the captain, but I dunno, the coach was looking at him funny," Jared admitted.

"Well, he's got this shit with Heather Voss and Ricki Trenton and Livingston and then there's you," Carl pointed out.

"Yeah, but I don't blame any of that shit with Livingston on him, the dude isn't right, it's like steroidal rage or something."

"Sure, but the point is, Gabe has two different women he's trying to chase, he can't figure out what you think, and then there's Livingston...man, if Livingston wanted to run your ass over, what you think he gonna do when he corners Gabe?"

"I dunno if Heather Voss is going back into the fold, man," Jared finally admitted, "She kind of made it clear to me that she wasn't interested in Gabe anymore."

"Oh snap. When did that happen?"

"On my way from the cafeteria to the art room, I stopped to take a piss and she kinda caught me."

"Well, she is hot."

"Yeah, but isn't it kind of...weird?"

Carl laughed, "Man, taking Heather Voss for a date or two ain't the worst thing you could do to get out of this mess right about now. Look, at the very least it backs Livingston off. Gabe might just be relieved, especially if he's running after Ricki Trenton, which...well, look at the window, homeboy."

Jared swiveled around to see the two of them having some sort of conversation by Ricki's car.

"Could be anything, don't get your hopes up, Carl. Nothing ever resolves that easily," he said grimly.

"And what's this about your mom dating highway patrol, man?"

"I guess I wasn't paying attention, because usually her boyfriends are come and go and some of them are dickbags, so I stopped...I dunno, it sounds so typical right? I didn't give a shit about any of her dudes and she didn't seem serious anyway. I dunno what to think, except the guy has a good job and seems alright, but that doesn't mean anything. Just you wait and see, Carl. My mom has the opposite of the Luck of the Irish when it comes to boyfriends."

"Yeah, well maybe that luck changes when she gets your ass off to college."

Jared put a hand over his heart, like wounded.

--

Wednesday rolled around and there was some buzz throughout the school as David Livingston made his comeback. Before the homeroom could even get started in Ms. Andrews, there was a degree of understanding that Gabe and Jared weren't going to leave each other alone, and that meant they were sticking together like glue.

Gabe seemed a bit grateful, "So you really aren't pissed?"

"No, dude, it's not really your fault he's crazy and that he'd apparently take it out on me."

"I think he figures it's like, I dunno, like if someone broke Romeo's leg. He's trying to cripple the team and me specifically."

"That's pretty fucked up thinking."

"Don't remember Nancy Kerrigan, do you?"

"Yeah, well Nancy Kerrigan wasn't a hockey player."

Livingston was somewhere around, and Jared managed to catch sight; the dude at least looked more roughed up than Jared did -- Jared still had a bruise from the hit the Bruins gave him, but Livingston was walking around with a shiner that he hadn't had before. When Jared slugged the dude, he hadn't had time to appreciate the handiwork, but he couldn't help but think well of it when he caught a glimpse of it. He got a flat, angry stare in return to his glance when someone touched his arm.

Heather Voss, wearing something off-the-shoulder which, to her advantage, showed off a degree of definition in the shoulder and arms from cheerleading, as well as a pair of jeans that could have, quite possibly, been an advertisement for jeans. Maybe she'd read some sort of guide or maybe she'd just figured out that Jared was the earthier type, and too much bling would simply put him on the defensive.

"How's the assignment going, Jared?" she asked brightly, "you have anything going yet?"

"Yeah, we managed to work on things Monday night," he was careful in pronouncing those words, as if to point out to nearby listeners that Ricki Trenton and he were doing schoolwork, "so I think we're ahead of the game."

"And what about the Sabercats? You think you're ahead of that game?"

"We'll find out on Friday."

"You play it pretty close to the chest, don't you? Some people," she shifted eyes at Gabe, who seemed to be trying to drift away a bit, "like to talk themselves up, but you don't really like to put yourself forward, do you?"

Jared was tempted to squirm a bit, and others were watching and listening by now, "Well, what happens if I talk up beating down the Sabretooths and we don't show up? Wasn't it Mr. T who said "Don't write checks with your mouth that your body can't cash?'"

She laughed for a moment, before she got serious again; and moved in a little closer, "Well, how about a check you can cash? How would you like to go to the Winter Formal with me?"

He wasn't sure what precisely made him say yes, but while it solved a few problems, it created a few more.

[SirensCall]

Ricki stood there, looking up at Gabe before she answered. "David wanted to talk, I guess he didn't like where I was ending the conversation and he grabbed my arm. I didn't realize it had bruised." She said, using her hand to cover her still sore spot. "What did you want to talk about anyway? How you've been so far us Voss' ass that you have left me to fend for myself?"

Gabe was silent now, and Ricki spoke again. "What happened to you, Gabe? You used to be sweet, now you're so different. I mean, I actually used to kinda like you, probably more than I should have, but now... I find myself wondering why."

"Rick, I'm sorry... I-" He began and soon Adam came up and Ricki looked to him.

"Go ahead and get in, I'll only be another minute." She informed before she looked back to Gabe.

"I didn't realize that-" He continued but she stopped him.

"I'm done, Gabe. I'm done trying to figure out the best way to deal with this drama, so just stop. Please. Maybe it will make It easier until this whole ordeal blows over." She said, heading towards her driver door, but Gabe went and stood in front of her.

"I really am sorry." He said, "I wanted to talk to you after what happened with Nick, but you weren't there anymore. So I checked the art room."

"I need a new hiding spot."

With that she moved passed him and got into her car and.took off with Adam.

--

The next morning hadn't come soon enough, and after Ricki got dressed she headed.to school. She didn't put any effort into herself aside from some cover up and mascara, and she wore a black t shirt with a pair of faded jeans and a pair of sneakers. Her hair was pulled up into a bun, and she was the most dressed down she had been in a long time. She just didn't feel up to it anymore, and she pulled on one of her.brother's goodies and left for school.

She got there an hour early, Mr. Dancy letting her in so she could work on the backdrops for the drama club's play. That and while she worked on them, Dancy was going over the art club meeting agenda for that afternoon.

"So, we're going to go over our annual fundraiser and start planning our little gala at the spring choir/band concert." He said.

She nodded. "I also wanted to go over how we're going to do the backdrops for the spring play too, really divide the work." She said, continuing on her piece for the backdrop.

"Sounds like a good idea. Have you got the t shirt order forms?" He asked and she nodded.

"And I have plenty of ideas for the fundraiser." She said. Neither of them realized that the hour had passed by so quickly as the first bell rang. "Shoot."

She began scurrying to clean up, and Dancy wrote her note explaining why she was tardy, and just after the second bell She finished.cleaning up. After she toon the.note, she headed to class and she set her things down, she handed Ms. Andrews the note. Andrews dismissed her to her seat and Ricki Sat down, feeling eyes on her as she.opened her book and her journal.

They were given a worksheet over the content they covered yesterday, Andrews being behind on some grading, and they had until the end of the class to turn them in. Her phone vibrated in the pocket of the hoodie and she.looked at the message.

How's your arm?

It was from Gabe, and Ricki briefly looked towards him and she answered.

Sore. Thanks for asking.

She Sighed, sliding her phone back into her pocket and working on the classwork before her. She was tired, not having slept well last night since she was alone. She Had been up until three in the morning painting, and the few hours she did sleep weren't very restful. Her mind was so heavy, and she wanted.nothing more than to be at home. But she had to face this.

She had her assignment near completed, but the last bell was coming closer. She was just so off focus and the last question she just stared at for a.minute before she started her answer. She was just trying to block everyone and everything out to get her work done, but her phone vibrated again. She looked to her phone again, and it was Gabe again.

You alright?

Just fine.

She turned her phone off and she finished her assignment at the bell and she handed it in as she headed out the door, heading to the art room. She just wasn't in the mood.to deal with anyone, and when she entered the art room, Krista saw it immediately as Ricki took her iPod and put in her ear buds. She took it as a sign to just leave it alone, and she watched as Ricki opened her sketch pad and just went at it, her music drowning everything out.

About halfway through class though, Maureen pulled an ear bud.out of her ear. "Ricki, d'ya hear?" She asked, and she shot her a look.

"Hear what?" She asked.

"Voss and Landry are going to the formal together." She said, and Ricki rose a brow.

"And this involves me because?" She asked, and Maureen and Krista fixed her with a look.

"You like him." Krista whispered.

"Yes, he's a nice guy, but let's be honest, it would never go past school work." She said.

Maureen rolled her eyes, and Ricki put her ear bud back in and went back to her sketch.

When was lunch? She wanted nothing more than to disappear and be alone.for a while.

[HeySeuss]

There was probably drama of a sort involved in the Heather Voss thing, but Gabe pointed out, "I blew it, and uh, I think she wanted to let me know on no uncertain terms what is up. I mean, it's probably complicated but you've been a good sport about all this and I'm running out of friends anyway" He seemed strangely relieved all the same -- but things were still somewhat strange there, but it didn't seem like it'd become a thing with hockey, and perhaps bore Carl out.

"Shit happens, man. We'll just play through it and give things time to settle. People are actually ditching you over this?"

"Kinda. Livingston's playing up his victim act on this," Gabe paused, "I mean, victimized by Ricki and me. I dunno." Gabe seemed unsure of the whole thing, and Jared gave him an incredulous look.

"Yeah, some victim. I'll have to remember that next time he tries to run me over."

"His family are pretty loaded and influential in politics. It's one of those things, they're trying to keep the thing with you out of it a bit. But you're right. Some victim." Gabe sounded pissed but didn't elaborate.

"Watch your back around him, man. Have a team member around."

"Yeah, you too. Heather probably took some of the heat off you, but I don't think that actually matters anymore." He managed to sound like a good sport there. It was why Jared put a hand on the dude's shoulder.

"It'll blow over. We have a game this weekend, it ought to help."

--

Lunch was weird, mostly because the hockey player table didn't used to see this much action and was now at the center of drama more and more. It felt like eating in a fishbowl, with everyone looking in, their every move scrutinized. Most of them were finding anything to talk about besides what everyone else was talking about. Jared and Gabe were right there, chewing on their food along with everyone else. It was, in a word, somewhat uncomfortable.

And then Tasha showed up, "So, I see the fallout from the 4th of July has started in time for the Winter Formal," Tasha observed to Jared and Carl.

"But you know that already," Carl pointed out.

"Of course, cousin mine, but I was wondering how it changes the chemistry of the hockey team."

Jared glanced back at her, "Shouldn't change anything. There's no feud here. I'm cool with the idea that Livingston assaulted me because of Ricki and Gabe, and that it wasn't the fault of either of them."

"And Heather Voss? Gabe Montgomery? Ricki Trenton?"

"You'd have to ask them what they think, I'm not speaking out of turn for them."

"You don't give me anything, do you Jared?"

"I don't write checks with my mouth that my ass can't cash."

"You've been hanging around with Carl too much, you're starting to sound like him," Tasha told him.

"That's a bad thing?" Carl asked around a mouthful of chicken, suddenly paying attention again when his name was mentioned.

"Yes, fool, it is," Tasha told him point blank, "Like did you warn your friend about all the strings attached to Heather Voss?"

"Huh?"

"Yeah, that's what I thought Carl." She glanced back over to Jared, "Just watch yourself with her."

"Watch yourself getting dat ass. Even for a white girl," Carl interjected.

"You're a dog, Carl." Tasha said.

"Yeah, but just let him do his thing. You don't like Heather," Carl pointed out, "So you're not unbiased."

"And all you can think of is that booty," Tasha fired back.

"Sure," Carl admitted, "But that's what animates me and surrounds me, my wellspring of confidence and willpower. Without booty, I am fumbling in the wilderness, purposeless."

"You're also stupid, Carl," but Tasha was laughing, "But you can string words together, even if you try to keep that talent very, very hidden. You should save that sweet talk for your baby," she said, indicating Maureen.

---

"So what'd Tasha mean, Carl?" Jared asked, after she was gone.

"Nothing, just catty girl shit. You know how it is, the head cheerleader doesn't get to be head cheerleader without pissing some of the other girls off."

"Guess so. Think Gabe will be okay?"

"Yeah man, he's chasing Pretty Ricki around. I don't think she wants to be chased, though. But we have a focus problem here, Jared." Carl suddenly got pretty serious.

"How so?"

"We got tomorrow and then it's Friday and the game is on, we're all strung out about girls and Livingston and all this other bullshit. We need to pull it together, man. I do not want to be scattered all around the ice in front of a home crowd on Friday. Stakes are too high."

"You want that victory pussy, don't you?"

"Damn straight I do! And Gabe's starting to kind of slack off on the motivation department. I worry about the focus, man."

"Maybe you oughta tell the guys this in general, Carl," Jared noted, though faintly annoyed.

"Yeah, well I'm gonna ask the coach if I can," Carl said, "We gotta put this shit to rest and clear it outta our heads before we take it out there against Santa Clara. But you captained, what do you think?"

"Think you're right, we gotta rally the troops."

Wednesday's practice was intense, but that was to be expected. All the same, it seemed like half the time, Gabe was out of it, or at least, withdrawn and not leading. Carl wanted to say something, but Jared just shook his head.

Thursday was spent quietly, thank goodness. He spent time at the cheerleader table, answering hockey questions like how icing and the offsides rule worked, and generally finding it uncomfortable to be part of the center of attention like that; then again, he was spoken for, since he was going to the Formal with the head cheerleader. Some of the other guys were wearing more toney clothing, shorts or slacks and even an oxford collar shirt or two, while Jared still rocked the jeans and t-shirt, albeit a t-shirt that did little to hide the side effect of working out and hard practice; football was for big dudes, but hockey was a sport for ripped guys.

One of them asked a question, almost if prepped for it, "What I don't get is why you're not the captain? I mean, you've done it before and you're really good, right? Doesn't really seem fair."

"Well, Gabe's been here longer, and I already did it at Malden with the Lancers." He couldn't remember the name of the cheerleader, but that was really sensitive territory to tread on with the team. It was unspoken tension.

"But wouldn't you be better at it? Doesn't Buchanan deserve the best captain it can get?" He tried to change the subject, quickly, before that line got too loud.

But there was at least a little time spent out of the orbit of Heather Voss; he managed to see Ms. Andrews during lunch after excusing himself; she was on the young side of adulthood, which made her close enough in age to get people, especially high school boys, looking appreciatively, though she tried to hide it in long skirts and loose tops; as opposed to Miss Vargas, the Spanish teacher, who pretty much made no bones about being hot and happily teased men in general.

"Miss Andrews, I need a bit of advice," Jared started.

"About English? Are you having...ah...difficulties with the assignment?" Apparently, Ms. Andrews saw much; and Jared almost blushed.

"Well, actually not the assignment. I wanted advice. If I needed to talk to someone in the band about getting a big drum in the stands for the game tomorrow night, who would I talk to?"

"Well, Greg Finn or Oscar Marquez might be persuadable...especially if you are polite, which I know you are. But why a drum?"

"Well, if you show up at the game, you'll see what I have in mind."

The next stop was Hector South in the A/V lab, still nursing some bruises of his own.

"You're right, Landry, it's something we never thought of doing for the football games, and it'd probably annoy Livingston that we're doing this stuff for you guys. Of course, you asked nicely," South gave a bit of a smile and a shrug, "And in Buchanan the football team never asks nicely."

"Well, the real point is that it'd pump up the crowd and the players. We want to get it together for the game. You're the AV guy here, can you do this? It'd be a huge favor."

"Yeah, Jared, I'll do it if you can get me a couple hockey shirts."

"No problem man, it's a deal." They shook.

Friday night, the locker room in the community center that was 'home' for the Buchanan Bears. Coach Dubois was going over things, but toward the time when they were going to head onto the ice, he said, "Now, Carl has something he'd like to say to the whole team, and I want you all to listen up."

Carl stood up, in the goalie's pads, thicker and bigger, with a helmet that had a picture of a snarling bear on it -- it'd look cheesy on anything but a hockey helmet.

"Listen up real good. This is our first home game, and Santa Clara ain't gonna play around like the Bruins did. We know what's up, because the ones that didn't have any heart at all already quit the second week of practice if they didn't quit the first week. We won the last game and we won it good, but the past ain't nothing if we can't make good on the next game and the game after that. You wanna hold your heads high?" He was yelling, "Well, then you gotta earn that respect, man! We can't go out there worrying about the girls or football or the school, we gotta go out there and represent not only our people here, but ourselves. Winter Formal is coming up. We win this, and we swagger in there like kings. We lose this, and we're going to be eating it from the football guys like Livingston again. Well, I didn't put in all the hours here to get sloppy seconds. I want the victory pussy! But you only get the spoils if you the victors! Now get on your knees and let Kluge lead the prayer. But once you get up off it, it's time to go out there and cut through them like Genghis Fuckin' Khan! invading France and shit!"

No one had the heart to tell Carl that Genghis Khan never invaded France, because the speech was pretty good.

A prayer, simple and effective, and then face off on the ice. Greg Finn and Oscar Marquez started the drumbeats on the drums when the team came out, touched gloves with the other team and then the first shift took their positions.

Boom-boom-boom, and the butt-end of the sticks in the box where the other players were went in tune with it. Soon, Bears fans were stomping as well. His mom was out there with her boyfriend, Rick, and Heather was near her, along with the other cheerleaders, dressed inappropriately for the cold of the rink. Moira, a veteran of many a game, seemed to find the whole thing terribly amusing, even as she got ready to yell her head off for her son. That was one of the things hockey moms were supposed to do, and she had a loud, piercing voice.

Jared wasn't really paying much attention to that, because he was in a faceoff once again, and everything extraneous was gone in the moment.

The puck dropped. The game started.

Sometime when another shift was on ice, the Bears conceded one -- Carl just couldn't handle all the different guys flooding the box, and it came down to a shot finally getting in. It took a minute, as Carl started to move over toward the box, while Dubois yelled, "IT'S DONE! FOCUS ON THE NEXT ONE CARL!"

"SPOILS OF VICTORY, CARL!" shouted Jared, even as Dubois slapped him on the back as he started to come over the box and onto the ice, replacing the shift that conceded a goal.

Skates touched ice and suddenly, the next faceoff was on, with Gabe taking it this time. The drums started up once more.

Gabe got the puck, passed it back and Jared had it. Jared put it down to Paul Kozlow and got it back a few seconds later as he maneuvered himself into a better position. Somewhere in the stands, Moira was yelling, "THAT'S MY SON! HE CAN SKATE!" while he glided over the ice, his legs pumping to keep him going at maximum efficiency and speed, even as he eyed the Sabertooth goal; he passed over to Gabe, even as he positioned himself to the next one and put his hand up, signalling him to pass it.

Please, Dear god, let Gabe nail this one perfectly. Gabe had a good position to shoot, but Jared could see the lane. It was a question of trust, despite all the shit going on, that Gabe would trust Jared to get the puck in.

It seemed like the puck was about to be taken, but it barely cleared the other guy's stick and got into Jared's when he took the shot, hard as he could.

"LANDRY SCORES!" Hector South made sure it worked; there was the roar of a bear heard on speakers, drowning out the airhorn siren of the goal, met with a roar of approval from the stands.

[SirensCall]

Once lunch rolled around, Ricki Trenton was near sure no one would find her. She wasn't in the art room like she normally was, her phone wasn't on, and she had avoided going past the lunch room rather effectively. She was in one of the two piano rooms in the choir/band room, and she was working on getting down her.trouble parts for when she played for Maureen at contest. She was sure Maureen would get to State if they were perfectly in tune.

After playing through it a few times, Ricki turned on her phone, She had five new messages. One from Krista, one from her mom, one from Maureen, one from David, and one from Gabe.

She told Maureen and Krista that she was alright and where she was at if they were that worried. David was trying to get her to talk to him again, and her mom told her that they'd be home that night, but leaving out again Friday afternoon.

Then her eyes went to the one from Gabe, and she just stared at it.

Rick, can we talk sometime? I promise I won't be like David.

The last bit caused a smile to play on her lips as read the last bit. She sighed a bit, and as Krista found her way into the room She finally responded to Gabe.

Friday, okay? My parents are actually in town the next couple days.

Okay. After school?

Sounds good

Krista slid onto the piano bench beside Ricki, when her eyes fell to her arm. Ricki had her sleeves rolled up and the bruise was.apparent. "Babe? What happened?"

She sighed. "I went and talked to David yesterday, and I guess.he didn't like where I ended the conversation." She answered. "Should have seen Gabe's face when I told him."

"I don't doubt it. I kinda want to kick his ads, and we both know.I couldn't." She sighed, But Ricki chuckled.

"Won't have to worry about it, mom and dad are home until Friday afternoon. Mom won't let David in the door." Ricki said, and Krista nodded.

"You okay? You seem really out of it today." She asked, and Ricki gave a nod.

"Just tired. I didn't sleep very well last night." She answered and Krista nodded.

"Come on, let's get you something to eat." She said, and Ricki shook her head.

"I'm not hungry. But you go ahead, I'm sure you and Tyler have a lot to talk about." Ricki said. Krista smiled wide.

"He said yes when I asked him to the formal." She informed, and Ricki gave her a hug. "Are you still going stag?"

"We shall see." Ricki said, and Krista nodded before she left Ricki to herself again.

--

The rest of Wednesday had been quiet, even at home with her parents. Aside from when David came up.

"So, what happened with you and David?" Her mother asked, and Ricki looked up from her dinner plate and sighed.

"Well, you see, we-" She began before the doorbell rang. "I'll get that."

She excused herself and when she saw David there, She saw the pleased look on his face. "Hey there, Ricki."

"What are you doing here?" She asked, crossing her arms.

"Your dad invited.me." He.said, and she headed back into the kitchen.

"Dad!" She called, and when she entered the room with David still behind her, he looked.to her.

"Yes, dear?" He asked.

"Why did you invite him over?" She asked, and her dad gave a stern look.

"Get both sides of the story." He said, and Ricki Sat down, David sitting across from her. "Go ahead, David."

"Thanks, Mr. Trenton. I really don't know what happened. I just know that Ricki said unhappy, and then something came up, and I guess this summer she and Gabe had a little thing."

"Gabe Montgomery?" Her mother asked.

"The one and only." David said. He was enjoying this a little too much.

"Such a sweet boy. Was this around the Fourth of July? Because if I recall correctly you went to Hawaii after asking my daughter for a pass on those two weeks." At least Ricki had her.mom on her side. "She cried for two whole days about that, so when we had business we had to have Andrew and Darren come in. I just have to know David, just one thing."

"Yes, Mrs. Trenton?" He asked, but Ricki finished.

"Was the pussy worth it?" She asked, and David paled. Now her father was.looking directly at him. "I believe that answers it."

"Then was Gabe worth the drama now?" David was getting angry, and her parents Now looked.to her.

"Damn fucking straight. For fuck's sake, David, I told you that there was no sex until you proved to me you wanted more than just that. You never did. Good things.come to those who do good." She exclaimed, and she got up and left the room, David following after her. "We're not even together anymore, and you could have any other girl, why aren't you chasing.them? Why can't you leave me alone?"

"Because you were supposed to have been mine!" He grabbed hold of her arms and shook her a bit. "And over Gabe Montgomery you weren't!"

"Hands off my daughter." Her father spoke, leaning against a black, covered case. David released and Ricki walked out the door and took off driving.

--

Thursday was, thankfully, uneventful. David had backed off of her, luckily, but her bruise still hurt. She.knew he was still running hot, but he also didn't know how to back off of things until he got the answers he wanted. Krista made the comment at lunch. "You need to make things more than clear that you two are over, babe. As long as you're still single he will keep at it."

Soon a shorter brunette girl approached. A junior named Emily Godwin, who was on the dance team with Ricki. "Ricki, can I ask some advice?"

Emily was a sweet girl, really shy, but once the music started no one would ever know. "What do you need, Emily?"

"Well, I wanted to ask David to the formal." Ricki and Krista both turned to her fully. "I know, he's your ex, but I kind of have a crush on him and I want to see how It plays out."

"Just go up and ask him, he likes straightforward." Ricki said, and Emily nodded, turning around and going back to her seat before she and Krista saw Gabe slide into the seat across from Ricki. She looked to him and Krista chuckled.

"He wanted to hear your dinner story, I guess." She said, and Ricki shot her a look.

"No one wants to hear that." She said, rubbing her bruise, and Gabe looked to her.

"Does It feel any better?" He asked.

"Still sore." She answered. She was still wearing long sleeves to hide it.

"But what happened last night?" He asked, and Ricki went through and told him. At first he laughed, but even Ricki could see the detest in his eyes. "Your dad was.going to bring out the .45?"

Ricki shrugged. "No clue, sounded like it. The only time anyone should ever be afraid of my dad is when that .45 is.in his hand."

Krista nodded as Tyler sat beside her. "Hey, so are you sure you're okay for the formal? We've got just over a week now."

The tall, dark skinned guy nodded. "Got the tickets, and you said pink flowers right?"

Krista smiled and nodded, and Ricki rolled her eyes a bit and Gabe looked to her. "Who are you taking, Pretty Ricki?"

She shot him a look. "Me, myself, and I for the moment."

Gabe just gave a nod, and soon He spoke. "What color dress?" Ricki looked to him. "What, I'm curious?"

"Champagne." She answered, and he nodded.

--

Finally, it was Friday. Ricki had skipped her last class to see her parents off and pick up the three hundred some odd t shirts she had made for the hockey team. Those who had ordered them we're in their own box, as Ricki had organized them as she sat in the school parking lot, waiting on Gabe. She was wearing her hockey shirt, and her hair was up in a ponytail. She had some maroon and white face paint beneath her eyes like war paint, and her jeans were tucked into her boots.

She was in the middle of sorting out the team's shirts when Gabe found her working out of her trunk. "Hey."

"Hey." She greeted, and she handed him three shirts. "The top one is yours, the bottom two are for tour parents."

He set them on the roof of her car and held his up to himself and she nodded. "So, what did you want to talk about? Becaue.I have to ask why you're kissing so much ass."

"I realized I never answered you this summer." He said, and she looked to him. "If I ever regretted us.not working."

"Gabe..." She began, and he pressed a finger to her lips.

"No, you have to hear this. Because I do regret it. I regret not being ready for a real relationship then, and then when I was you weren't available." He said, and she sighed. "I want to make it up to you. I need to know how."

Ricki nodded. "Alright. We'll see if you can. You can start by opening my back seat door." She said, taking up one of the boxes of shirts, but he took the box.from her and she opened the door and he slid.the boxes in the back seat. "Thanks."

Gabe nodded and took off his school jacket, handing it to her. "In case you get cold in there." He said, and she nodded before setting It in her car.

"Now, get going. I'll see you after the game." She said and he nodded before heading off as Krista got to her car. "Get in, we have a few shirts to hand out."

"You have the shirts Hector asked for right?" Krista asked. Ricki nodded and they took off.

--

The game was nearly started and Krista and Ricki had sold nearly half the shirts that weren't reserved already, and Ricki pulled her camera out of its case and got it ready as she got her stat book ready. Krista looked to Maureen. "Alright, remember the parent's shirts are free to the parents, the reserved shirts are paid for, and all the rest are 7 a piece." She reminded.

"I got this." Maureen said and as the game began. Everything shifted. Game mode definitely and Ricki managed to get some good photos of Carl in the goal and of the rest of the team as they skated around. They were near perfect pictures, but the imperfections would come out in editting.

This home game was perfect to say the least, and the best picture she had was when Gabe passed to Jared. "That's paint worthy." She said, showing the picture to Krista as she finished recording the score.

"That it is." She said, and as they continued watching vigilantly, and recording what needed to be.

[HeySeuss]

The Sabretooths were actually a good team, or at least good enough in their league. Measured passing, strong counterattack on the break, which kept them in goal danger as much as the Bears. Jared couldn't help but worry about the center, a guy named Jacob Jacobs, who was impressive; he was outskating the Bears defensemen, and rattling Carl. The guy was good, but he seemed unwilling to pass; their star.

By the second period, Dubois made his decision; "Jared, you played d-man before, right? And you can take a hit and give one back?"

It was between shifts, and Dubois obviously heard the tales, "Yeah, coach."

"Good," Dubois said, "because I need you to play two with whatever line is up against this Jacobs kid. I know that means less goals, but fuck goals if we lose in defense, you got me?" Dubois rarely cussed; it was serious.

"I can do it coach."

"Good, then you're the goon for this game. I want their center guy rattled, he's the danger man. When he comes in, you climb the wall, got it?"

It wasn't expected; Jared was clearly the pivot of action for the Bears, and a goal machine for them, but he dropped back on the next shift the other team was confused by his position; he'd drive the passing, but focused on Jacobs, who seemed surprised that someone else had at least the same footwork, but playing a defensive role.

"Why did the coach take Jared out and put him in the back like that," Heather Voss wondered aloud, "is it because he was going to outshine Gabe or soemthing?"

Moira gave her a strange look, "No, it's because whoever that kid is in the other side's center is, he has to be contained."

"But don't they have guys that do that as their primary position, Moira" asked Rick, who was there on a date with her; it wasn't like you could stop a hockey mom from going to the rink, even a reluctant one like Moira, so he was there, dealing with the cold.

"Sure, but they need someone that can skate but can stop this guy without fouling him and getting put in the penalty box, because then the Bears go down a man. I guess the coach decided on Jared."

Meanwhile, Jacob Jacobs tried to veer off Jared with a sudden cut right, which Jared mimicked; mistake made, Jacobs kept the puck and Jared smashed him to the boards with an applause fom the hockey-savvy, including Moira who was shouting, over the din, "That's why coach put him there!"

Much of it involved good judgment; Jared putting the pressure on Jacobs was fixing a problem; double cover Jacobs and you left gaps for others. But Jacobs was clearly used to a game of skill over grit, a David Livingston on ice, looking for help to clear his own that wasn't coming.

Finally, after a couple shifts like that, a Sabretooths player got too eager to stop Jared, and did a high-stick move; in the penalty box. Jared climbed over the wall the moment Jacobs did and watched with satisfaction as first line put in a penalty goal with Gabe in the center where Jared usually was whole Van Voss, Heather's brother got put in on the right wing.

The Bear roared twice more.

At the end of the game, with Jared keeping Jacobs bottled up beautifully and without fouling, the first home game ended at 3-1. As they were touching gloves at the end, Jacobs came up to him, "That was a good game."

"Good game bro," Jared echoed.

"Where did you come from? These guys didn't have a guy that could skate like you."

"Massachusetts," Jared told him, "Captain a Malden Catholic last year."

"Damn, go figure. How'd you get here?"

"Mom got a position at Fresno tenured."

"Cool, bro, you're graduating this year right?"

Jared was confused but answered, "Yeah, I am, but why do you want to know?"

"It means that I only have to worry about you -this- season, dude."

After that convo and another handshake, the team shuffled into the locker room; Gabe had a goal and two assists to his name, statistically outperforming Jared and came up to his locker, "uh, no hard feelings right? I mean, no one else was gonna stop that JAcobs guy, we all know that, but there will be talk. You really don't mind?"

"Hell no, Gabe, Bobby Orr was a defenseman," and Bobby Orr was the god of all Boston hockey, which meant that being d-man was not some slap in the face, "and I'd only be pissed if you were making stupid plays. We're here to win this brother, so stop worrying and focus on the team, I have your back. You aren't fucking me man, remember that pass? You had a 50-50 on the shot, but you gave it to me because you know I had an angle. That's this game -- goal scoring is important but good passing and positioning is what makes that happen."

--

"I know Dubois was a good coach that'd put out a solid team, but apparently the Bears wet from pussies to Punisher. Did you see that guy that went from center to d-man? I mean, Bears are good, but that kid improved the same overall stats in both positions; pass accuracy and possession unbelievable. I mean, good goal and all that, but he orchestrated the shift every time he was on. They've got some good players out there, but that one's the standout."

"I was here for Jacobs," the man in the fleece jacket said, "because they've been looking at him since last season, but whose this kid who marked him?"

"Jared Landry, new to the school, but look at last year's season with a guy by his name; captain of a team in Massachusetts and a hell of a player."

"No shit," said the man, looking at the computer screen, "Rudy, what I saw out here was so good that I thought that maybe we need to talk to Louie Molineaux, and see if he's always that good."

"Straight to the draft?"

"I'll tell you after more games; but we're going to definitely start attending Buchanan games."

--

Jared never got to attend an after-game party here besides the football one a Ricki Trenton's, but he practically was frog marched to this one; not at the Trenton house because apparently 'Colt' Trenton was there; instead, it was a Gabe's more modest but still swank house, which still had standard issue equipment; pool, hot tub.

He was barely in the door leading to the patio where the party was underway, including...

"So, you're the infamous Jared Landry," muscular dude that looked like a football type, lineman. But he was shaking hands with deceptive strength and putting a beer in Jared's hand, so he figured on a friendly. And the guy was manning a grill, heaped with cooking meat; hockey was a calorie burner and Jared could feel the salivation starting.

"Andy Trenton, Ricki's brother, but everyone calls me Andy Boy here, cause I used to be the squirt in class. It's a pleasure to meet Buchanan's new hardass in chief," the state heavyweight wrestling champ from last year told him, as he released the hand and tuned over some kielbasa and sucked down a beer. "Gotta say, I'm impressed with -all- your footage, man, but on skates? I never thought Buchanan would be a threat on ice, but it looks like you handle yourself on any surface. So what's up with that anyway?"

Oh shit, it was friendly but Ricki's brother apparently wanted the whole story and didn't seem like a guy that got put off much...

[SirensCall]

During the small break between second and third period, Ricki found herself checking over the stat books with Coach Dubois when he was free. She wanted to make sure that they were correct. Now she was sporting Gabe's school jacket, as she had started getting cold about midway through the Second period. "Thank you, coach. I know how thorough colleges are with their stats, Krista and I just wanted to double check."

"No problem." He said, tuning away rather quickly as she headed back to her seat. However, someone was sitting in her seat.

"Excuse me?" She asked, and when the figure turned she dropped her stat book and flung her arms around him. "Darren!"

"Well, hello sis!" He chuckled a bit.

"Mom said you guys wouldn't be in until tomorrow." She said. Darren slid over and Ricki took her seat. This was exactly the mood booster she needed. "Where is Andy, anyway?"

"Montgomery's house. Seeing as dad is still home and not happy, mom invited Gabe's parents over for dinner and movies, and wine. Just so we had a place to party." He answered, looking to her back. "Nice to see you're no longer with super douche."

Ricki nodded, and Krista gave her a look, but it got shot down. "Wednesday night was rather eventful."

"Mom told us. Everything."

Ricki paled, but Darren grinned. "What, we ain't gonna kill you, and at least it wasn't Livingston."

Maureen heard that and laughed. "Damn straight!"

However, play was starting back up, so the.conversation died out. Again, Landry was playing against Jacobs, and it was a nice change in pace. It was good to see someone so well rounded on the ice playing for the Bears. And Jared was showing that they-He, really- were a forced to be reckoned with.

By the end of the game, the crowd was screaming, and it was an all around good time. Ricki looked in their shirt boxes. "Damn, we sold all of them?" She asked, looking to her brother. "Beer run?"

"It's why I came. Andy's got the food going already." He said, "and since he dropped me off, I figured I'd just get a ride with you three beautiful ladies."

Ricki chuckled a bit, and she and Krista stacked the boxes in his arms as.Maureen handed Ricki the cash box. "Darren, I know you graduate like three years ago, but how do you feel about being the last quarterback to reach state?"

Maureen was stroking his ego. "Pretty fucking good. Means you can't replicate me, even if Livingston tried."

Ricki chuckled, but once they Piled into the car, Darren redirected the topic. "Oh, but beware, Andy is none too happy about you and Gabe. Especially if you two aren't together. He won't act on it unless provoked. And if you see Livingston, tell me. Andy is liable to put him in the hospital."

Ricki felt a little on edge. They still didn't know about the bruise, and neither of them had been fans of David anyway which just made things worse. Once they got the beer, they headed to Gabe's house, and Ricki ran inside and once she found Andy, she threw her arms around him.

"Andrew!" She smiled, and he laughed.

"Having a conversation, Ricki. God." He said, motioning to Jared as she backed away, but she was soon spun around. "Montgomery, eh?"

"Yeah, he insisted I use it if I got cold." She said, and an arm came around her and she jumped.

"Damn straight." Gabe said.

"Goddammit, Gabriel!" Ricki shouted. Andrew laughed.

"Be careful with my baby sister. You don't want to hear about the things I'm going to do to Livingston." He said, and Gabe looked to her.

"They know?" He asked. Ricki gave a gentle nod. "All of it?"

"What? About how you two screwed when Livingston went off to Hawaii?" Andy asked.

Darren came up. "Old news."

"What about this?" He asked, pulling up Ricki's sleeve to show the.bruise that had faded some. She almost immediately pulled her sleeve down.

"Gabe." She hissed, and she was soon carted off by Darren who found the quietest place was out front.

"What was that?" He Asked, pulling up her sleeve and examining the bruise. "Is this from Livingston? Did he hit you?"

"No, no, we had a talk the other day, and he grabbed my arm when I went to leave." She explained.

"There's more to this drama then?" Darren asked, and she nodded. "Alright, me and you will talk later, but for now, go enjoy the party. If Andy is still hot, I'll talk him down. Normally the idea of a party will keep him calm."

"Set me and him up some shots and he'll relax." Ricki said. Darren took her literally and she sighed, heading back in, and grabbing Gabe's hand before pulling him into his bedroom and throwing his jacket on his bed. "Have you completely lost your mind?!"

"He's handling It better than I thought he would." Gabe said.

"For now." Ricki said.

"Well, they deserve to know." He said, "They have a right to do something.about it."

"Why?"

"Because if they don't I will!" He exclaimed, and they both fell silent. "Sorry, I didn't mean to yell."

"Why?" Her voice was quieter, and she approached him, and brought his face in her hands, making him look her in the eyes.

"Because I care about you, Ricki." He said. "You've always been real with me, and so many people are walking away because Livingston is playing it up as the victim. But he's not. You are. I didn't want you to walk away on me too."

Ricki closed her eyes and moved away. "Okay." She said, taking hold of his hand and pulling up, placing a kiss on his cheek. "Now, let's go have some fun and forget all this Livingston drama. Besides, I'm pretty sure Andy, Darren, and I are about to do shots."

"Oh, this will be fun." He said, and he led her back to the party, Darren waving them over.

"Ricki Nichole, time for shots." He said, pointing to a lime of four he had made for her. "Your favorite. Tequila."

"You know me too well." She said.

Krista smiled, seeing Andy off to Ricki's right. "Shot race?"

"Count us down, sis." Andy said.

"3,2,1, Go!" She counted fast, and the three siblings took their shots down, Darren finishing.just before Ricki and Andy.

"I win, little ones." Darren teased.

"Oh can it, Dare." Andy punched his arm before going back to finish up What.little meat there was left to cook.

"Ricki Trenton!" Maureen shouted from the door. "You got me?"

Gabe gave a look as Ricki walked over and pulled a condom out.of her bra and placed it in Maureen's as discreetly as possible. "You are a doll." Maureen placed a kiss on Ricki's cheek and she returned It before Maureen headed off. When she returned se received a look from Gabe.

"What?" She asked.

"What was that?" He asked. "I saw what it was."

"Me helping my sister out." She chuckled.

[HeySeuss]

"Anyway," Andy said after he was done hugging his sister and sort of shoo'd her off, "What was all that?"

Jared glanced over, waved at Ricki, but then focused on the big man; he did manage to cadge kielbasa on a roll and put mustard and kraut on it while he talked, "I don't know. Your sister and I are working on an English project together and I was over at the house, but Maureen and Krista showed up and so I rolled, because it was after practice and I was tired. That's when Livingston started chasing me in his truck with me on the bike and that's how that happened."

"Nothing else?"

"Not really, your sister's a nice girl, but I've only known her for a couple weeks, man."

Andy waved off the last part, "Yeah, no worries. I just wanted to know what that was about, because it seemed like Livingston has a real problem with you. But if it's Gabe and my sister, why did he come after you like that?"

"I don't know, he seems pretty insane to me," Jared admitted, "But his father kept it from going any further than that with the Highway Patrol."

"Well, you put a good shiner on him, at least. Not much his father can do about that."

"Seemed like the thing to do."

"Indeed it was," Andy clinked the beer bottles, "but I just wanted a clear picture of..."

"Andy, are you going to bother Jared all night?" Heather asked, even as she draped arms around Jared, "Because I feel that I have at least a bit of a claim on Jared Landry tonight since we are attending the Winter Formal together."

It was a little much, having her run hands over him, and it was a good thing he had a shirt on, or it might have gotten to be like a Calvin Klein advertising pose.

"Of course not, Head Cheerleader Sir," Andy barked out in mock salute, "I was just wrapping up the interview with Mr. Landry here."

"Good," Heather purred, "because he's mine."

---

There was a serious dance floor element to this party, though it was, once again, guys that seemed more inclined to drink instead of dancing, but there was a mix of music to dance to -- someone had the good taste to rotate between different types of music that could be danced to, from pop to more ethnic selections that, quite frankly, one wouldn't here at a Malden Catholic party. It was a California thing. Heather kept Jared drinking and on the floor, which seemed to work out well from the perspective of not having to talk too much about anything -- Livingston, Trenton's brothers, Gabe's worries about how things looked. The rotation was from the dance floor, sweating the alcohol off, to the pool, to cool down, and then back on the dance floor once toweled off from the pool.

Somewhere in there was Hector South, of all people, dancing, though Maureen and Carl were suspiciously absent. While the dancing went on, there was some touching and some kissing; it was hard to say when that started, but once it did, it kept going, perhaps fueled by the alcohol, the thrill of the win, the music and the dance floor, but they didn't see fit to break off the dancing in order to find a room in the Carl and Maureen mode; Jared was tired, but the whole thing seemed to give him an extra reserve of stamina to draw on.

Eventually, though, the aches and pains of the game caught up with him, and while Heather was doing whatever she was doing in the bathrooms, Jared slipped into the hot tub, to find Gabe there with beer in hand, which was sort of the exact pose Jared found himself in.

"Holy fuck, my goddamn legs are sore." Jared groaned, as he slipped into the water. It was a big enough hot tub; his first party, Carl told him to wear bathing shorts, now he knew that it was standard issue stuff. His were old Malden ones; blue, white and gold, though he'd seen some dudes wearing stuff that looked a lot more flamboyant...jock socks, and other things that couldn't be unseen.

"They ought to be, you had to turn with that Jacob Jacobs guy. At least it's a win, right?"

"Yeah, I think Carl's getting more out of it than anyone tonight. I haven't seen him or Maureen all freakin' night here."

"How are you and Heather hitting it off?" Gabe asked casually, but Jared gave him a look.

"I dunno, how are you and Ricki Trenton hitting it off?" Jared asked back.

"Seems good."

"Try not to be a psychopath, I hear she doesn't like that."

"Gee, thanks Landry, I'm glad you came up with that gem," Gabe intoned dryly.

Jared finished the beer and was drinkless, though he was a bit worried about how much he'd sweated out and being in a hot tub; fuckit. He had a good buzz going, but it was a perfectly alright feeling.

"Yeah, well good advice is selling at beer prices right now. But yeah, I dunno, Heather seems okay. I mean, I was a little worried when she sat next to my mom in the game, but that seemed to work out okay."

"Well, I guess it all ends well. I'm taking Ricki to the formal, you caught Heather when I fumbled that and Andy Boy is probably going to have to restrain himself from ripping Livingston's arms out of his sockets like a Wookiee."

"Yeah, I got the impression that Andy's not the man to be on the bad side of."

"Yeah, picked up on that, didn't you?" grumbled Gabe, who was probably thinking of his own problems -- the man had, after all, screwed the dude's sister.

---

The party ended and people either went home or didn't -- Carl was pretty sober after it was all done, and driving people home, but toward the end, when it was just him and Jared, who was still sobering up, there was a quick conversation.

"How'd it go with Heather, man?" Carl couldn't get that dumb grin off his face.

"It went fine. We danced, we made out, we danced some more."

"You just danced and made out? Man, you gotta strike while that iron's hot!" Jared, however, gave Carl a sidelong look and thought of a way to change the subject.

"So, Carl, after all that victory celebration, did you at least put some of Gabe's sheets in the laundry afterward?"

"Aw, snap," Carl slapped his hand to his head.

"Don't worry, Maureen probably caught it. Either that, or you're never going to hear the end of it, Gabe's a neat freak. I mean, have you ever seen the guy's hair messed up?"

Finally, Jared was deposited at his mom's condo, a kind of dinky affair; Moira saved money and got a place she could renovate and resell, using her savings to fuel the project. She was used to the do-it-yourself end of things, having a kid to raise as a single mom and few resources to do that with as she managed to pull through her education. It still made Jared feel a little guilty that he left her alone a lot more than he should, but at the same time, he had a life to live.

The light was left on, and that meant that she knew he was going to be late.

Sure enough, the next morning, he heard about it, "Are you sure about all this hockey stuff on top of school? You're burning a couple candles here, kiddo."

"Yeah, I dunno, seems like it's working out for now," Jared said as he got himself some orange juice and poured cereal.

"Well, let me count off all the things going on since you've started hockey here," she stuck up fingers point by point, "You've managed to mess around with two different girls, you've gotten your bike run over by a crazy steroidal football jock, and you're out partying a lot. How are your grades holding up with all this? You aren't telling me much about what's happening here, I'm finding out by phone call. I have to know before we go any further with this, because I don't want you..."

"...making bad decisions. I know." Jared sighed and grabbed his school stuff, including the most recent graded material he'd gotten back, "I mean, I know we aren't talking as much, but you're busy and I'm busy. I'm trying to fit in here."

Maureen was eyeing the school work, but there wasn't much there to throw back at him, "Well, at least there hasn't been any sign of a concussion or other cranial trauma creeping up in your work, but I worry about you kiddo...you're almost a man grown up now and sometimes it feels like...I dunno, like you're being thrown to the wolves a bit here in California while I'm doing this new job at the university."

Jared glanced up as she talked, as she clapsed her hands and unburdened herself; his mother always seemed like a rock -- a bit nosey, and definitely hardnosed Boston Catholic Irish, but this seemed unusual.

"Uh, I dunno Mom, I think I'm doing okay out here. I mean, losing the bike is a pain in the ass, but I guess I'll just get another. I gotta figure out what to wear at the Winter Formal though..."

"Yeah, I heard. That girl likes to move fast, I hope you didn't..." The fears of a teenage mom coming to the fore.

"Nothing more than dancing and heavy petting."

"I thought after Catholic school, I'd have to leash you myself. Then again, a girl like that's on the pill for fear of her figure..."

"Mom!" he protested.

"Yeah, nevermind. Just have fun, kiddo. But don't take your nose off that grindstone," she said threateningly.

Saturday passed largely without incident as he got a handle on his assignments between taking time to text back in response to the texts he tog; Carl with gory details that he didn't want to see and some from Heather. The surprise on Sunday was Rick Masters, asking if he needed to pick up any clothes for the Winter Formal.

"Make sure to ask her what she's wearing for a dress."

"How the hell did you learn this stuff?"

"Believe it or not, I went to high school once. And I know the rules for dressing right for this sort of thing. You're east coast, so we'll hook you up for that look."

The shopping was kept simple, but he came away with a J.Crew Ludlow in a gray check pattern, a tie with a paisley woven pattern matched to the 'red' that he got back from Heather on the dress color thing, that went with the Oxford collar shirt he already had, which had blue stripes.

"It'll work, casual enough for the winter formal, but not dressed to the nines. Throw on some blue pants and you'll be on top of the game, trust me."

"You sure?"

"Your mom would probably stop seeing me if I steered you wrong."

Even with the advice, the Winter Formal thing worried him, mostly because he lacked the vehicle to transport Heather in a style that befit her status on the school totem pole; it was one thing to pay out of pocket for clothing to do it right, it was another to figure out how to get a car, because renting a vehicle as a seventeen year old was impossible. He mentioned it in passing to Rick, but was too preoccupied to hear much of the answer.

Carl wasn't much help on Monday, "I dunno man, but I tell you this much. She ain't gonna want you to take her in a hooptie like this here that I'm driving. Good thing Maureen isn't...uh...yeah." Carl didn't want to finish that sentence.

"Shit, you think the complications would stop coming," Jared observed glumly, as he took down his coffee, gotten at a 7-11, and tried to wake up.

"Naw homie, doesn't work like that."

"What doesn't?"

Carl laughed and then answered, "Life."

[SirensCall]

The party was wild. Maureen had, of course, left Krista and Ricki to go take care of a few things, and Ricki and Krista were dancing with each other once Ricki felt the shots coursing through her. She rolled up her sleeves and her arms were up over her head. She was quite drunk yet, but she was sure it was.going to happen tonight. Especially with her brothers there. Krista looked to her friend, who for the first time all week it seemed, was smiling and enjoying herself. "So, you're not going to be mad going all alone to the formal?" Krista asked, and Ricki laughed.

"I'm going to ask Gabe." She told her, and Krista gave a look. "What? We're both dateless, and we have history. Couldn't hurt to ask."

Krista nodded, "Good for you, babe." She smiled. Krista then turned Ricki in the direction of Gabe. "So, go fetch."

Ricki tossed a look over her shoulder, but Krista pushed her off in his direction, and when she got near enough, she stumbled over a couple trying to make themselves one and fell into him. "Whoa, watch yourself down there." Gabe said, and Andy was.standing there, chuckling at what he witnessed.

"Stand back, it's danger prone Ricki." He joked, and Ricki rolled her eyes before she felt Andy place a shot glass.in her hand. "Come for round two?"

"In a minute." She said to him, looking to Gabe. "Got a second?"

Gabe nodded and they moved away from Andy. "What's up? I can't believe you're putting off a Trenton shot race for me."

"Feel honored." She chuckled. "But, seriously, how do you feel about winter formal?"

"I'm going alone, and no one seems to want to ask." He quipped, and she sighed.

"Wanna go together?" She asked, and he looked to her. "Its not like we've never done this before."

He nodded. "Lets do it. Champange right?"

"Yup. We'll talk more later." Ricki said, placing a kiss to Gabe's cheek before.making her way over to her brothers who were set up the next shot race.

"Krista!" Ricki called, and soon Krista came over and shot a look to Ricki. "Count us down, sis."

"3,2,1, go!" She said, and this time Ricki won, throwing her arms up.

"Take that!" She laughed, looking right at Darren who looked to her. Andy high fived his little sister.

"That's my girl!" Andy exclaimed, but Darren took up the shot glasses.

"No more, she's going to be drunker than a skunk once these settle." Darren said, and Krista nodded.

"I got her, Dare. No worries." She said, taking Ricki's hand and pulling her to a couple of nearby vacant seats on a bench. Ricki pulled her long sleeved shirt off to show her white tank top. "Babe, you okay?"

"This is the best I've felt all week. Couldn't drink with David around because he would've taken advantage of it. But now that he's gone, what the hell? I deserve to have some fucking fun!" She said, hiccuping a bit. "I'm so done with all this shit, sweets, I just wanna have fun."

Krista nodded, and soon Ricki got up and pulled Krista onto the dance floor. Krista noticed Voss and Landry macking on each other and then there were the nearly fucking pairs, but Krista wasn't about to let Ricki do anything stupid, so she only sipped on her beer.

"Ricki, babe, you okay?" She asked after a while, as some of the dancing crowd broke off. Ricki was teetering and stumbling.

"Jusfine." She slurred, but soon Krista took Ricki off and into the house. It was considerably less crowded, and she sat on the couch with Ricki who rested her head in Krista's lap. "Krista, where's Darren?" She asked, and Krista looked down and Ricki held up her car keys that near fell out of her hand.

Krista caught them and looked to her drunk friend. "I'll go give these to him. You stay here, okay?"

Ricki nodded and when Krista left, she closed her eyes, falling sound asleep.

--

The party had ended, and Krista, Darren, and Andy were helping Gabe clean up. "Where's Ricki?" Andy asked, and Krista gave a look.

"Sleeping on the couch where she has been for the last hour." Krista answered and even Darren gave a look. "She hasn't been drinking like that in almost a year because of David. Let her sleep it off."

Maureen than came out of the woodwork, a sobering Ricki with her. Both has trash bags in hand, and Krista handed Ricki the shirt she stripped off earlier in the night. "Thanks." She near whispered.

"Gabe," Andy said, looking directly at him. "You mind taking her to the car?"

"Not a good idea." Maureen said. "She gets car sick when she's like this."

Ricki picked up a couple of cups before Darren took the bag from her. "Go lay back down."

Ricki nodded and she walked back inside and laid down on the couch, Krista and Gabe following after her. She was back asleep in minutes and Gabe looked to Krista. "Can I ask you something?"

Krista looked to him and nodded. "What about?"

"Ricki and I are going to the formal together..." He began and Krista smiled.

"She's wearing a champagne dress with some black accents, so just a regular suit would be good. Don't, and I mean do not, get her roses. She likes flowers, sure, but a single daffodil or Lily would work out perfect. And don't do anything extravagant. She likes to feel normal, if not a little plain. She's very simple, but you know that." Krista rattled off, picking up some trash in the main room.

"Sounds good." He said, and he grabbed a blanket and placed it over Ricki. Krista smiled.

"Gabe." She said, and he looked to her. "Please, don't hurt her. I finally got to see her smile again."

He nodded, and once the house was clean, he picked Ricki up and carried her up to his room.

--

The next morning, Ricki freaked out a little at her surroundings, and when she saw she was the only one in the room, wearing an oversized t shirt that wasn't hers, she got up and opened the door, peering out. As far as she knew, nothing happened, and soon she tip toed into the bathroom down the hall. She was still in the Montgomery house, and she used the bathroom and washed her face before moving back to the bedroom. When she returned, Gabe was there in his boxers and her face flushes. However, it was then she realized She was wearing his shirt and her underwear, but.nothing else.

"Gabe?" She asked, closing the bedroom door.

"Morning. Did you sleep alright, drunkie?" He chuckled, and she gave a nod.

"What happened? Why am I still here, and where are my clothes?" She asked.

"Well, you passed out, I brought you up here after clean up, and Krista asked for one of my shirts and dressed you. She said her and Darren would be by after you woke up." He Said as he pulled.on his jeans and tossed her hers. Once she pulled them on, she walked over to Gabe.

"Thank you." She said, and she found her phone on his nightstand and she Texted Darren. Gabe soon walked over to her and looked down. "What?"

"Look at the shirt." He said, and she looked down to the shirt.and she.chuckled.

"Its like the whole universe is working with that." She.said, pulling It off, finding her shirt on the ground nearby. "Do your parents know I'm here?"

"Considering they found me sleeping on the couch, yes." He said, But soon Krista Texted her and she went to give Gabe a kiss on the cheek, but he caught her mouth with his, and she stepped away after a minute.

"I'll see you Monday." She said, heading out to her car.

--

"You kissed?" Krista asked as she and Ricki walked to her locker Monday morning. Ricki was wearing neutral toned make up, a pair of black skinnies, and white tank under a grey half jacket. Heels topped her look off, and Krista looked her over. "Is that why you're looking like this?"

"Krista, drop it." Ricki said. "We kissed, its not like we haven't done this before."

"But it felt different?" Krista pressed and soon Maureen caught up to them.

"Ricki, love, you're going with Gabe to the formal?" She asked, a bit loudly, and she nodded. "Oh my god! That's great! We need to work out the whole picture thing, and if we're all being picked up together and whatnot."

Oh Lord, Maureen was.on a roll.

[HeySeuss]

Announcements were a lot more fun on Monday so long as they kept the work up.

"...Littlejohn, the rookie goaltender only allowed one score on Friday's game, while Montgomery led offensively with a goal and an assist, while Jared Landry scored once and spent much of the game marking the opponent's star center, Jacob Jacobs, which closed down the Sabretooths' offense. The next game is against West Fresno two weeks from now..."

The fist bump when the stats got read off by Hector South were the only obvert celebration performed in Ms. Andrews' class, but other classes were louder; the hockey guys in the hometown just grinned, which was a little humbler than the football guys.

"So maul 'em Bears. Until then, however, the Winter Formal is scheduled for this Friday night at the the Fresno Marriott hotel. It is open to Juniors, Seniors and their invited guests. Dress code is available on home room bulletin boards and online, tickets can be pre-purchased at lunch."

It was something to look forward too; but Gabe brought him back to reality. "Still got practice, man."

---

This win happened in front of the school, so a lot of people were suddenly introduced to hockey and wanted to talk to Jared about it. The cheerleader table questions from now-respectful boyfriends of the girls was more gratifying, but Jared was starting to feel stretched thin as the day wore on; but Heather wasn't quite interested in hanging around the hockey team, or at least, Gabe. That made it awkward, especially when wondering why Jared wasn't captain. That line went from the head cheerleader to the other cheerleaders, no matter how much he tried to quell it politely.

From the cheerleaders, that talk spread a bit. The reality was that between trying to keep the grades up for college, because his mother insisted and he figured it was a good idea to score a scholarship if he could by any means necessary, and hockey, he had more than enough on his hands. Captaining was out, from an economic standpoint, and Gave had more freedom to do his thing and settle for slightly less grades. Hockey scholarships existed, but Jared didn’t think of banking on that idea – an injury could take you out in a lot of cases. Romeo, for example, was still limping around after a surgery, and even if he spent a season redshirted at USC, he’d be expected to eventually show something or lose the scholarship.

He didn’t try to explain this to Heather, because it would bring up something – he didn’t have a lot of money. He had a good bit of savings from the Cane Corso; while Carl bought himself a car, Jared kept saving for the future, remembering those days with his mother where the food came through assistance or the generosity of grandparents, or sometimes, when his father paid the occasional child support check.

It fueled a resolve not to fall into the same rut, and to save very carefully. But sometimes, it caused a bit of embarrassment because this school, particularly, seemed very well off. He’d dipped in more than he wanted for a more formal sort of attire, but justified it as good clothing to wear in interviews with college admissions officers and for other situations where he might need a good tie and shirt outfit, but a car seemed out of reach when a bike would do for what he needed.

It wasn’t a reason to seethe, but he wasn’t sure Heather wanted to hear this – in a sense, the Golddigger thing, stupid as it was, got one thing right in that it very accurately identified Jared Landry’s financial predicament. Of course, his mother was doing better now and they were living in a nicer place with slightly more room and she had a car and was presumably making money, but saving was still a thing with them as people who had lived hand to mouth for so long.

Carl’s answer, “That’s what you get for dating rich white girls, homie.”

“Maureen isn’t precisely poor either.”

“Yeah, but she knows what the struggle actually is. Heather Voss? Well,” Carl just started laughing.

“Shit.”

“So what else can you do? Open up the pocketbook, man, you’ve got funds.”

“Yeah, but I’m saving that money for college.”

“You mean you don’t think you’re gonna get a scholarship for athletics? What about academics?”

“I’m not relying on either,” Jared admitted.

“I get it, the struggle is real with you, but seriously man…you are not out of money. You just don’t want to spend any. But it’s senior year man, it only comes once.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” but Jared knew that argument just didn’t hold water.

--

Because they were on a bye week, Jared had time to get home early that afternoon and took advantage – it was good time to actually get work done and handle things on the assignment that he and Ricki had to do; e-mail worked for supplying the revised script and keeping up on the other courseload. He didn’t notice, in the course of feeding himself salad greens and roasted chicken, a staple of the diet Dubois had them all on, that his mother had arrived home a bit later than usual, and it was more than one car.

“Hey Jared,” Moira called from the door, “Howabout you come out here for a minute?”

It was unusual; usually Moira came in, exhausted from what she was doing, and commenced with the work of mothering; cooking, cleaning, folding laundry. He’d help as he could, especially when she was still putting down a part time job along with the associate professor job, pulling down nearly excremental pay and having to add hours just to handle the bills. It was tough to make it out there, but since California and getting tenure at Fresno, not to mention consulting for police agencies in courts, and charging the fees for it, she was working less and making considerably more. It never really occurred to him. He’d come to California experienced as a dishwasher, because he started working as early as the state minimum allowed, and busser, and Tasha’s dad, Ray, promoted him to server quickly enough.

Turns out that there were two cars, one of them was driven by Rick. Moira was smiling, but a little uncomfortable, “Look, Jared, I know your dance is coming up and you’re dating this girl and…well,” she seemed a little flustered, but managed to get it down; with light blonde-red hair and freckles, and significantly shorter than her son, she still managed to give off the impression of someone that didn’t get flustered easily, “…the thing is that you didn’t have a lot of the sort of birthdays and Christmases other kids got, kids that had, I dunno, more money? And Rick said you were worried about getting a car to take this girl…”

She managed to continue, “Well, I’m not sure about the girl, but things are doing better now and Rick got a really good deal off a police auction vehicle. So this is an early Christmas present because we haven’t had it easy, but we’ve gotten through and you’re almost a man now and it’s probably a good idea to get some wheels…” She didn’t mention the part about David Livingston trying to kill him on his bike, but apparently that played into it as well. But it was a strong expression of love and pride; the buy wasn’t just for him, but for her own demons that she brought out with her to California, the haunting thought that life did not go perfectly. That she’d had a baby with a man that turned out to be a fucking loser. That she’d had to raise that kid on her own, reading, as a psychology grad and PhD student, about how childhood set a kid up for success and failure, and the inevitable worry that she was getting it wrong, “…and I didn’t want to send my boy off to a carpool for his first big dance.”

Jared didn’t even really get a good look at the car, because he nearly had his mother crushed in a hug.

--

Carl was surprised by the text of ‘I’ll pick you up tomorrow’ but a little shocked at what Jared’s mom and her boyfriend, the state trooper managed.

“So this was a dealer’s car or something?”

“Well, sure, it was on auction…”

“Some auction. How much they pay on that kind of thing?”

“Only a couple thousand. Rick had an in with the auctioneer and…I don’t wanna know all the details. It was a decent deal.”

“Damn, I’d say…”

It was a ’69 Ford Mustang with a removable hardtop, painted a dark red. It was an older model, but the addition of newer items inside brought the price down in the eyes of collectors. It didn’t matter, the car was cool and someone had gone over it real carefully in making sure that everything worked as it should. The engine was refitted and the whole thing had that classic feel. The car wasn't spacious, but Jared kind of figured he could work with it if he had to, because it was a secondary thing for him; growing up, he'd always wanted a really classic boss car like this, but always figured it was a project for later in life. Well, it probably was -- maintaining it would require tools and knowledge, though his Uncle Danny had given him some pointers on how to do a lot of this shit, as a mechanic over in West Lynn.

It was hard not to be smiling behind the wheel with a pair of sunglasses on as the sun came up early morning before school started, hauling ass down the road, though Rick made sure he knew how to drive stick and handled it right, as a state patrolman, before releasing him to drive a thoroughly awesome car.

“Well damn, looks like your mom came through for you on Heather Voss. This is definitely going in style.”

“That’s the funny thing. She didn’t want to send her boy off to a dance with a hot girl with no car, but she doesn’t even seem to like her that much.”

“Well, she clearly loves you boy. Think I can get adopted?”

That, he’d never doubted, even with the hard times and the rough Christmas days where she’d cried her eyes out a bit and he tried his best not to be disappointed.

“Not sure you want to join an Irish-Catholic family from Boston, Carl. There’s a high chance of becoming a cop.”

[SirensCall]

Maureen was still rambling as they walked towards the English room, which was on the way to Krista and Maureen's first class. "So, right after school, on Thursday we are going to get our nails done and start breaking in our shoes, and we'll totally have a sleepover and give each other facials and help each other figure it hairdos." Maureen rambled, and Ricki sweet Krista place a hand on her shoulder.

"But first, we're going to figure out Ricki and Gabe." Krista stated and Maureen shot a look. "They kissed."

Maureen squealed. "Sophomore year is finally happening!" She clapped, happily, and Ricki shot her a look. "What? I totally was rooting for you and Gabe back then."

"It was one kiss. You act like it means more." Ricki said, and they got to the English door. "We'll talk more later. Bye sweets."

She took her seat, and luckily the buzz of the formal had caused last week's drama to take a back seat. The announcements made her smile, and her phone vibrated just towards the end. Go figure, it was Gabe. They had been talking more after Friday night, and after the talk she had with her brothers, they had given Gabe their blessing. Not that she told him that, but they had.

I'll get our tickets.

She rolled her eyes a bit. Okay.

She shoved her phone back into her pocket, and she was glad that class was going by smoothly. Her eyes occasionally shifted to Gabe, but she looked away before anyone noticed.

--

Lunch was interesting to say the least, Maureen was sitting at a pulled up seat at the hockey table, working things out with Carl, Krista was sitting with Tyler and his friends, so Ricki took her lunch and headed into the art room. She didn't want to bother anyone, and she took out her iPod and began listening to her music as she rushed through her lunch and went to finishing up the last few details on the final backdrop for the winter play.

An ear bud was pulled out of her ear and she chuckled. "I figured you'd still be.sitting with Carl, Maureen."

"I'm not Maureen." The.voice said, and Ricki flushed, turning to see Gabe.

"I'm so sorry, Maureen is.normally the only person thay will do that." She apologized. "What's up?"

"So, Maureen is thinking that we're all going to meet up at your house before the formal, since you, Maureen, and Krista are all getting ready together." He said, and she sighed.

"Sorry, she gets excited about these things, especially now that she's got Carl." She said, adding another stroke of paint. "And Krista is all jittery too, knowing all three.of us have dates."

"And how do you feel about it?" He asked. Ricki looked to him, and she sighed. "I mean, you put on a good face, but is that really what you feel?"

"I am happy for my girls, and I like who I'm going with, but there is so much on my mind right now." She said, and Gabe took the brush from her and placed it in the sink and brought her to sit with him at the table.

"I'm listening." He said, and she nodded.

"Saturday morning... what did that mean? Was that because of the shirt or what?" She asked.

"When I kissed you?" He asked. "I mean, sure, seeing you in that shirt again brought back memories, but..." he began, running his fingers through his hair. "Ricki, I like you."

She gave him a look as if to continue. "I do, Rick, I was sure that was obvious."

"We've been down this road before, Gabe. I remember how it ended. How do I know it won't repeat?" She asked him, and he nodded. She had a point, at least she knew she did.

"What are you doing tomorrow night?" He asked. She gave him a look.

"Well, for one, you have practice, and for two, I tutor once your practice gets out, remember?" She asked.

"How long does that normally take?" He was being persistent, and she sighed.

"Normally, about an hour, depending on how big the issue is." She said. "Why?"

"We could l, maybe, talk after. You could come over for dinner." He suggested, and she nodded.

"I'll think about it." She said as the bell rang.

--

"OHMYGODITREALLYISHAPPENING!!!!" Maureen shrieked and giggles after Ricki told her and Krista about lunch. Krista was just smiling a bit as Ricki Sat at her.computer, printing off some picture from the game.

"I don't know. I mean, sure, there has always been something there. I mean, Fuck, we were childhood sweethearts." He said, "But things are so different now."

"But you are going tomorrow night, right?" Krista asked, her fingers running failover her phone. When Ricki shrugged, Krista took in a deep breath. "ANDREW! DARREN!"

It took a minute, but the older Trentons came into Ricki's room as she read the script that Jared e-mailed her. They had this project in the bag.

"Gabe has invited sister dear to dinner tomorrow night, what are your thoughts?" Krista asked.

"Go." Darren said, and Andy flopped on her bed, seeing Krista still texting.

"Why did he ask you to dinner?" He asked, and Ricki sighed. She had just sent a thanks e-mail to Jared and she turned to them.

"I don't know." She said, and Maureen laughed.

"Bullshit! You know he's trying to show you he regrets sophomore year." She said, and Ricki sighed.

"Then go." Andy said, and Ricki looked at them. "Why won't you?"

She just rolled her eyes. "Fine, if you need me, I'll be in my studio."

Ricki entered her studio, locking the door behind her as she changed and went.back to painting the piece of Jared from the first hockey game. She had started plenty of others since, but she kept going back to this one.

--

The next morning, Ricki arrived at school in a rather casual outfit for her. To her surprise, seeing as she arrived.early, she found Heather Voss at her locker. Not a site she expected. The two had never been close, but after Ricki started dating Livingston, there had been some bad blood.

"This isn't good." She muttered to herself. Heather was.looking very pretty and when Ricki got to her she nodded. "Hi, Heather."

Heather gave her a look. "Hi, Ricki."

There was a bit of an awkward silence and Ricki nodded. "Okay, what's up, Heather? We don't talk, ever."

Heather gave a sickly sweet smile. "Oh, nothing too much. I just wanted to be clear that Jared Landry is mine, and if we keep it that way, there will be no problems."

Ricki rolled her eyes. "Why everyone assumes that there was more, I don't understand. But I got you, loud and clear." She said, and Heather.nodded.

"You better, because I have better dirt on you than the Gabe scandal this summer." She quipped, a bit cryptically.

As she walked away, Ricki didn't know what came over her, but she beckoned out to her. "Heather! Wait up!"

Heather turned and Ricki stood near her. "Look, since Carl and Jared are friends and Carl is going to the formal with Maureen, why don't you guys drop by for pictures. I'm sure you've already got prepping plans, otherwise I'd invite you to get ready with me and the girls." Ricki said. "An olive branch, since we're probably going to be seeing a bit of each other."

[HeySeuss]

"Sweet ride. How'd you get it?" came up at lunch at the hockey table; they were eating there together after spending a couple days split up and among girlfriends.

"Surprise early christmas gift," Jared said, but he didn't want to really delve into his childhood with Gabe; Gabe never had to want for anything and it didn't seem like a good time to really bring it all up. Carl understood because his family was poorer and he had to pay for his own car, and it's probably why he and Carl were tighter than he and the rest of the team, though they were buddied up enough. A lot of these guys grew up together, and Jared was a more recent arrival to Buchanan.

"Hell of a gift," Kluge muttered, "My parents get me sweaters."

"You can always wear them to a cheesy sweater party," Kozlow pointed out.

"That's a thing?"

"It can be, after the Winter Formal," Gabe pointed out, "our parties are starting to look like the football parties. Do you have any what I had to clean up out of my place last weekend? It was kind of gross. I don't get how Ricki even puts up with it."

"Congratulations, by the way," Jared said.

There was, of course, David Livingston, shooting everyone glances from his table. Football had a table still, even though the season was over, and it was like a corner table convenient to the cafeteria food line, whereas the Hockey table was still where it existed previously, somewhere on the fringe of cool people territory, though it seemed to be getting more traffic. Cheerleader table was right there, but Jared wasn't sure he really liked socializing with the Cheerleaders as much as one might think; some of the conversations there were slightly vicious and it was jarring to kind of see the rumored cheerleader insecurity in action. It wasn't directly applied to him, but Ricki Trenton got badmouthed a lot over there, and it was hard to sort of sit there and not go, 'wait a second, you girls have it all really wrong.'

It was part of the reason he was taking a break; he didn't give that reason to Heather, but he just pointed out that the hockey team were wondering what she'd done with the real Jared. He also felt slightly underdressed; Livingston was there wearing slacks and a button down and Gabe had chinos and a sweater, though he kept the top button of a striped oxford fashionably undone, but Jared still did jeans and t-shirts. It wasn't an entirely unprecedented look, but he generally felt that a good t-shirt looked good; he'd also spent too much time in a Catholic school with uniform requirements. The school dress code allowed a guy to wear jeans and a t-shirt, so he stuck to it.

"Yeah, well I guess we were both in a weird place and were going to go stag, so she asked me and I accepted. Things were...I dunno, I guess we're giving it a try because the timing's right and there's always been a thing there," Gabe said.

"So what's this thing we're doing with Hector South, anyway? I mean, Wednesday practice says, 'Go to the AV lab."

"No idea."

The question was answered when the team showed up at Wednesday practice for the AV lab.

"It's a project of Mr. South's, but I wanted to do a spot where the hockey team thanks the school for turning out at the game last weekend," Coach Dubois said, "because we can't take the support of the school for granted," except that football sometime did, "and I want you guys to remember why you're doing this and have a sense of humility about it. That means thanking your supporters. I mean, it's a bye week, so I'm taking it easy on you guys. You earned your relaxation the hard way, but after the Winter Formal, we're going right back into the grind, so don't get too cozy."

It was actually a better than usual thing; Jared got a couple lines like, "The team isn't just us. It's the school, it's you" or "And fellas, your Winter Formal corsage: Don't leave home without it."

That was at the end of a variety of messages about not drinking, wearing protection and all the other embarassing topics; they got to choose, among themselves, who had to make the most amusing announcements, like the ones involving sexual activity and drinking, and Jared didn't really win any of those competitions. Instead, he had to hold up a sign with the number and web address of a place that did corsages at the last minute, for people who totally forgot. But he got a kick out of it, because it felt a bit like an American Express commercial.

Hector said it'd run on Friday, which seemed to be coming at them very fast. Thursday went with little to show for it besides getting in a weight lifting session where guys pretty much expressed confusion over a number of things related to the dance; mode of dress, what was acceptable mens' fashion, the women and other etiquette concerns. Heck, the corsage, that came into play -- guys forgetting stuff left and right but remembering to buy condoms, just in case.

"Where's the afterparty, anyway?" Carl asked, and that got people wondering.

"Colt Trenton's in town with Andy and Darren, not sure the party's going to happen there, and my parents will be around," Gabe told them, "but don't worry. Someone will have an afterparty. You guys just need to make sure to go easy on the pregame and keep it cool during the dance, and then the real party starts once we get the ties off. But if you're really worried, you can have Jared ask Heather."

That was said with a bit of a grin shot at Jared, who grimaced back while half-way through a bench set.'

"I honestly didn't think that far ahead, Gabe. I'm usually not told these things ahead of time anyway."

"I'm the one that has to worry about not being told, dude."

"Why's that?"

"You don't know?" Gabe asked, wonderingly.

Jared was getting tired of that -- Tasha and now Gabe. It's like they had inside information on Heather Voss that they didn't quite want to share. So he glanced at Carl.

"Trenton and Voss, competition. You know, girl thing. Over Livingston."

"Bingo," Gabe said.

"That makes no sense."

"Well, I guess grudges don't go away that easy. This one dates back a couple years ago."

He got his weights down on the rest and shook his head, "Well, I'll just have to watch out then."

---

So the first thing that he heard in the morning surprised him. After a good morning kiss, which was a nice way to be greeted, though he avoided doing the tongue thing with Heather's sister, Julie, a sophomore, in the back seat, he got asked: "It's okay if we stop over at Ricki Trenton's on friday before the dance, right? She apparently wants to get photographs of everyone and their date," Heather told him in the car, Thursday morning.

"Yeah, sure, it's cool so long as you're good with it."

Carl was back to driving his own car, and he was giving Heather a ride because she wanted to see the vehicle for herself; almost as if she were inspecting it for suitability. He couldn't think of what was wrong with a mustang, because it was a pretty hot looking car, slightly darker red than usual and with a removable hardtop that could make it a convertible in the summertime. Cali weather was good, but not quite that good in late November to accomodate it. "Wow, it's kind of small, though."

"Are you kidding," Julie said, bubbling, "That's a hot car any way you look at it." Julie, at least, was a little more enthusiastic about the car than Heather was; sure, the seats were a bit small and the car was a bit small, but it was a Mustang, and a classic Mustang at that. She had family resemblance to her sister, but a different personality -- younger and a not quite all grown up yet, and she wasn't going to be attending the dance.

"Yeah, well it's mostly engine, two seats and a minimal backseat, so I hope you don't mind the legroom in back there," Jared told her. The suspension was good on the car, and the engine had been recently refurbished, so the thing purred, "The only downside to it is that it's not very fuel efficient, but I'll survive, somehow."

Anyway, it was a car that strutted a bit. One of the things that shocked Jared to his core upon coming here was the number of BMW's, Audis and other German cars sitting in the parking lot of a high school. If not that, stuff that was racy, Japanese and tuned up-looking. Some guys had trucks, varying sizes. There were a couple older muscle cars running around, Jared wasn't the only one, but it was a little more pedestrian and working class to be crazy about things like the old Chevelle's, Mustangs and GTO's.

Jared didn't really care, he was happy enough with the whole thing, practically glowing as he showed it off a bit. Heather, very obviously, wasn't a car person, but she could at least see that the car was kept very clean. "Oh wow, cool, thank god the radio's a modern system. How do I get it to play..."

Jared would have gone for a different music choice than Arianna Grande, but it was one of those things you had to just put up with when you were outvoted. His mom was from the era when Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and Nirvana were doing their thing, but he bounced between a variety of music types.

Somehow, Heather messed it up and got Waylon Jennings and his smooth voice singing, "Low down leavin' sun..."

"Oh, ew, turnitoff, turnitoff..." moaned Julie, while Jared grinned.

The day passed quickly, complete with the announcements and the public service announcement from the hockey team. By the time school let out, no one was lingering, so Jared had Heather and Julie back in the car and home about twenty minutes after the final bell rang, when usually people would spend a little time socializing or be in practice. "5:30, and to the Trenton house, right?"

"Yes," Heather said, with a kiss, this time with a bit of tongue added, "See you then, baby."

--

Pre-dance, the ritual was easier for dudes -- showering, shaving, cleaning ears, trimming nails. Little things, but they counted. The hair had to be done a bit more carefully, but he went with blow drying and a comb, which felt weird but seemed to work; he watched a barber do it once and knew that it produced results. The sport coat matched his eye color a bit, complementing rather than mirroring, and the slightly darker shirt, light blue, gave him less of a washed out look with the blonde hair. The contrast from the tie helped set it off, even with the darker gray pants. It wasn't a suit, which a lot of guys were going for, but something a little more casual, and perhaps that said 'social' rather than 'stuffy formal social.'

There were little rituals of meeting the Voss family and presenting the corsage, but Mr. Voss seemed to loosen up considerbly when Jared showed up in well dressed and looked like he meant business, rather than being some douche. He made polite conversation, including the inevitable, "I didn't think Buchanan hockey was going to be that good" and questions about Massachusetts, which he answered politely, bringing the Catholic schoolboy manners to the table. There was car talk; his daughter didn't appreciate the Mustang for what it was, but Paul Voss made Jared pop the hood so he could admire it and practically measured the wheels himself. "Christine made me sell my Porsche when we had Julie," he explained as he gestured diffidently toward a Mercedes.

"Apparently, I'm not supposed to say this sort of thing but make sure you bring my daughter home alive, or I'll have to hunt you down and feed you to grizzlies," Mr. Voss joked with a wink. "Other than that, enjoy the dance and the party afterward. Just be safe and if you guys are too wasted to drive, just leave a text telling us where you're laying up at."

That blew him away a bit -- a carte blanche to basically do drugs and drink and do whatever. California had way different attitudes than other places. In Mass, a whole different set of mores applied, but that was fine.

When they finally got clear, Heather in a red dress that showed off shoulder and arm definition to her advantage, they were slightly early to the Trenton residence, but Colt Trenton came right out into the driveway as he pulled in. "Now that," he said appreciatively, "Is a goddamned car, son. You must be Jared, we've heard quite a bit about you."

Needless to say, he had to pop the hood again.

[SirensCall]

Lunch was different, but a good sort of different. Ricki found herself sitting with Maureen and Krista at their normal table, and though it didn't stop the glares from the cheerleader table, she paid it no mind. Maureen smiled a bit. "So, I set up our nail appointments." Maureen beamed, and Krista smiled.

"And I have different options for hairstyles for each of us." Krista said, opening an album on her phone as they looked to Ricki who nodded.

"Andy and Darren are cleaning up the yard for pictures, and the boutineers are in my freezer." She said, and they nodded. "So, we're pretty well set. My mom said she'd help is with our hair and stuff."

Krista smiled a bit and looked over to the hockey table. "So, are you going to give Gabe a chance?" She asked, and she gave a nod. Maureen seemed more than pleased which caused Ricki to sigh.

"A chance. You know it's hard for me after the last time." Ricki said, and Krista nodded. "But, anyway, so I have another, kinda small thing."

"What?" Krista asked.

"I invited Jared and Heather for pictures." She said, and her friends looked at her. "So play nice, please? I did it simply since we're likely going to be seeing more of her. Especially since She and Jared are a thing and Maureen here is dating his best friend."

Maureen and Krista both fixed her with looks. "Babe, we know you're trying to be the bigger person, but are you sure about this?" Krista asked.

Maureen nodded. "You are definitely in the running for a saint."

Ricki looked at them. "Friends close, enemies closer. Since she can't get over the thing with David, I guess we'll always be at ends." She pointed out and they nodded.

"So true." Krista said, turning slightly to see the hockey team sitting together. "Now isn't that a sight for sore eyes, the hockey team is sitting together."

Ricki shrugged. "Well, I guess hell is freezing over because I'm in the cafeteria for once too."

They all laughed and Krista nodded. "Anyway, let's talk hair. Maureen, you have to wear yours up, it looks great that way."

--

Wednesday came, after dinner over at Gabe's, Ricki felt a little better about going with Gabe, and after school She was at the art club meeting. She had to go to the photography lab and on her way back, She passed the A/V lab. She chuckled a bit at the site inside, but she headed down to the art room, but Dancy was looking for her. "Ricki!" He called, and she rose a brow.

"Here are the pictures I have of the backdrops, and the ones we need to finish the props." She said, and he nodded.

"Good, Good, hey I wanted to ask a favor." He said, and Ricki nodded as they walked towards the art room.

"What are you talking about?" She asked.

"Well, you know how for home games in football season we had that banner for them? With hockey getting as big as it is, do you think you can paint a banner up before the next home game?" He asked. "Kind of like our contribution."

Dancy, though the art teacher, was big into sports, so it didn't come as a surprise.to her. "I can try." She said, and he nodded, "Can I have class time to work on it."

"Sure." He said.

--

Once Thursday came around, Ricki was almost certain Heather wasn't going for the whole photo thing, but as she headed to English, Heather found her. "Hey, Ricki." She greeted and Ricki nodded. "So, does around 6 sound good?"

Ricki nodded. "Yeah, see you guys then." She said, but before she could walk off She stopped. "Oh, and I'll have some prints for you Monday, so if you wanted some edited I can get them to you."

Heather nodded, and Ricki entered the English room and Gabe slid into the seat next.to her. "Hey." He said, and she smiled.

"Hey. So, 5:45? I want to get through the corsage thing before everyone else gets there. You know? Since Darren will be taking the pictures for us." She said, and he.nodded.

"Alrighty, I'll be there." He said, and Ricki nodded a bit and she pulled out her phone and Texted Krista.

So, Voss is coming. Remember play nice.

She got back a short response, and Ricki Sat through the entire day, glad once school was out She was glad to get to the nail appointments. Maureen and Krista relaxed with her.

"So, are you ready for tomorrow?" Krista asked and Ricki nodded.

"Are you?" She asked.and.Maureen smiled.

"You know she is, She got her wax on yesterday." Maureen said and Krista blushed.

"Hey, this is Tyler Rockett were talking about. I have to bring my A game. What about you, Ricki?" She asked.

"Well, we'll just have to see where things go." She said, and Maureen smiled.

"So, where's the.after party?" She asked and Krista smiled.

"Well, I know my house isn't as big as Ricki or Gabe's, but my parents are heading up state with Paul to look at colleges, so the house is.all ours." Krista said.

"Fuck yeah!" Maureen smiled.

"Well, everything is settled then." Ricki said. "Now let's just hope my dad behaves."

--

Friday after school was crazy. Ricki got home and immediately hopped.in a.bath, shaving her legs and other essentials, and the second she got out of the bath, Krista, Maureen, and her mother Were running around like.mad.women. Ricki, sitting in her silk robe, messed with her camera while her mother curled her hair and Krista managed to get Maureen's hair done.

"I am glad you were blessed with my hair." Her.mother said, and Once Ricki was satisfied with her camera, she began applying her.make.up. After a blur of Dresses getting pulled on, make up being perfected, and jewelry being clasped on, it was nearing time for everyone to get there. Ricki slipped into her black pumps and headed down stairs, her camera in one hand and her clutch in the other. She had heard vehicle pull into the driveway, and she looked to the clock. 5:43.

She checked herself over in the mirror. She thought she looked alright, and she headed out front and saw Heather and Jared there. She went to head back in, but Darren followed her out. "So, when's Gabe getting here?" He asked, and she looked to the watch on his wrist.

"Anytime now." She said, and Darren threw his arm over her.

"Well then, let's go greet your guests." He said, and.Darren took the camera from her and took a picture of their dad and Jared under the hood of his car.

"Hi." Ricki said, and when Heather looked at her she gave a smile. "We're doing pictures around back when you guys are ready to head that way." She said, and Gabe pulled up not long after. Ricki smiled a bit, a more relaxed smile than the one she had given Heather.

"Finally!" Darren exclaimed when Gabe Got out and had a small plastic case in his hand. "Come on you two."

Ricki waited for Gabe and she walked with him. "Looking sharp." She complimented, and Gabe gave a grin.

"This is definitely your color." He said, and Once they headed around back and got their pictures done, Ricki looked up into Gabe's eyes. The corsage was not what she.expected. A daffodil with a perfectly toned rose. She pinned on his boutineer and spoke.

"How'd you know about the.daffodil?" She asked.

"Krista." He answered, and soon everyone was coming into the backyard and Ricki took her camera and Gabe walked with her to where Darren had been standing.

"Alright. I'm starting with couples and then we'll do group photos." She.told them as she began her work.