Bianca smiles so wide at the compliment I think I see tonsils.
I don’t look at the guy for the rest of the game, won’t give him the satisfaction, even when he laughs so hard that other spectators tell him to shut up.
By the time the countdown clock reaches zero, darkness envelops the field and the Renegades are victorious. The football team ambushes Devon and lifts him above their heads. To say the crowd is happy would be an understatement of epic proportions.
It takes about three and a half minutes for the stadium to thin out after that. I know this because that’s how long Devon gives me to change out of my uniform before we leave for the concert, and by the time I emerge from the girls’ locker room, dressed in a black lace tank, a fluorescent pink micromini, sky-high black heels, and bright red lipstick, there’s not a soul left in the bleachers. Everyone’s converged on the parking lot to make plans for the night. Kids pile into cars. Music blares from open windows, sending vibrations across the earth that I can feel in my spine. Someone peels across the parking lot, and everyone whoops and cheers. The air crackles with positive energy.
“Hurry up!” Devon calls from across the lot, waving and hopping impatiently outside his silver BMW.
“I’m coming, I’m coming.” I run as fast as I can in four-inch heels on loose gravel. Which is impressively fast, I must say.
I pass the rest of the squad and football team circled around Jarrod’s car, which pumps techno music through the lot. They’re still dressed in their uniforms, which they’ll wear all night, if tonight is anything like past game nights; it’s important to show our team pride around the city, Bianca says. Yeah, because what the citizens of Los Angeles can’t get enough of is high school football.
“Hey,” Jarrod calls to me. “You guys are coming to my house after the concert, right?”
“Course,” I say. “Who isn’t going?”
My answer elicits cheers from our friends. Jarrod better have some carpet cleaner handy, because his place is getting trashed tonight.
“Hey! Hey, you, Indiana, or whatever.”
I spin around and find the leather jacket guy giving me a wide smile. “Good, I thought I’d have to tackle, tackle, tackle you!” He mimics our cheer, a shit-eating grin on his face.
My friends must recognize our heckler too, because they circle around me.
“You know that guy?” Bianca hisses in my ear.
“No,” I say, offended, then call over to him, “Hey, don’t you have animals to torture behind a Dumpster or something?”
“Taking a break,” he says without missing a beat.
“Want me to mess this guy up?” Jarrod asks.
Bianca pushes Jarrod back and marches in front of me to face the guy. “Look, I don’t know who you think you are, but next time you chirp us during a game, we’re getting you kicked out.”
“Kicked out?” He claps his hand over his mouth. “You wouldn’t!”
“You better watch how you talk to us,” Jarrod says, taking a big, macho step closer.
“Indie, hurry up, we’re gonna be late!” Devon calls.
“Look,” Bianca says, catching Jarrod’s arm, “as much as I’d love for you to get better acquainted, we have a party to go to, because we have, like, lives. Come on, guys. Don’t waste your time on this loser.”
“Are you all just gonna, like, let her boss you around like that?” Leather Jacket Guy says in a perfect Bianca impression.
The weirdo makes a valid point; I hate him slightly less. But I’m running late, so I leave the petty, immature fighting to my friends.
“Finally,” Devon says as I get inside the car. “Who were you talking to?”
“Some loser.” I flip the vanity mirror down to check out my hair. It’s a good thing I’m going to a concert where wild hair is acceptable, because it’s Krazy with a capital K: about ninety percent frizz and ten percent curl.
“I don’t like him,” Devon says.
I flick him an incredulous look. “You can’t seriously be jealous.”
“I don’t want you talking to him.”
And I don’t want my boyfriend telling me who to talk to. I normally wouldn’t think twice before telling him exactly that, but we’ve been bickering too much lately. We need a good night.
Devon fiddles with the buttons on the dash until a Jay-Z song blasts through the speakers. “Yeah!” His head bobs in time with the music. “Hope he does this song tonight. It’s wicked.”
I smile and gaze out the window; the guy is gone. “Yeah, really wicked.”
Sweat collects in places I didn’t know was possible. Beer is sloshed down the front of my tank top, which clings to my body like I’m an extra in some sort of Girls Gone Wild video. And I smell—bad.
Which all might be super embarrassing if twenty thousand other screaming Jay-Z fans weren’t in the same exact situation as me.