“Fine, JD.” Ben was breathing hard. He touched his split lip, which was still bleeding. “Have it your way . . . whatever.”
JD suddenly turned bright red and charged him, tackling him to the ground. His hands encircled Ben’s throat, squeezing as Ben tried to break the hold. Pinpoints of light were flashing through Ben’s brain but he wasn’t going to go down without a fight. He freed his right hand and punched straight up at JD’s nose. Red, fresh blood spewed from JD’s nostrils, covering Ben’s face. He felt the pressure ease from his airway. He heard a lot of screaming in the background as he rolled over and held his own throat, coughing as hard as he could. His breathing was labored, his head still woozy.
He heard the principal’s voice.
“What the hell is going on?” The man sounded angry. “Are you both out of your freakin’ minds?” Weekly helped Ben up. He was still having fits of coughing. JD’s entire face was a bloody mess.
The principal said, “I can’t believe what I’m seeing! My valedictorian and salutatorian acting like kindergarten thugs!”
“Which one’s which?” JD asked.
“Shut the hell up, JD. With a single phone call, I can not only take away your football scholarship, I can revoke your admission to Duke.”
“Noooo . . .” Ben choked out. “Don’t do that.” He broke into another fit of coughing. “We’re cool.”
JD had turned ashen. He said, “Yeah . . . we’re . . . totally cool.” Blood was dripping from his nose and onto the ground. He and Ben looked at each other and fist-bumped. Then Ben went back to coughing.
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t see this. Both of you . . . get the hell out of here!” The principal stalked away.
The boys stared at each other as they nursed their wounds. Ro was passing out Kleenex from a box. “What the hell just happened?”
“Nothing.” JD turned to Ro and grabbed a wad of tissues. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” She was incredulous. “I’ve lived in New York my entire life. I’ve been to the city innumerable times. I’ve never come close to seeing as many fistfights as I’ve seen here in ten months. What is wrong with you guys? Didn’t your mothers ever teach you to use your words?”
JD was still mopping up his bloody nose. “Wanna grab some dinner?”
“Not the way you look, bud,” Ro told him. “Right now, I want to go home.”
“Fine, I’ll take you home.”
“You know, JD, right now, I don’t want to be in the same car as you.”
He turned to her with fierce eyes. “You’re my date, you kiss him in front of everyone, and you’re pissed at me?”
“I’m not pissed at you, JD. I just don’t want your blood and snot on my new sweater.”
“Fine. Do whatever the hell you want.” JD looked at his posse. “Meet up at Kiki’s?”
Weekly said, “I’m there.”
Mark Salinez said, “Fine with me.”
JD glared at Ben. Then he sighed. “You’re invited.”
“I’m going home.”
JD said, “I said you’re invited!”
“I’ve got to take my sister and her group home from the dance, JD,” Ben said.
“I’ve got the perfect solution,” Ro said. “Give me your car keys, Vicks. I’ll take them home.”
“I thought you wanted to leave,” JD said.
“I changed my mind. I mean, why go home and be cozy and comfy when you can stay at the dance with no date, listening to Onionfeather massacre Roy Orbison.” She turned to Ben. “You can pick up your car at my house. I’ll leave the keys in the glove compartment.”
“I don’t want to put you out,” Ben said.
“A little late for that, don’t you think? So unless you want me to walk, give me your damn car keys.” Reluctantly Ben handed them to her. She said, “And don’t ring the doorbell to thank me because I don’t want to talk to you.”
Ben and JD exchanged glances. It could have been unspent adrenaline. It could have been something else. But they suddenly started laughing. Small chuckles at first, until they doubled over into big guffaws.
Ro said, “I swear you two are enough to make a girl join a convent.”
JD was still laughing. “You’d make a very cute nun.”
Ben tried to stifle the laughter but it didn’t work. “Yeah, you’ve always looked terrific in black.”
Ro gave them incredulous looks. “Okay, boys, just go back to your bromance and don’t mind me. I’ll just hate you both.” She marched away.
They both started laughing again. It hurt Ben’s throat, it hurt his head, it hurt to smile. But it also felt good. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.
Chapter 20
The ride in the car was silent. When JD pulled up at the coffee shop, he said, “You okay?”
“Fine.” A pause. “Nice set of wheels, JD. When did you get this?”
“A year ago.”
“Okay. I guess I’ve been a little out of touch.”
“Y’think?” JD paused. “Sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. You just caught me off guard.”
“Yeah, right.” He snickered. “Otherwise you woulda busted my ass.”
“I didn’t say I could bust your ass. But there was a time I could give you a run for your money.” He rolled his shoulders. “I’m just a little out of shape.”
“Like three years out of shape.”
“You weren’t talking this way when you were hanging out the window of the Peterson law office.”
“That was five years ago, Vicks. And the only reason you got that far was because you punched me in the stomach when I had the flu.”
“Give me a break. You had a stuffy nose. And the only reason I punched you in the stomach was that you tried to choke me. Which means nothing has changed!” Ben got out of the car but waited for JD. They walked into Kiki’s together.
A sixty-year-old crane-built waitress with a gray bouffant hairdo stared at the boys. “Vicks?”
“You still here, Heidi?”
“Where else should I be?” She looked him up and down. “I haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays. When did you grow up?”
“Hi, Heidi,” JD said.
“What the hell happened to you?” She looked at Ben again. “What happened to your lip?”
“It wasn’t pretty,” Weekly said.
“I finally decided to put some character in that pretty-boy face,” Ben told her.
“JD almost strangled him,” Weekly told her.
“That is utter horseshit,” Ben said. “Can we sit down before JD bleeds out?” He followed the guys to their usual booth.
JD said, “You want to talk about bleeding, remember when I bashed your head open with a pool cue?”
“Yes I do. I recall that was after I took out your knees with a baseball bat.”
The boys sat down. Weekly said, “Yeah, when was that? Like sixth grade. What was that all about?”
Ben and JD exchanged glances. JD said, “Don’t remember.” When Ben smiled, JD said, “What? I really don’t remember.”
“It had to do with pictures of Shannon Stork with her top au naturel that you showed me.”
“Yeah, yeah!” JD clapped. “That’s right! You told her about the pictures after you promised me you wouldn’t.”
Ben said, “I did it because you showed her a picture of a one-inch dick and told her it was mine.”
“She told you that?”
“How else would I know? I was really insulted. Like what was that? Like a lemur’s?”