It was Gabrielle’s turn and she spun the bottle the way she did everything—slow and lazy. She got Bitsy, pouted, and said, slyly, “Well, it ain’t the first time.”
Maddie had heard boys talk shamelessly about their johnsons and jerking off and how their hand was their best girlfriend. Ha-ha-ha. But she hadn’t heard girls talk that way, not until she starting hanging with Bitsy, Vanessa, and Gabrielle, who talked openly, loudly, in front of the boys, about “stirring the soup” and “getting off.” Making Maddie blush. Driving the boys wild. So when Bitsy mediated Spin the Bottle, she enforced one rule: Girls had to kiss who the bottle told them to kiss. An excuse for her and Gabrielle and Vanessa to tangle their tongues in front of the boys. Of course, if a boy landed on a boy, they spun again. The rules weren’t the same for girls and guys.
Bitsy’s and Gabrielle’s glossed lips met. Their tongues flickered around O-shaped mouths. Gabrielle nipped at Bitsy’s lower lip and Bitsy pinched one of Gabrielle’s plump breasts. Gabrielle flinched, smacking Bitsy’s hand and saying, without meaning it, “Bitch.”
“Fuuuuck,” Ricky drawled.
Bitsy looked straight at Brooks and said, “Future jerk-off material. You’re welcome.”
“Screw this,” Gerritt said, and stomped out of the ballroom, his heavy steps echoing.
Bitsy ran after him.
“Sore loser?” Gabrielle said.
It was Brooks’s turn.
Please, Maddie thought, if there is a God, he will make the bottle land on me. She knew it was a ridiculous thing to pray for. Nonna LaRosa would call it sacrilege.
He spun the bottle fast and it seemed to make a thousand rotations before stopping.
The bottle’s brown snout pointed at her.
Her.
Time slowed as he made his way around the outside of the circle. A breeze blew through one of the open windows and two candles snuffed out.
“How poetic,” Penny said. Gabrielle snickered.
He dropped to his knees in front of her. The candlelight made the silhouette of his hair glow like he was on fire. He tucked his hands under her jawbone and she felt his pulse twitch in the wrist on her cheek. Quick gentle kisses settled into slow and deep sucking. Until then, sex, even just kissing, had felt like something being taken away, a draining, but now she filled. Her hands were on his chest, reaching around his neck, when she heard Penny’s voice, joking, “Cool your jets, kids. Get a room already.”
“Shit,” Gabrielle said. “That was so hot, I creamed my shorts.”
For once, Maddie was grateful for the distraction the girl’s crassness provided.
But Brooks was staring at the back of the ballroom. Looking worried. Most of the boys were there in one big clump.
Brooks jogged past Maddie, mumbling, “I told my mom this was crazy. That it would never work.”
Before she could ask him what it was, he was hurrying over to the entrance, shouting, “It’s cool! It’s cool. I invited them.”
The pack of East boys—Spencer, Austin, Rolo, and Gerritt—parted. Enzo and Vinny strutted into the ballroom, two of their buddies behind them, and, finally, Carla, her beaded braids swinging click-clack, click-clack.
“Holy shit,” Penny whispered.
Maddie wiped her mouth. Licked her lips. Had they seen her and Brooks kissing? That’s all she needed. Her cousins telling her dad.
“That bitch!” Bitsy was yelling even as she ran across the ballroom floor.
“Cool it, pretty lady,” Enzo said, smooth as ever, gripping Bitsy’s arms when she tried to push past him, get to Carla.
Vinny and the two West boys chimed in, “Oooh,” and John called, “Cat fight!”
Bitsy glared at Enzo, and Maddie saw there was more there, and it looked like sex.
“Whatever,” Bitsy said, “Rico Suave.”
Penny snorted behind Maddie.
“Carla,” Enzo called.
The petite girl dressed in black head to toe, from Metallica tee to scuffed, steel-toe Doc Martens, stepped forward, arms crossed.
“I’m sorry.”
“What? I can’t hear you,” Bitsy sang, rolling her head with extra sass.
There was fire in Carla’s thickly lined eyes.
“I AM SORRY,” she said, loud and silly, so everyone had to know she was really saying fuck you.
Enzo applauded. A slow clap that doubled with the echo.
“Okay then,” he said. “Let’s party.”
He pulled a plastic baggie from his pocket and tossed it to Bitsy, who almost dropped it. It must’ve been a quarter of weed. Even from where Maddie stood, hiding behind Penny’s wide body, she could see the fat buds furred with red hair. Bitsy opened the bag, stuck her perfect nose inside, and inhaled.
“Fuck yeah. They can stay.”
Everyone laughed. Brooks jogged back to the stereo. The tunes restarted. Red Hot Chili Peppers urging them to “give it away, give it away, give it away now,” repeating the lyric until it sounded to Maddie like half manifesto, half tongue twister.
She grabbed Penny’s hand and pulled her friend toward her cousins.
“What? Wait,” Penny whispered. “They’re kind of scary.”
“Cugina!” Vinny cried with open arms when he saw her, giving her a tight hug so she knew she’d smell like his musky Drakkar Noir cologne all night.
“Cuz,” Enzo said, and kissed her once on each cheek. “You old enough to be out partying?” His face was dead serious before it cracked open in a smile.
“The question is,” she teased, “how’d you guys get here? You know Brooks?”
“Oh, yeah,” Vinny said, lighting a cigarette, taking a long pull, and exhaling with the cigarette still between his lips. “We know Brooks. Been doing some work for his mom. Like cleaning up some of the rooms in this joint.” He held his arms out at his sides as if, Maddie thought, he were saying Check this place out. “She invited us. Leslie did. You think your buddies will have a problem with that?”
He peered over her head at the crowd of East kids gathered by the stereo. Lots of looks being passed back and forth.
“You stay cool, they’ll stay cool,” she said. Surprised at how well she was faking calm.
“What we should be asking,” Enzo said, like he was interrogating her, “is how come ol’ Brooks knows so much about you? He told us about your walk home the other night.”
“Yeah,” Vinny said. “Sounded like it was a long walk.”
Her stomach flip-flopped. She thought of her father. His belt.
“Just kidding, cuz,” Enzo said.
Vinny laughed so hard the cigarette fell out of his mouth. “You should’ve seen your face. So serious. What was it old Nonno said about you that one time?”
She sighed. “That I was too serious and had the face of a nun.”
Her cousins laughed. “Yeah, that’s it,” Vinny said. “I miss the old guy.”
Maddie didn’t. Both her grandfathers had told her she wasn’t good enough. Too somber. Too opinionated.
“Seriously,” she said, making sure she whispered, “You guys know how my dad would flip if you told him anything, like, weird. Yeah? Even if you were kidding.”
“We know you don’t have nothing going with this guy,” Enzo said, his arm, heavy with muscle, slung around her shoulders.
“And what if I did?” She was testing them. And trying to convince herself she wouldn’t care if her dad beat her black and blue.
“He’s all right,” Vinny said.