Breakable (Contours of the Heart, #2)(67)

‘That’s it,’ Boyce said, staring at it. ‘I’m kickin’ his ass.’

I didn’t care what Clark Richards did or said to me, but my truck was an extension of my grandfather, and he’d disrespected him. ‘Get him invited tonight, Wynn.’

Boyce had an evil grin that was all too familiar from my ninth-grade memory vault – if he’d sprouted horns and a villain moustache along with it, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

‘Thatta boy, Maxfield,’ he said, thumbs flying, texting someone. ‘Consider it done.’

According to the bathroom mirror, I’d had a hell of a night. Black eye. Swollen nose. Bruised jaw. The wall clock in the kitchen said it was early afternoon, so school was officially ditched for the day. I plugged my phone in, drank a Coke, started coffee and went to take a shower while it brewed.

My ribs were sore and bruised, too, and my knuckles were scuffed raw. I smeared ointment on to everything still bloody after the soap and water, before pulling on dark grey sweatpants and a red-and-white baseball tee, wincing from the sharp pain in my side the whole time. Deep breaths were agony and coughing was worse. I weighed the possibility of a cracked rib. Head in my hands at the kitchen table, I stared into my empty mug and tried to recall how I’d got that particular injury.

When we’d gone to buy beer, our usual clerk had been out. The woman across the counter wasn’t willing to give us the benefit of a doubt that we were older than we looked. ‘Scram,’ she said, heaving the twelve-pack of Bud Light to her side of the counter. Her mouth hadn’t moved from its disgruntled, horizontal line.

In its stead, we nicked a bottle of the Jim Beam from Bud Wynn’s closet.

‘You sure about this?’ I asked Boyce, who’d be the one paying for it, one way or another.

Boyce shrugged. ‘Maybe he’ll forget he had it.’

I arched a brow. ‘Right.’ His father was one mean-assed alcoholic. And he never forgot anything.

Mateo Vega, one of Boyce’s buddies, was the first to greet us when we hit the beach. The three of us exchanged greetings, Vega tipping his chin when Boyce asked if Richards was there. ‘Yeah, man – saw him five minutes ago.’ Boyce asked something else I couldn’t hear, though I was pretty sure it had to do with whether or not his girlfriend had tagged along. Vega shook his head once. ‘But he brought a couple bros from the team,’ he warned.

‘Gotcha,’ Boyce said.

We handed the bottle to Thompson and scored enough shit to get us both seriously f*cked up. ‘I don’t wanna roll until I find Richards,’ I said, unaware until I said the words that I needed to beat the shit out of him, and I didn’t want anything dulling the rage.

Ten minutes later, I got my wish. Richards was parked on a cooler with a blue cup in his hand. Once I saw him, I didn’t see anything else. Not his friends, not mine.

Boyce: You up?

Me: Yeah. Trying to remember last night. You at school?

Boyce: Yeah. Richards is out today too. Man you pounded him. I knew you had it in you but holy shit.

Me: Do I have any possibility of a cracked rib?

Boyce: Shit. Maybe. I’ll be over after school.



I poured another cup of coffee and opened the door to Grandpa’s room. It already smelled musty. Sunlight filtered through tiny gaps in the ancient metal blinds, which were rusted in a few places where the paint was scratched. Dust motes drifted in the beams, disturbed and swirling from my entry. The furniture was stripped bare – no sheets on the bed or glasses on the night table. Dad had stacked a few ledger boxes against a wall. The years were labelled in his jagged scrawl.

It hadn’t occurred to me that I could ask to move into this room instead of remaining in the pantry. Evidently, it hadn’t occurred to Dad, either.

I sat on the edge of the bare mattress and sipped a second cup of coffee, my head clearing little by little. After my fight with Boyce, Grandpa had taught me the proper way to make a fist and throw a punch.

I’d stalked straight to Richards last night and yanked him up, fisting both hands in his shirt. He dropped his cup and jerked free, stumbling back a step. If his friends moved to defend him, Boyce and Mateo convinced them to stay out of it. No one interfered.

‘W-what the f*ck, Maxfield?’

I stepped closer and leaned into his space. ‘You’re a cowardly f*cking *, Richards.’

He drew himself up, eyes shifting to the gathering audience, and laughed. ‘Whatsa matter, freak – upset because my girlfriend didn’t wanna suck your dick?’ He shoved me back with both hands, or tried to.

I felt my mocking half smile shift into place. ‘Oh, she sucked it all right.’

His eyes blazed wide and he swung a fist that glanced off my jaw. I drew back and punched him in the mouth, his teeth scraping my knuckles. He tried to land a body blow, but I blocked it with an elbow and belted him in the gut, and he gave a satisfying oof. We separated and circled each other.

‘You’re a sore loser, freak,’ he panted. ‘You need to learn not to get between another guy and what belongs to him.’ He repeated the hit to my jaw with the same glance-off result.

I laughed, the sound caustic. ‘You think this is about Melody?’ I didn’t expect the spear of pain that shot through me from saying her name. He took advantage of my pause and landed a better blow. My nose crunched and I saw stars. He moved in for another hit but I ducked and drove into him, knocking him flat in the sand.