Rock Bottom Girl(40)

“Are you sure it wasn’t your lawyer who did it?” Jake offered.

“Yeah, I heard that you didn’t pay him after you lost that suit against your next-door neighbor and their hedgerow,” Floyd added.

“Guy’s got a lot of enemies,” Haruko said from her classroom doorway. She scratched at the corner of her eye with her middle finger.

Vince glared at her before turning his attention back to me and stabbing his finger in my face.

“Careful there,” Jake said, his voice low and controlled.

“I know you did this!” Vince hissed.

“Like I said. I had an away game yesterday,” I reminded him.

“What about the night before?” Vince demanded.

“She was with me,” Jake said.

“Ooooooh!” The gathered students really liked that.

“Is that so?” Vince snarled.

“Are you calling me a liar?” Jake asked calmly. He sounded amused, almost bored. He was way scarier than the tantrum-throwing Vince. I liked it.

“If either of you think you can mess with me or my team again, you’ll be hearing from my lawyer!” With a parting growl, the man turned and stormed out, knocking Milton out of his way.

“Well, that was fun,” Floyd said, watching him go.

“All right everyone. Show’s over. Get to class,” Jake said, herding students toward classrooms and hallways.

“Marley Cicero!”

Jesus, what was with people sneaking up on me?

Amie Jo stormed down the hall under a full head of steam. “Did I hear Coach Vince accuse you of doing this to my poor sweet boy?” she demanded, yanking Milton’s head down so I could see the pink cast better.

“Oh, shit. You’re on your own,” Floyd hissed and turned tail into the gym.

“Coward,” I called after him.

“We were at an away game yesterday, Mrs. Hostetter,” Morgan E. reminded her. “We weren’t even here.”

“How convenient,” Amie Jo hissed, eyeing me like a mangy raccoon. “But I seem to recall you being mean and violent in high school.”

I scoffed in her face. “I was mean and violent in high school? Are you forgetting the time you tried to run over Shelly Smith in the parking lot?” Shelly had made the unfortunate mistake of running against Amie Jo for class secretary our junior year.

Of course the entire town was always happy to forgive Amie Jo for her bad choices. Mine, however, still lived on.

“I know exactly what you’re doing,” she hissed at me. “You’re pretending to be innocent, but I know what you’re capable of.”

I’d once broken into her locker and filled it with a dozen of the largest pairs of granny panties that I could find at Walmart. It had cost me two weeks of lunch money, but it had been so worth it. They’d fallen out at her feet between classes and been waved as flags by hilarious classmates.

It occurred after she’d called me an ugly whore during gym class when I missed her set in volleyball.

And then there had been Homecoming 1998 when I’d taken things way, way, way too far.

The warning bell rang, and students reluctantly left the scene of what was shaping up to be a girl fight.

“Go on to class, Milty,” she told her son. “I’ll take care of this.” She waited until the hallway was mostly empty before sidling closer to me.

“Now you listen to me, Marley Cicero. I know you. And I know you had something to do with this. Maybe you’re just jealous that I got Travis and you got nothing. Maybe you feel bad that your life is so pathetic. Maybe the only joy you get in life is by staging these childish pranks. I get it. I wouldn’t be able to stand myself if I were you either. All alone in life. You’re a what not to do. A human Pinterest fail. But don’t you ever do anything to my sons’ hair again.” Her voice screeched higher.

I absorbed the words. Used to the verbal weapons Amie Jo and people like her employed.

“A human Pinterest fail? I feel like that’s uncalled for.”

“Admit it. You’re jealous of me.” Amie Jo was turning an unnatural shade of red, and I worried about her blood pressure. She was like one of those Instant Pots. You didn’t want that bursting open.

“Whoa. Let’s hang on there a second,” Jake was back at my side. “Amie Jo, I don’t know what you were told, but Marley couldn’t have had anything to do with that prank.”

“It was her! I know it was,” Amie Jo insisted. “If she didn’t tamper with the sprinklers yesterday, she did it the night before.”

“She was with me the night before. All night. Speaking of,” Jake said, sliding his arm around my waist. It was an incredibly inappropriate time for my nipples to go hard. “Do you mind if we do dinner at my house tonight. Last I heard, dining naked is frowned upon at Cashews.” He leaned in and nibbled at my ear.

I could hear him. He was speaking English. But my brain was inserting word salad for what he must actually be saying. Jake Weston was not telling Amie Jo that he wanted to get me naked for dinner. Was he?

I looked at her. She had an expression of horror, revulsion.

Okay, maybe he actually said it. “Baby?” he asked. He pinched me, hard.

I made a yelping noise and then recovered. “Uh. Yeah. Fine. Naked dinner at your place is…fine.”