CROSS (A Gentry Boys Novella)(16)

“Stone doesn’t own Conway,” I shot back, suddenly irritable. “Con will do what’s right for him and Stone can hang back here and keep being his own worst problem.”

“All right, all right.” Roe held up her hands. “Damn, I forgot how much you couldn’t stand Stone.”

I didn’t want to talk about Stone Gentry anymore. “It doesn’t matter,” I said quickly. “It’s fine.”

Roe nodded. “Con thinks I don’t like him, huh?”

I hesitated. Con thought Roe was stuck up and indifferent. He didn’t know her like I did. “Nah. Not at all. He was just worried you weren’t having a good time when we were all hanging out last night.”

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I guess when I come to town I’m kind of the proverbial third wheel.”

“You are not.”

She grinned teasingly. “I’ll be on my way soon and then you and Con can return to your carnal pursuits.”

“I told you we haven’t done it. But what about you?”

She started putting away tubes of lipstick. “What about me?”

“All the guys were staring at you last night, drool collecting at their feet, as they prayed you’d throw them a bone.”

“I’ve already done too much,” she said and the frown that crossed her face reminded me that Roe had a few secrets of her own. She’d disappeared from social media ever since that teacher scandal. I never got the whole story about that, but I didn’t need it. She was still Roe. I was social and polite to many of the local Emblem girls. However, I still considered Roe to be my only true friend. Aside from Conway of course.

“Did you like your present?” I asked her in order to change the subject to something more cheerful.

A smile lit her face and she immediately reached over and pulled the small box from her overnight bag. She’d already opened it earlier but now she again opened the lid carefully and touched the object sitting atop a cotton bed. Her seventeenth birthday had been several weeks ago and I’d been waiting to give her the hanging crystal prism. It wasn’t much, just a token I’d picked up at a tourist trap a few miles outside town, the kind of place where you buy flimsy cowboy hats, magnets in the shape of the state, scorpion paper weights. The small crystal was attached to a string of fake turquoise beads. It was meant to be hung in a window frame to catch the light. I hadn’t been hunting for a gift when I saw it, but immediately it reminded me of a really old movie Roe and I had watched together years ago. In the movie a pair of outcast children befriended an elderly hermit. There was memorable scene where the three of them hung dozens of crystals in a huge window in such a way to create a rainbow of light when the sun hit. For some reason that scene had always stuck with me. I wasn’t sure she would remember but from the look on her face yesterday when she opened the box I knew that she did.

“I love it,” she said with quiet awe, holding it in her manicured fingers like it was a rare diamond. That was why I loved Roe so much. She had everything money could buy but she was still the kind of girl who treasured an eight-dollar sentimental gift from her best friend.

We were interrupted by a loud knock on the door and a spray of giggles.

Roe opened the door and my two sisters spilled into the room. Penny stalked in primly with all the worldly arrogance of a newly minted teenager. Katie followed, full of nine-year-old laughter that didn’t require anything specific.

“What are you guys doing?” Katie asked, poking around in Roe’s overnight bag.

“Plotting a global takeover,” I answered.

My sister wrinkled her nose. “Huh?”

“You’re wearing a ton of makeup,” sniffed Penny with disapproval. “Wait until Dad sees.”

“Dad won’t care. And anyway you’ll have to get used to it because it’s been tattooed on.”

“Well, you look like a clown.”

“Penny?” ventured Roe. “Would you like to try some makeup?”

“I would!” shouted Katie with her hand in the air.

“I guess,” said Penny with an eye roll. “Just don’t make me look like a circus clown.”

Roe sat down and went about the serious work of applying makeup to my little sisters. Katie was delighted with the pink lip gloss and blush. Penny tried hard not to look too pleased over the way Roe was able to highlight her cheekbones and added a hint of color to her lips.

“Thanks,” she said almost too softly to hear as she stared wistfully at her own reflection. Then she blinked and turned to me with full-blown sour adolescence. “Dad wants to know what you have planned for dinner.”

“There’s a tuna casserole in the fridge. All you need to do is heat it up at three fifty for twenty minutes.”

“And where are you going?” Penny asked as she paused in the doorway.

“Out,” I shrugged, glancing at my phone and wondering why Con hadn’t called yet. He was done with work over an hour ago and I thought he’d be here as soon as he ran home to shower and change.

“I saw your boyfriend leave,” announced Katie as if she’d read my mind. She turned to Roe. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Noooo. I’m too young to have a boyfriend,” answered Roe with wide-eyed mock innocence. She winked at me.