We didn’t notice practice was over until Charity missed a catch and the football went dancing over to Levi’s feet. He was standing there with his hands on his hips in that I-just-ran-fifty-miles-and-I’m-almost-out-of-breath kind of way.
He shook his head at Charity. “I’m ashamed to call you family.”
She smiled. “Because I was whistling at your friends’ cute butts?”
“That too.” He nodded. “But ducking every time a football comes at you? That’s unacceptable. It’s not going to bite you. And you.” He pointed at me. “Why are you using two hands? You’re throwing like a moron.”
I smiled because he was serious, and serious Levi cracked me up.
“Come here, both of you.” He picked up the ball as we neared him. “This”—he pointedly looked at Charity, then me—“is how you throw a football.”
He demonstrated flawlessly and proceeded to instruct us on doing the same. We failed miserably, but it was hilarious to try. We giggled and fumbled and flinched and annoyed the hell out of him. But he didn’t give up.
Levi made sure to continue our football-throwing lessons until we were no longer an embarrassment to the good Andrews name.
By that point in my life, I considered Levi just as close of a friend as Charity. The three of us did everything together, and we had since we were little. We were the Three Musketeers. And even though time and adolescence changed the way we interacted in public, when it came down to it, the three of us were our own kind of family. Real. Unshakable. Constant. It was a special feeling.
I didn’t know back then just how special it was, but I know now.
18 Levi
I keep my distance from Pixie for the whole next week, not sure I’m ready to see how much she hates me. I’ve kept myself busy gutting the unoccupied east wing bedrooms. It’s amazing how much work you can accomplish when you’re plagued with guilt.
I still can’t believe I called her a whore. Pixie, of all people. She’s had sex only one time, for Christ’s sake. A jealous tremor runs through my veins as I remember the night I found out she’d lost her virginity.
Two years ago, I picked up Charity and Pixie from a party where they had gotten irresponsibly wasted, and the moment we got back to our house, Pixie crawled onto the couch and moaned, “That party sucked.”
Charity laughed. “Only because you lost it to Benji Barker and it was a total fail.”
In that moment, I felt like someone punched me in the gut. I had no air, no sight.
“Total fail.” Pixie hid her face in one of the couch pillows.
Charity clucked her tongue. “That’s why you don’t lose your virginity to another virgin, Pix. Neither one of you knew what you were doing. Bad call.”
Still no air.
“Shut up, best friend.” Pixie threw a pillow at Charity. “Maybe I wouldn’t have made such a bad call if you’d stayed by my side instead of ditching me to go screw Daren Ackwood.”
I whipped my eyes to Charity. “WHAT?”
My head was going to explode.
Charity turned to me with feigned innocence. “What? Daren and I have been dating for a while now and we have sex. A lot of sex. Get over it.”
“Whore,” Pixie mumbled, once again facedown in a pillow.
“Shut up,” Charity said to the couch. “At least Daren makes me orgasm, which is more than I can say for you and novice Benji.”
I tugged at my hair. “Oh my God. My ears are bleeding. My ears are bleeding.”
Charity was sleeping with Daren Ackwood? And Pixie wasn’t a virgin anymore?
My chest hurt. My stomach hurt. Where the fuck was all the air?
“God, I know,” Pixie whined. “Benji Barker? Ugh.”
Something tight and hot inside me snapped, and I spun to face Charity. “What the hell were you thinking, leaving Pixie alone tonight?”
“What?” Charity looked confused.
I yelled, “What kind of friend are you, ditching Pixie for some asshole?”
A hurt expression crossed Charity’s face. “I didn’t know—”
“Don’t be mad, Leaves.” Pixie pulled her green eyes up from the pillow and looked like she was going to cry. “Please don’t be mad.”
For the first time ever, I looked at Pixie like something that belonged to me. I wanted to throw her over my shoulder and have those green eyes all to myself. Always. I didn’t want to share them with Benji, or any other prick.
“Mad?” I screamed. “I’m furious! You’re hammered, Pix. That guy had no right to touch you when you weren’t sober enough to make an intelligent decision! I’ll kill him. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to rip him to pieces and—”
Pixie started crying. “I’m so sorry,” she bumbled at no one. “I’m so sorry! It seemed like a good idea because neither one of us had ever been with anyone and he’s not scary and I was that happy kind of buzzed and so was he and then it was all messy and awkward and it didn’t feel good at all and then it was over and even more awkward and now my head hurts and Leaves is mad at me!” She started sobbing into the pillow and howled, “Leaves is so mad at me.”
“Hey.” Charity knelt beside her and rubbed her back, saying a slew of reassuring girl things while I paced the room. Pixie eventually calmed down, and when she passed out, Charity stood up from the couch and glared at me.
“What?” I stood there, stunned and angry and… sad. I was actually sad.
She put her hands on her hips. “I don’t remember you freaking out like that when you found out I’d first had sex.”
“That’s because thinking about my sister having sex is gross. Thinking about Pixie having sex is…”
Charity waited with a cocked eyebrow.
“I didn’t freak out,” I said.
“You totally freaked out!” She threw her arms in the air. “God, Levi. Maybe you should just pee all over her so every guy she meets knows whose territory she is!”
That was the first time I realized how possessive I was of Pixie. And then the other day, when I saw Daren kiss her, all my buried desires came roaring back to life.
God, I still can’t believe I was such an asshole to her.
With a clenched jaw, I lift another roll of old carpet out from the east wing and haul it downstairs and out the back door. I toss it into a large pile beside the Dumpster, where it joins three other carpet rolls, an array of shredded baseboards, and peelings of old hideous wallpaper.
I hear the screen on the back door creak open and slam closed before the crunch of heavy feet on gravel meets my ears.
Turning around, I see Angelo smacking a box of cigarettes against his open palm.
“Levi.” He nods, pulling a cigarette from the box and resting it between his lips. “Want one?” The unlit cigarette in his mouth bobs with his words as he holds the box out to me.