Page 8

Rafael

The scorching June sun shimmered off the pavement as Cody set up his net. I skated around the old basketball court, weeds overgrown at the sides, warming up my legs. The pavement was rough, and I braced myself for what would surely be a painful brawl. I predicted blood: scraped knees, bruised ribs, maybe a busted lip. It wasn’t about kicking his ass anymore. It was about pride. Cody said shit I didn’t even know he could think up. Beneath that good boy exterior hid a worthy adversary capable of stabbing me in the heart with his words. I couldn’t deny that I admired it just a tad. Little fucker.

He skated toward me and tossed the puck at the free-throw line. “You ready?”

I snickered and said, “Are you ready?”

“Damn, you’re hellbent on cliched one-liners today, aren’t you?”

“I merely asked a question, Golden Boy. Yeah, I’m fuckin’ ready. Let’s do this.”

We lowered our bodies into a ready stance and stared into each other’s eyes. Cody’s blown-out pupils swallowed his chocolate brown irises. The contrast between his dark eyes and fair complexion made him look like a demon—a deadly demon.

But I’m deadlier.

“On three,” I said.

He nodded, then we counted to three, slapping our sticks together with each count. At three, we collided like two speeding freight trains hitting head-on. He shoulder-checked me as we battled for the puck, and I pushed back with a vengeance. I knew it would be nothing but a continuous scrap, and I was ready for it. Hungry for it. I’d wanted to rough up this little shit all day.

He played low and hard and maneuvered under me to get the puck. He snagged it, but I checked him from behind, sending him falling.

“What the fuck!” he yelled out.

I took the puck to the goal and scored. “No refs. We’re playing street hockey. Can you take it?”

His eyes bored into me as he rose to his feet. “I grew up on this shit,” he replied. “You wanna play dirty? Let’s go.”

“The Golden Boy is getting messy. I like to see it.”

We approached the free-throw line and got in a ready stance.

“Don’t call me that,” he whispered. His breath hit my face, warming my already sweltering cheeks.

“I’ll call you whatever I want,” I whispered back.

“Not if I have anything to say about it.” I didn’t think his eyes could look more vicious than before, but they somehow morphed into black lasers piercing me with a heated fury that excited me more than a gram of coke.

“On three,” I said.

He nodded. Our sticks slapped three times, and we crashed into each other again. He backed against me and shoved an elbow into my gut, knocking the wind out of me. He tried to race away with the puck, but I was faster.

He didn’t know it, but I was a fucking rocket on the ice. With rollerblades on a basketball court that hadn’t been repaved in years, I was going at half the speed I usually reached.

I caught up as he attempted to round the court’s perimeter. Our sticks battled, my limbs aching as the sun scorched my skin. His face was flushed, and he bit his lower lip as he fought me for the puck. He was such a fucking bruiser—scrappy and mean. We fought for the puck, my head throbbing from how hard I was clenching my jaw.

The sweat rolled off his shoulders, highlighting his muscular form. I’m surprised our sticks didn’t break with how we slashed at each other. Cody was shorter and played low to the ground, so I looked down on him the whole time we scrapped. He reminded me of a mangy dog fighting over a piece of meat in the trash. Cody shook with an unhinged tremor that emerges when blinding rage consumes you. He looked up at me mid-fight with absolute hate in his eyes, but then they flashed something else. Someone different.

I noticed the shift. The impulse to grab his blond hair and drag him by it around the court was almost unstoppable. I didn’t give a flying fuck about the game anymore. I just wanted to get my hands on him. Shaking my head, I freed myself from my trance and swiped the puck.

My body raced to the net, but Cody circled me and stole it. I was on him in a flash, and we battled again—hard. He threw his body into mine, and we both lost our balance. I landed on my back, with him draped over me.

He attempted to get back up, but I pulled him down. He moved to shove my hand away, but I blocked it and finally grabbed a fistful of his hair, because I couldn’t fucking resist.

“Let go of my hair, you bitch! Who plays like this?”

The way we wrestled made me giddy. Tossing him around was more fun than I’d even imagined. My lips curled into a sneer as I said, “I wanna rip every last strand of golden hair right out of your fuckin’ scalp.”

He grabbed my wrist and spun, twisting my arm as he did. I shouted and released his hair, allowing Cody to jump up and race for the puck. But I hooked his leg with my stick, sending him falling forward and landing with a thud.

“You fucking asshole! You play like a pussy!”

I pushed myself off the ground and rose to my feet. “Call me a pussy again,” I dared him.

“You can’t beat me without playing dirty. Admit it!” he spat back at me.

His lower lip quivered as he spewed his ire, sunlight reflecting off the spit still lingering there. I closed the distance between us and pushed him hard. He fell on his ass, a look of abject rage etched on his features as he glared up at me. “Can’t handle it?” I asked.

Cody rocketed off the ground and tackled me, wasting no time in pummeling me with his fists. It turned into an all-out brawl, and I met him punch for punch. We rolled on the pavement, swinging at each other like two MMA fighters. The court sat next to a grassy hill, and suddenly, we were tumbling down, landing in a heap at the bottom.

We didn’t skip a beat. He got me with a right hook to my stomach, and I keeled over, coughing on all fours, my back rising and falling as I caught my breath.

He leaned down to grab me by the back of the jersey, but I elbowed him in the gut. He collapsed to the ground, cursing me the whole way down, and I seized the moment and lunged, landing on top of him.

Cody slammed his head into mine. I fell off him and he leaped on top of me. We began clawing at each other like two feral cats. I latched on to the back of his jersey and pulled it over his head. He wriggled out of it and then heaved forward. A shirtless Cody grabbed my throat and started strangling me. Really strangling me. I couldn’t get air. Blood rushed to my face, and the pressure built in my eyes. Cody looked ready to kill.

But then I kneed him, flipped us over, and trapped him under the weight of me. I pinned his arms to the ground. Cody thrashed about, fighting to break free, until he suddenly stopped.

I looked down at him, expecting to see the face of a killer, but his features had softened. He looked at me with an unreadable expression. I stared into his brown eyes. The sun illuminated his golden hair, and the sweat on his face shimmered like there was angel dust sprinkled on him.

We stayed like that for a minute, just looking at each other. Cody’s chest pressed into mine as he caught his breath. My hands still pinned his arms to the ground. He looked so vulnerable, sprawled out beneath me.

The expression on his face snapped into a look of horror, and he kneed me in the nuts. I fell to my side, hacking up on the ground, when I looked up to see him looming over me. “I’m not doing this,” he said. “My mom needs help with your big welcome dinner. Maybe stop being a prick for five minutes and just appreciate that she and Hank give a damn about you.” The roots on my hair burned as he grabbed a fistful of it and blurted out, “And leave me the fuck alone.”

He tossed me down and made his way up the hill. I could hear the rustling of the net being moved, followed by a car door slamming and its tires speeding away.