She knew who he was. He too was covered in tats. “You think he’ll give me one?”
“He would love to. He gonna open up his own shop in LA, soon as he graduate,” Sed explained.
“Come around on Saturday. I’ll give him a call,” Whisper said.
“Can you pick me up?” Quill asked. She knew her mother would never drop her off at this junk yard for the day. She would have to lie to her about her whereabouts.
Aquilla was pissed the next day at school. Whisper had gotten three days detention. She wanted the detention too. She would have rather been there than sitting alone outside. She tried to stay in the lunch room one day, but Blain decided to sit with her. She couldn’t stand the high school hottie that all the girls seemed to lust after.
She had to argue with her mother Saturday morning to go hang out with her friends. Big mouth Reese had told her that Whisper was a trouble maker and she smoked pot. Liz didn’t want her hanging out with that crowd. Seri called too. Liz always fucking did that. Every time Quill looked at her wrong, she was calling Seri. Quill, of course, didn’t listen. She was going. She was getting a tattoo.
“Who are her parents, Quill?” Liz wanted to know.
“I don’t know who her parents are. I haven’t met them yet. Why are you making this such a big deal?” Quill asked, annoyed, staring out the window, silently begging for Whisper to hurry the hell up.
“I like to know who my kids are with and what they are up to,” Liz countered.
Quill blew out a puff of air, willing herself to keep her mouth shut. Was she for real? She spent 14 years not knowing where she was, and she was going to make an issue over an afternoon.
“I’ll call or text you later,” Quill promised, seeing the fancy BMW pull into the drive.
Liz stared after her. What else was she supposed to do?
Quill had the best day she’d had since she was forced to live with her mother. They smoked so much weed and laughed the entire day. The tattoo hurt like a mother fucker, but she loved it as she stared at it through the mirror on her dresser later that night. It was in the exact same place as Seri’s, minus the word vengeance. Hers too said one simple word, “Julius.”
By the end of September, Quill didn’t like her new school any more than she had. She hated it more, actually. The only thing she did like about it was Whisper and Sam now too. At least she had him during one of her classes.
Blain asked her to the homecoming dance and she, of course, declined. She wouldn’t be going to any high school dance. She did have to fight with her mother over that too. She was excited to take her two girls dress shopping. Quill opted out of the shopping day and, instead, hung out at the yard getting stoned with her friends.
She was pissed again the following weekend. She didn’t care about the homecoming football game. She didn’t care about football, or Reese cheering. She did care that her dad and Seri were coming. She hadn’t seen Seri in almost a month. She would have put up a bigger fight had Seri not been coming to watch Reese and the game too.
Chapter 20
Aquilla showered and entered her room wearing a towel. “You scared the fuck out of me. What are you doing here?” Quill yelled, jumping at the sight of Seri sprawled across her bed with a big smile.
“I missed the fuck out of you. That’s what I’m doing here. Do you have a problem with that?’
Quill smiled. “No, but only because I missed the fuck out of you too.”
Quill slid on a pair of panties, dropping the towel.
“Quill! What the hell did you do?” Seri yelled, coming off the bed.
“What?”
Seri spun her around to see if her eyes were playing tricks on her. Quill wasn’t as slick as she had thought. She forgot about the mirror right behind her.
“Your parents are going to freak. They’re going to blame me,” she worried, especially Manny, he saw her tattoo often. Liz might not know about it. Okay. She could handle Manny as long as Liz didn’t catch wind of it. “Where the hell did you get that? You’re not even 18, and I know your mother didn’t sign for it.”
“A friend did it, and my parents aren’t going to find out, and neither is Monica,” she warned.
“Why the hell would you do that, Quill? Why would you put his name on your body?”
“You already know why. I love him. I’m always going to love him. Even if I never see him again, I will still love him, and the quill signifies that I will always love you unless you don’t stop bitching at me about it.”
“Sometimes I curse the day I ever met you,” Seri claimed.
“Whatever. If you would have never met me, you’d be dead, very lonely, and you wouldn’t be fucking my dad.”
“Yeah, well, about your dad,” Seri smiled, holding up her ring finger.
Aquilla’s mouth automatically fell open. “He proposed to you?”
“Yup, and I said yes.”
“Oh my God, Seri, I don’t even know you. You don’t even know him,” she remembered their short romance.
“Relax, I’m not marrying him tomorrow.”
“When?”
Seri shrugged her shoulders. “A year or so, I don’t know.”
Aquilla pulled out her baggy hidden in the closet.
“Celebrate?” she asked, dangling the bag in the air.
“Where the hell did you get that?” Seri scolded.
“A friend, twist us one before we go to this stupid game,” she coaxed, tossing the little pack of papers.
“No. We’re not doing this. I can’t believe you bought a bag of weed. How much are you smoking, Quill?” Seri wanted to know, worried. What the hell did she do? She created a monster.
Aquilla took the bag and sat down beside Seri. “Yes, we are doing this, and I smoke it about every day. How often do you smoke, Seri?” Quill asked with cross-eyes as she licked the paper closed. “Come over to the window,” she nodded.
Seri followed, shaking her head in disbelief. They smoked about half of it while discussing Seri marrying her father.
“You’ve known him for like a minute, Seri. I can’t believe he bought you a ring,” Quill said in disbelief.
“I know. Me either. I was floored; I wasn’t expecting it…at all.
“You’re not my Seri anymore. I don’t know who the hell you are,” Quill assured her.
“I am your Seri. I will always be your Seri and I am madly in love with your father.”
“Well, one good thing about it, as long as you are with my dad, you’re never going to leave me. Does that mean I get to call you Mommy Seri?”
“I wouldn’t leave you even if I didn’t love your dad, and fuck no. Don’t you ever call me mommy. Where did you get that shit? You need to hook me up.”
“I’ll send you home with some. There’s Visine in my nightstand drawer,” Quill offered, looking at Seri’s eyes. Her mom might be gullible enough to miss it, but her father wouldn’t. He would be giving them both the look.
It was a good damn thing Seri was at that game with her. It was fucking cold out. Quill was missing her tropical island more and more. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to like winter in the north. She hated it already and it was only down to 50. She couldn’t imagine 20 or even 0. She would freeze to death.
She and Seri sat on the bleachers beside each other, huddled together talking. Neither of them cared about the game and discussed their lives. Quill told her all about Whisper, and how she judged her on her looks. She told her about going to her house and almost falling over at the sight of the mansion. Her parents were apparently both successful lawyers. Whisper spent a lot of time alone or at the yard.
Seri told her about Monica constantly thinking she needed to talk about the shooting, her recent resume for an all-girls correction facility and the new house that she and Manny had put an offer on.