Page 163 of Scrimmage

Koda unzips the bag and pulls out bolt cutters, snipping the entire gate away and pushing it open. I stand there in shock. We are breaking and entering.Kodais breaking and entering. I must be dead because this is crazy. He ducks through and holds the fence up.

“Are you gonna come with me?”

I follow, feeling like this is some sort of strange trap. The window on a door to the office has already been busted, probably by other intruders. He reaches in and opens it. The air is earthy and metallic. Conveyor belts line a massive room, but we keep moving through until we reach a big open space that’s dark. There’s graffiti on the walls and the floor, proving that life has invaded this place. Koda drops the bag and unzips it. Inside, it’s full of cans of spray paint.

I can’t stop staring at it. “What is this?”

“Reclaiming capitalism or some shit."

I love graffiti. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine, but I stopped doing it once we moved here and tried to give up art. I hesitantly reach for a can and check the color. It’s red. I hold it in my hand, staring, trying to decide if I’m going to paint blood on these walls. Ultimately, I decide not to. This isn’t that sort of occasion. I’m actually impressed. Koda’s favorite color is blue, any shade. So I grab the blue and start to paint.

“Are you gonna stand there and watch or join me?”

It’s like I pulled him from a fucking daydream. “I don’t really know how to art.”

I huff and turn around, leaning against the wall where paint drips down. “It’s a feeling, not a thing. Draw an X if that’s what comes to you. Here,” I pick up a can of white and shove it into his hand. “We’ll play a game.”

I draw the beginnings of tic-tac-toe. He quirks an eyebrow, but goes first, tentatively placing an X in the center. I make the next move, and we go back and forth until no one wins.

“Now, cover it,” I instruct. He clumsily draws messy squiggles over the top that make me laugh.

“What?” he sheepishly asks.

“Nothing. You’re just breaking the law, and it’s blowing my mind.”

He strides over to me and holds the can up. I think he’s going to spray me in the face, but then he pushes me against the wall. I can hear the spray of the paint as he draws something around me, and he finishes it with a C that covers the entire front half of my torso. His mouth hovers over mine, and his scent invades me. Koda shoves me to the side and I watch him as he sprays a frowny face, as my face, on the outline. I burst out laughing.

“Felt right." He flashes a rare charming smile. “Now do something worth looking at.”

I cross my arms. “And you?”

“I like to watch you work.”

I turn back to the wall I had started filling in. For the next few hours I demand him to hand me colors, and he does it without question. Eventually, the night sky starts to form on the wall. I paint the stars, all one hundred and fifty-three of them. It’s the first time I’ve done it in five years. Koda is at my back while I mock up Jupiter.

“What’s the deal with Jupiter?” He quietly asks, like speaking out loud will disturb the peace.

“Girls go to college to get more knowledge—”

“Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider,” he interrupts. “Yeah, I was in grade school, too. You drew it in that picture of me.”

“It’s just a thing that stuck with me growing up.” I shrug, finishing up. “What time is it?”

“Not too late to make good on my deal,” he growls in my ear.

I feel sweat break out across my skin. “You’re gonna eat me out on a conveyor belt?”

“Funny. No, we don’t have that long before the police come.”

He quickly packs up the bag and ushers me back to the car. Sure enough, as we pull away, the cops are heading toward the district of warehouses.

“What were you gonna do if we got caught?”

“Run.” He has one hand casually draped over the wheel, and the other slides up my thigh.

“You would leave me behind?”

“You might hate running, but I’m sure you’ve run from the cops like a fucking Olympian. I would be the slow one.”

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