Page 7 of Bad to the Bone
Alex bypassed the bowl of virulent red punch on the refreshment table—no telling what was in there—in favor of a beer from one of the iced tubs. Ricky Lee opted for a bottle of water. They each took a drink, gazing out at the rapidly filling dance floor.
“Can we find somewhere quieter to talk?” Alex asked before he could lose his nerve.
Ricky Lee raised an eyebrow and said, “Sure.”
Alex wasn’t sure how much of the school would be open other than the gym, so he led Ricky Lee outside, ignoring the inquisitive stare from Melissa at the check-in table. They followed the sidewalk facing the parking lot until they were out of sight of the doors. Ricky Lee stopped and braced a hip against the metal rack where Alex used to chain his bike before he’d started driving senior year. Ricky Lee didn’t speak, just gazed at Alex with mild interest in his dark eyes.
How could it be so hard to say something he’d rehearsed in his head uncounted times? Alex took a gulp of beer and cleared his throat. “I, uh, Ricky Lee, I—I owe you an apology.”
Once he started talking, the words came more easily. “I shouldn’t have let Odell threaten us—threaten me—like that. I should have told him to say whatever he wanted to say and accepted the consequences. It wasn’t fair for you to be the only one to suffer for my… my cowardice.”
“I was the one who started it,” Ricky Lee said with surprising calmness. “After all, Odell saw me kissing you.”
“I—it takes two people to kiss,” Alex protested. Okay, it was the first time he’d kissed another boy, but was he so bad that Ricky Lee couldn’t tell Alex had been kissing him back? “I shouldn’t have let you imply that you’d forced something on me. I should have been the one to stand up to Odell. Maybe then you wouldn’t have been expelled.”
“You really think so?” Ricky Lee laughed, but it was nothing like the carefree laughter he’d shared with Crae. “If it wasn’t for that, it would have been something else. You were the town’s golden boy, and you deserved to be. The school wasn’t going to do anything to mess up their chance of you and Odell bringing them the state championship. And I wasn’t going to do anything to mess up your getting that scholarship.”
And look how well that turned out.“If I’d stood up for you—”
“You might have lost out on the scholarship, and I’d have done something else to end up getting kicked out anyway. You haven’t been beating yourself up about this, have you? Because getting sent to Lawton was the best thing that could have happened to me.”
A punch to the gut couldn’t have hurt Alex more. He’d carried the guilt for Ricky Lee’s expulsion for eleven years, and Ricky Lee shrugged it off as if it were nothing. Whatever might have been starting between them all those years ago, it clearly hadn’t meant as much to Ricky Lee as it had to him.
“I wish I’d known you felt that way. I wrote to you to apologize, but maybe you never got the letter.”
It was hard to tell under the yellow glow of the parking lot lights, but Ricky Lee might have flushed. “I got it. I just didn’t think there was any point answering it. It was better for both of us to let things be the way they had to be.”
And that said it all, didn’t it? “Well, I appreciate the chance to clear the air, then. We should probably go back inside. Crae’s probably wondering where you disappeared to.”
They walked back in silence. As they reentered the gymnasium, the music changed from an upbeat pop hit to John Mayer’s ballad “Waiting for the World to Change.”
Ricky Lee turned to Alex with a smile. “Why don’t you dance with me and we’ll call it even?”
Alex stared at Ricky Lee in shock. “I thought you said it was better to let things be.”
“That was then. This is now.”
An incipient headache pulsed behind Alex’s eyes. Yes, he’d just told Ricky Lee he should have had the courage to be honest about what had happened between them. But that was eleven years with no contact, a failed marriage, and two failed careers ago. The flicker of irritation flared into anger. Who the hell did Ricky Lee think he was, waltzing back into town and asking Alex to turn his life upside down on a whim?
As if he could read Alex’s thoughts, Ricky Lee said, “Don’t freak out. It’s just a dance.”
“Just a dance,” Alex retorted. “Just another chance for you to show everyone you don’t give a fuck what they think about you, isn’t it? You never gave a damn about what anyone thought. That’s what used to get you into so much trouble. And I always admired you for that. But tomorrow you get to ride that big Harley out of here, and I have to stay. I have to live with these people and deal with the consequences. And you know what, Ricky Lee? It’s just not worth it.”
