2. Chapter 2

Fucking hell.

Why did Blaze have to be here? He was always fucking here, hanging out with Cueball, and he didn’t even skate. Ever since Stix and Stone started dating, I had to put up with Blaze, who was also Stone’s friend. Fuck knew why anyone put up with him.

Who in the hell would like such a prick? Blaze was an asshole, through and through. He had absolutely no redeeming qualities. It was a wonder he had any friends at all.

My hands clenched, and I practically bounced off the walls, itching to beat the fuck out of him for simply breathing the same air and existing in the same space as me.

No one fucked with my friends. No one. When Blaze tossed a full can of beer at Stix, who had been skating, it forced him to crash and injure himself. It took several of my friends to hold me back and keep from fucking killing Blaze. Stix suffered from an arthritic disease and the last thing he needed was a serious injury.

The only thing that calmed me the hell down that day was Stone punching Blaze in the face. I hadn’t understood why at the time, since Stone couldn’t stand Stix, either, only to learn later that Stone had been crushing on Stix and resented him for it. So damn weird, but whatever.

Stone’s hate toward Stix was internal shit. My hate toward Blaze was pure loathing. No crush here. It hadn’t only been what he’d done to Stix, but his overall arrogant vibe, like he was fucking better than everyone else.

As always, he looked at me with his pierced nose in the air. He was almost a foot shorter than me, and still, he thought he was bigger and better.

Blaze’s straight, black hair fell in his face, hiding his cold, black eyes. Today he wore large gauges in his ears with dangling hoops inside. His septum piercing glinted in the dim light of the indoor skatepark. The floral tattoos were oddly ornate and pretty for someone so fucking ugly. Maybe he wasn’t ugly on the outside, but he was hideous on the inside.

Every time I saw his mug, I wanted to punch it, vibrating with loathing.

“Just ignore him,” Nacho said, knowing exactly how I felt about Blaze. Hell, everyone did, especially Blaze himself.

Nacho was about as tall as Blaze, but he was kinder and sweeter, taking care of his best friend, Pippin, who had ADHD, among other things. It was supposed to be a secret, but I’d figured it out. You couldn’t hide it despite Pippin’s best efforts.

I loved all my friends, and Stone was starting to grow on me. Cueball was an enigma, but since he was close friends with Blaze, I kept my distance from him.

Pippin and Nacho took off to skate as Stix hopped off his board. His mullet was freshly bleached, and he wore one of his ironic T-shirts, which said ‘ Dad on the streets. Daddy in the sheets .’

“’Sup, Ajax,” he said.

We fist-bumped, and he handed me a flask. I took a gulp of the harsh alcohol, feeling the burn straight into my stomach.

Despite the bane of my existence in the room, I was bouncy and thrumming with energy. I’d been sleeping like shit lately, taking way too many over-the-counter sleeping pills, which didn’t seem to help at all. Still, I felt good and alert.

“What’s wrong with you?” Stix asked.

Nacho asked the same question earlier when we met up. “Nothing. Why does everyone keep asking that?”

“Because you look like you’ve lost some weight and you look tired.”

I shrugged. “I don’t feel tired.”

“You sure?”

“Yes! Everyone needs to stop asking me that!”

His brown eyes grew wide. “Chill, dude. Just concerned, is all.”

I deflated and rubbed my neck. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Feeling the burning coal-black eyes singeing on my back, I took off toward one of the vert ramps to skate, needing to burn this weird energy off. There were some tricks I’d been wanting to try, too. I’d been watching the McTwist move on YouTube , which was a front flip with a 540-degree rotation. It was hard, but not the hardest of tricks. I was confident I could pull it off, as long as I stuck the landing.

When I reached the ramp, I tossed off my hoodie despite it being cold as fuck in here. I’d warm up soon enough.

This was the biggest ramp inside the place, needing to climb up to the top ledge using a ladder. I hopped onto my board and took off down the pipe, warming up with some smaller flips and twists as I caught air over the lip of the ramp.

The more I stuck the landings, the bolder I grew, taking more risks and changing things up. It was nice to get lost for a while with the cold breeze on my face, silencing the racing thoughts that had started recently, and why I couldn’t sleep.

I was soon in the zone, feeling so free, like I could fly and do anything.

I was ready.

After dropping down the ramp, I pushed myself fast, pumping my legs to get over the top on the other side. I caught air, flipped, and spun along with my board. Once I grabbed my board, I planted my feet on it as I came down. But because you couldn’t see your landing on this move, I missed it and fell hard onto my shoulder and hip.

I slid down to the middle of the pipe and lay there, stunned for a second, before curling into myself as the pain radiated throughout my body.

“Fuck!”

“Dude, are you okay?” Stix asked, grabbing at me to pull me up.

Soon other hands were tugging on me.

“How’s your head?” Nacho asked.

“I think it’s fine. I didn’t hit it, but my fucking shoulder and hip ache like a bitch.”

“If you’re going to take risks like that, man, wear your helmet. The big vert ramp is too high and you’re going to break your fucking neck,” Stix complained.

I shook him and Nacho off. “I’m fucking fine!”

Their eyes grew wide because it was rare for me to snap at them. Not to my friends. Everyone else be damned.

“Dude.” Stix’s voice sounded hurt, but I shrugged off and headed back to where I put my shit and grabbed my helmet, determined to perfect the trick.

“Helmets are for pussies,” Blaze scoffed. “No one wears helmets.”

I stormed over to him and fisted his jacket, already in a mood. I didn’t need him to make it worse. “The fuck you callin’ a pussy, pussy, you… fucking pussy gremlin. You’re so scared, you don’t even skate.”

Blaze stood his ground. Why wasn’t he afraid? I could fucking crush him. “You gonna cry now, Jaxon ?”

“No, but I’m gonna make you cry all the way back home to your mama.” His black eyes narrowed and his brow dropped. “Hit a nerve, did I? What? Did your mama not love you enough?”

Blaze grabbed my forearms and painfully dug his blunt nails into the muscle. “Shut the fuck up about my mom.”

Cueball finally intervened. He was calm, but his face dared me to keep going. He was as big as I was but broader. No doubt he’d be able to hold his own against me .

“Touch him again, Ajax…” he warned. Then he faced Blaze. “Shut your mouth. If you two are going to dig into each other, at least be clever about it. Your arguments are stupid and boring. I know five-year-olds who have better comebacks.”

I shoved Blaze back, and he nearly fell on his ass. “You’re not fucking worth it,” I hissed.

Instead of going back to skating, I sat with my friends and lit a smoke, unable to keep my eyes off the short spark plug named Blaze.

“Eyes up here, dickhead,” Blaze snapped at me.

My face burned from getting caught looking at him. “I’m… I’m not looking at your dick, fuckhead.”

Blaze smirked, wearing his ‘gotcha!’ face. “Who said anything about dicks?”

I felt the heat singe my face even more as he got the upper hand. Fuck, I wanted to punch that smirk off, the septum piercing gleaming as much as his demon-colored eyes.

Before I gave in to my impulses to kill him, Pippin and Nacho put their hands on me to hold me down. I huffed, but didn’t fight them. When Blaze’s smirk turned cruel, I fisted my hands, doing everything in my power to keep from jumping him.

Finally, a comeback hit me and I calmed down, knowing I was going to get Blaze to lose it. “What I meant to say is I wasn’t looking at your dick because you don’t have one, or it’s too small to notice. I was just trying to find it.”

Stix facepalmed and everyone groaned at my dick joke, except for Blaze. His smile dropped and his eyes turned deadly as Cueball and Stone tried to hold him down. “The fuck you say?”

“Why don’t you two idiots just fuck already?” Jazz said, blowing a bubble from her gum as she scrolled on her phone. The pink in her blond hair almost matched her gum.

Blondie’s sweater fell off his slender shoulder as he giggled and nodded, his long blond bangs falling into his face. “Yep, that’s the only way to resolve your issues.”

My stomach rioted at the idea of fucking Blaze. Not in this lifetime.

“As if!” Blaze suddenly snapped.

“I fucking hate that prick!” I clapped back.

“I wouldn’t touch him if my life depended on it!”

“... microdick.”

I preened again as his face turned bright red from anger.

Everyone started laughing, but I wasn’t sure if it was at us or what Jazz had said.

Fuck it. I was too restless to sit around dealing with the scrawny short-ass and his fucking attitude, so I grabbed my helmet and put it on before looking back at him and smirking. “No one wants you, little kitten, least of all me.”

Blaze growled and tried to reach for me before Cueball held him back.

Everyone just watched the scene unfold, but I knew my friends would always have my back if I needed it.

“See ya around, Kitten ,” I said again, to really dig it in like a knife. I gave Blaze the bird and skated off to keep pushing myself to do better with my tricks.

“Fucker!” he yelled after me, making me laugh.

I lay in bed in my tiny studio apartment, staring at the cracks in the ceiling, counting them, and begging the sleeping gods to let me fall asleep. There were lines of light from the slats of my blinds as they streamed in from outside. I counted those, too.

My mind kept getting sidetracked with skating, and strangely enough, Blaze kept popping into my head, coming up with ways to hurt him. I shouldn’t have been so fixated on him, but his stupid face wouldn’t leave my brain.

“Fuck!” I yelled at nothing and no one.

I rolled onto my side and punched my pillow, but sleep wouldn’t come, despite taking a couple of sleeping pills. My mind wouldn’t stop the thoughts long enough for me to pass out, and I was antsy, jittery like I’d had two pots of coffee. In fact, I’d been avoiding caffeine because of that, unless it was early in the morning.

What the fuck was wrong with me? It had been three days without sleep, except for a few hours here and there, yet during the day, I was completely energized. I didn’t get it.

God, this needed to end soon.

I blinked my burning eyes open to the morning light and sat up. At least I’d finally fallen asleep. I glanced at the clock, which read six-thirty in the morning.

After my shower, I made myself a cup of coffee, but I could only drink a third of it, feeling wired already and it tasted terrible.

Despite the lack of sleep, I felt good, like I could conquer anything.

After tossing on my shoes, I put on my coat and knitted beanie and headed out on my skateboard toward my day job at the hardware store where I worked as a cashier.

I stopped by a coffee shop and grabbed a muffin to get something into my stomach, but after the first bite, it went into the garbage, tasting like cardboard.

Nothing tasted right lately.

I worked for several hours, ringing up customers and their purchases, but it was a slow day. By lunchtime, I was starving, so I headed to grab some fast food. Even eating at my favorite burger joint, the food tasted like shit, but I forced myself to eat it and washed it all down with water to avoid soda.

By eight o’clock, it was time to head into Alpha’s Rejects bar, where I worked as a bouncer.

“Yo! What’s up, Alpha?” I said as soon as I walked in.

He looked up from putting cash into the till behind the bar and smiled. His blue eyes were bright, and he’d recently had his blond hair cut, so it was neat and combed away from his face.

“Hey, Ajax. You’re in a good mood.”

“I feel good. I’m amped for tonight. Is there going to be a good band on?”

“Temperance. An alternative rock band up from DC.”

“Cool! Can’t wait.”

I met Alpha a few years ago while skating. At twenty, I’d been struggling to find work and keep up with my rent. My mom had committed suicide the year before I met him, and my older sister just took off, leaving me behind. I never saw or heard from her again. I’d struggled with abandonment and grief, but Alpha’s friendship helped, along with getting to know Stix, Nacho, and Pippin.

A year after that, Alpha opened his bar and gave us all jobs .

Not too long after came Jazz and Blondie, who were twins and runaways. We made a strange family, but we worked and supported each other through the good times and the bad.

When Stix walked in, I swooped in and tossed him over my shoulder, knowing it irritated the shit out of him.

“Fuck! Put me down, you oaf!” he yelled, making me laugh like a nut.

I adored Stix. He was a great friend. His mom was our mom, too, always taking care of us and supportive, and she was sweet as hell. If we needed a woman to talk to, she was it.

I let him bitch before setting him down. “What the fuck!” he huffed. But after straightening his T-shirt, he smiled brightly. “Guess what? I’m the guest drummer tonight! I’m fucking pumped!”

He’d always had dreams of being a drummer. It hadn’t panned out yet, but sometimes the local bands let him play a couple of songs.

We high-fived. “Sweet! I can’t wait.”

I eventually lost track of time as I monitored the crowd while Stone checked for IDs and took cash for the cover to get in. Stix and Nacho served drinks, while Alpha and Pippin made them. Jazz and Blondie cleaned tables and spilled drinks.

As I scanned the bar, my eyes were suddenly drawn to the front by the door, seeing Cueball, and then that fucking spitfire, Blaze, behind him. Even as short as he was, he stood out. My heart beat a little faster and my fists clenched and unclenched at seeing him.

It had been almost six months since he’d hurt Stix, and I couldn’t figure out why I still couldn’t let it go when everyone else had. He’d even apologized for it. Stix didn’t have a problem with him, so why did I? But I couldn’t let it go, and my eyes couldn’t stop watching him.