Chapter 7



Zac
I took a deep breath and peeked through the window once more. I saw an elderly couple in the checkout lane to the far right, and there were kids coming in and out the automatic door playing.

I looked back down at the gun I purchased at Wal-Mart. It was burning underneath my fingers. My heart was racing and my chest pounding. Was this all really worth a couple hundred bucks?

I looked back inside. All I had to do was go in there and point the gun at the cashier, grab the money and high tail it out of there. No one would get hurt. I can do this, I told myself. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment and I had visions of someone recognizing me and I opened them suddenly. I can’t do this. How in the world am I going to make money?


Pat
I emerged from the water and it appeared Chris had beaten me. How embarrassing? There has to be some way I can pull this off without looking like a total ass.

“Wow, you won. I would have had you if I hadn’t pulled my shoulder,” I said as I put my hand to my shoulder and started to rub.

When all else fails fake an injury.

“Here let me help,” she said as she placed her hands on my shoulders and pressed deeply into them.

“Wow,” I said.

“I’m not hurting you am I ?” she asked. “No, not all. In fact, it feels amazing,” I said as Chris kneaded my back.

“Glad I could help,” she said. I turned to face her and there was this electricity between us. She reached up and brushed the wet hair out of my face. I leaned in a little hinting that I wanted to kiss her. She picked up on it and started to meet me halfway. Our lips were only like a half an inch away from touching when we heard Jem, Taylor and Eva come out to the pool and we pulled away quickly.

“ GET A ROOM,” Jem yelled out loudly.


Taylor
Never in my life have I been this embarrassed. I grabbed Jem’s wrist roughly. “Will you shut up? People are staring,” I said.

“Taylor relax. I’m just having fun,” Jem said. I was going to answer back, but Chris spoke up. “Hi guys. Care to join us?” she asked

“No, thanks. I need to tan. Jem where’s my lotion?” I demanded. She was just too slow for me.

“Here,” she said handing me the bottle. Is she kidding me?

“What do you want me to do with that?” I asked.

“Taylor you asked for the lotion,” she said.

“No, I asked you where it was, so you could put it on me,” I said.

I just couldn’t handle this.

“Okay,” she said. She squirted lotion into her palms and started to rub it into my back deeply.

“You better make sure it’s even. If my tan isn’t even you’ll be sorry,” I said.


Christina
I stared at Pat and the intensity of his eyes was making me flustered despite the cold water in the pool. Did we really almost just kiss? I don’t know if I imagined that or not. I went over to the side of the pool and turned to face Eva.

“So where’s Zac?” I asked. “We had a fight this morning and he took off. Haven’t seen or heard from him since,” Eva said.

This was a surprise to me. Eva and Zac always seemed so well put together. I never imagined that they would fight.

“What happened? Is everything okay?” I asked.

I didn’t mean to pry, but I wanted to know if she was ok. She has always been so quiet.

“He is hiding something from me and he keeps lying about it and he hasn’t touched me since I’ve gotten here and he claims it’s because of some bet he made with his frat boy friends,” she said.

I never knew Zac had frat boy friends.

“Frat boy friends?” Taylor interjected.

“Yeah they showed up at the bus the other day and gave me some dumb note with the words five days on them and told me it was really important that he got it,” she said.

“I think he lied to you sweetheart. I would know if Zac had frat boy friends,” Taylor said.

“To be honest they looked like hit men to me,” she said.

This conversation was getting more interesting by the minute. I was about to get out when I felt Pat grab me and pull me back in.

“Pat,” I said. I was really disgusted by how flirty it came out.

“Come here,” he said as he pulled me close to him again. Feeling his arms around me and his forehead against mine gave me butterflies.

“Let’s see how strong you are,” he said as he took a hold of both my legs with his hand.

I started to tread water with my arms and I could feel the panic inside me rising.

“Pat please you know I can’t hold myself up,” I said as my treading turned into flailing.

“Just relax,” he said.

“Pat, I.. “You know I would never let anything happen to you. Don’t you trust me?” he asked. I stared into his eyes again and I could really see it. He could never hurt me. In the far distance I could see Isaac, Chardy, Brian and the rest of the gang headed this way. “I trust you,” I said.


Zac
I walked down the street aimlessly. Pretty much I was fucked. Four days is a short time and 20,000 dollars is a lot of money. I don’t have the nerve or the skill to pull off a robbery, so that’s out of the question. I walked a few yards where I saw a young mom and her kids at a hotdog vendor and there was a couple of twenties just peeking out of her pocket. It was so tempting and it’d be so easy. I used to pick pocket all the time as a kid. I can do this. I walked swiftly towards the woman until I barricaded into her.

“Oh God. I’m such a clutz,” she said.

“No It’s my fault. Here let me help you with that,” I said as I wiped the mustard off of her shirt with the napkin in my right hand and I made the steal with my left.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “Hey it’s no problem,” I said as I helped her to her feet.

“You have a great day ma’am,” I said. I reached down my sleeve and retrieved three twenty-dollar bills. Not bad for a kid out of practice. That brings me to a total of 6,460 bucks. I need to come up with another 14,000. I found my next victim. It was a little old man. He was about 5’3 and needed help crossing the street.

“Here let me help you,” I said as I grabbed his arm and lead him across the street. With my free hand I reached in and lifted his wallet.

“Bless you son,” he said.

“Have a nice day,” I yelled after him. I opened his wallet and found $150. That’s pretty sweet. I scouted for my next victims, when I spotted my goon friends approaching me.

“Don’t worry we’re not going to hit you this time,” the smaller one said. That was a relief. The bruises from three days ago hadn’t even gone down yet.

“That’s petty cash. You’re going to have to do better than that,” the larger man said.

“I’m trying,” I said.

“You have four days. You’re going to have to try harder than that. We took this photo this afternoon,” he said handing me a Polaroid.

Oh my God. It was Eva; she was in her swimsuit by the pool.

“You stay away from her,” I said angrily.

“We will as long as Sully gets his money,” the larger guy said as they walked away.


Isaac
Well isn’t this lovely. There they are all over each other. I wish I could put my hands on her sexy legs. As much as I hate to admit it they would make a sexy couple.

Actually, it’s hard to tell who the sexier one of the two is. Pat is bottle blond and I’ve always had a thing for blondes and he defiantly has some tasty looking lips, and Chris oh man she’s a hottie and she has big bouncy tits. I’d love to stick my face in them.

Whew. It’d be hot to watch them have sex. I bet they bounce around a lot.

As hot as it would be they better not be having sex. I want her.

I’m going to have to break up this cute little love affair. I looked over at Chardy and I knew he could help me.

“Hey Chardy,” I called to him.

“Sup Ike,” he said.

“Do a cannonball with me, but make sure you splash Pat and Chris really well,” I said to him.

“Aight yo,” Chardy nodded at me.

“On three,” I said.

We ran as we counted down and in a matter of seconds we hit the water hard.

“Ugh,” I heard Chris yell. Pat was wiping the water out of his eyes and then out of Chris’s.

“Thanks Isaac. I needed that,” Pat said.

What he needs is my foot up his ass. Don’t get me wrong Pat’s the coolest, but this whole boy next-door thing really annoys me and Chris is just eating it up. I couldn’t watch them being all over each other all the time I turned to thank Chardy, but he was outside the pool doing what appeared to be some strange form of jujitsu.


Chardy
“Hey Chardy I didn’t know you did jujitsu?” Isaac asked me.

“This is not jujitsu bro,” I said as I continued on the path to enlightenment.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jem my sweets asked me.

“It’s capoiera, it’s a Brazilian art form,” I said.

“Wow that’s really weird,” Jem said.

She is kind of intrigued I can tell. I looked at those luscious lips, they were so familiar. Where do I know her? I was determined to find out.

I stood on my hands and continued to walk along the pavement checking to see if Jem was checking me out. She was def checking out my toned bod.

“See something you like?” I couldn’t help but ask her.

“No, not at all,” she said.

“Chardy I want to try capoiera,” Taylor said as he stood up.

“Uhh ok,” I said.

He was not my favorite person at the moment.

I showed him a basic move and his sunglasses went flying into the pool.

“Ugh,” he moaned. And then he turned to Jem. She didn’t acknowledge him.

“What the hell are you doing? Get off your ass,” he snapped to her.

“What?” she asked.

She seemed surprised and caught off guard.

“My glasses, they are in the pool, go get them,” he said.

He said jump and she said how hi. It was sad, but there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t watch her go and fetch his sunglasses for him. I turned around and there was my sexy Pat.

“There’s my sexy beast,” I said

Pat turned to me and smiled. I love that crooked smile. There is just something about his overbite that makes me want to man kiss him.

“You like my body,” Pat said.

“Oh yeah the water droplets on your chest are turning me on the way they trickle over your nipples,” I said.

Pat and I are always having fun like that. We act like lovers, because it’s fun. Pat batted his eyelashes at me.

“I want a man kiss,” I said as I ran towards him. We both tucked our lips in and wrapped our arms around each other pressing our mouths together, pretending to kiss. We man kissed for a few moments and then we broke.

“That was the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen,” Chris said.

“Hey you had you’re chance. He’s my man now. You were a fool to let him go,” I said.

She was moving in on my man, and I just couldn’t deal.

“Hey I want a man kiss,” I heard Isaac say and Pat and I turned to look at him.


Pat
I swallowed hard and looked at Isaac.

“Yo back up off my man, back up off my man,” Chardy said. I could hardly hear what Chardy was saying. I could feel the sweat beads rolling down my back.

“Uhhh, uhhh,” I said nervously.

I could feel everyone’s eyes on me and it was making me uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to do. A man wanted to kiss me for real, what the hell am I supposed to do? This is unheard of.

“Uhh,” I said again.

I was trying anything to buy myself some time.

“Hey I’m just joshing you man,” Isaac said.

I let out a small sigh of relief. Everyone around me laughed.

“Although Pat, it is tempting. Your lips are quite tempting,” Isaac joked.

Now he’s really starting to weird me out. He seems to be flirting with me all the time.

“So you’re switching teams on me now?” Chris asked.

“No,” I said defensively.

“Chardy and I just fool around,”

“I can see that,” Chris said.

God I hope she doesn’t seriously think I’m gay.

“No, not fool around like that, just kidding you know,” I said.

“It would be a shame if you did,” She said putting her hand on my chest and getting really close to my face again. Her bottom lip was protruding and she looked at me with these doe eyes and I going crazy inside.

I took her hand in mine and didn’t break the stare.

“Why is that?” I asked her back.

“Because then I can’t try and seduce you,” Chris said.

I was getting excited and I didn’t know if I could hide. Just the thought of Chris wanting to touch me, caused a desire in me that I don’t know if I could keep in tow.

“Is that right?” I asked her.

I had to play it cool.

“Maybe if you’re good,” she said as she walked away.


Zac
So here I am wandering the streets like a hobo. How did this all happen? If I look back to six months ago all I can see is Eva and I and all the good times we used to have and then we went to one horse race and that was it. I won $1500 and that was it, then I thought I was unstoppable. I took that money to Vegas and tripled it. Then, I started betting on games and that’s where my problems started. It’s one thing when you gamble and you owe a casino or a racetrack, because they take your money when you bet, but when you owe a loan shark, they will break your legs. They have beaten me up many times in the past, but that wasn’t enough for me to realize how stupid I was being. I kicked the gravel a little as I walked among the toothless wonders all around me. But suddenly I felt for them. If these men don’t kill me, this it what I’ll become. An old, lonely, broke, toothless man that eats from the dumpster and sleeps in a cardboard box.

“You look troubled son, come here and sit,” an old woman said to me.

She seemed harmless, so I sat down next to her. I actually had a chocolate bar in my pocket and I offered it to her. She snatched it from me and devoured it ravenously.

“So tell me your troubles,” she said.

She had deep wrinkles around her eyes. Her face showed me a life of hardship. I could definitely see drug and alcohol abuse among other things. But her eyes were a soft baby blue. I could tell that in her day she was a great beauty.

“I’m in big trouble,” I said.

“You owe money,” she said to me.

I stared at her nervously. I was now more scared than I ever was before it seemed.

“Don’t be frightened. I’m very intuitive. I used to dabble in tarot cards and palm readings,” she said.

I breathed a sigh of relief and sat up a little straighter.

“I owe $20,000.00 to this loan shark, I only have 7,000, and I have four days left to come up with the rest,” I said.

“This loan shark is someone very close to you,” she said.

“What? No way. I’ve never met him. He sends his goons to collect the money,” I said.

“Im seeing the letter C. The letter C is a strong,” she said.

She is really starting to freak me out.

“Look lady I came here for advice not a reading from Miss Cleo. I gotta go,” I said as I got to my feet.

“Beware of C,” she called out after me.

I shook myself for a moment tying to shake off the eerie feeling she gave me. Where can I find some goddamm money?



Brian
What a mess this is. Chardy is still doing his dumb Brazilian karate or whatever he calls it. Pat really needs to get a grip he is following Chris around like she is the last woman on earth. He really thinks I’m interested in her too. I’ve been busting his chops just to get him to admit that he has feelings for her again, but obviously it hasn’t worked, so I need to bust his chops some more. I started making my way over to wear the two of them were when Isaac stopped me. He is interested in Chris and thinks I’m the enemy.

“Hey Brian look at this,” Isaac said holding up a piece of one of the poolside plants.

I’m not sure what exactly he was trying to show me.

“It looks like a cock and balls,” he said.

He really is the weirdest person, no wonder why Pat didn’t want to kiss him.

“That’s great Isaac. Thanks,” I said.

I went over to Pat who was completely pawing Chris, not that I blame him. She went from IBTC (ity, bitty, titty, comitee) to a DD.

“Why don’t you guys just fuck already?” I asked.

This was really getting annoying watching them drool, and bat eye lashes, and be all cutesy and then not admit it. I’m a romantic guy and I understand he goo goo eyes and the flirting, but at least I admit it. They are acting like they are forbidden to be attracted to one another, like nuns wanting sex or something. Both of them turned bright red and did not appreciate my comment and I didn’t really give a shit.

“Brian it’s not like that. You know more than anybody we’re just old friends,” Pat said.

“You were a lot more than friends and you’re both full of shit. There is definitely something going on here, why don’t we play some volleyball so you guys can get out your sexual tension,” I said.

I could care less about there sexual tension, I just want to play volleyball.

“Did somebody say volleyball? I love volleyball,” Isaac said as he hurried over to us.

“Uh yeah let’s play. But I’m the band manager, so I get to be captain,” Pat said suddenly.

“And I’m the manager of my band, so I get to be captain,” Isaac said.

“Hell no. I’m the manager, you retard,” Taylor said.

“No, I am,” Isaac said.

Wow this is bad.

“So Pat why don’t you pick your first player?” I asked.

“Chrissy,” he said.

That bastard he sold me out for the girl.

“I’ll take Chardy,” Taylor said.

“Actually, I played volleyball in high school, so I’m captain and we will take Chardy,” Todd said. Chardy did a few flips over to us and smiled.

“I want Brian,” Pat said.

“It’s about time, you asshole,” I stated loudly.

What a fuckhead.

“Pat we have one less player than them,” Eva said.

“You know what, since you guys are the obvious handicap, being that you have the three girls, we’ll give you Chris W,” Todd said. “We’ll take him, but let it be known, we could kick your ass without him,” I said.

“Oh yeah you wanna bet?” Taylor challenged us.

“Absolutely. What are the terms?” Pat said.

He never backed down from these things. He was always trying to prove how manly he is.

“Pat if I win I get to be band manager for a week. I get to make all the decisions and you have to do everything I say,” Todd said.

This was getting crazy. How is Pat going to handle this.


Pat
This is it. We have to win.

“Okay I agree to those terms, but hmm what do I want?” I said aloud.

“Hey Pat keep it PG. I’m not doing any sexual favors,” Isaac said.

Wow he is kind of creepy.

“I know what I want. If I win Todd you have to listen to not only what I tell you to do as band manager, but whatever I tell you to do period. You’re to be my personal bitch,” I said.

There was no way I’d let anyone ever manage this band except me. This is my band dammit and I don’t take orders from anyone.

“You’re on. And need I remind you, I played volleyball in high school. I’m not scared,” Todd said.

“Well maybe you should be. Now serve the ball,”


Zac
I found myself another corner far away from that woman. The letter C, how the hell can that be. The only C I can think of is Christina and she is not a loan shark. This has been a really weird day. I went down another two blocks and there was an old wino drinking a forty-ounce that was tucked into a paper bag. He looked dirty ad diseased.

“Do you mind if I sit?” I asked the old drunk.

“No,” he said. I sat down on the bench next to him and then across the street I saw a rather interesting looking character flag don’t a care. It was a she-male. A man with breasts, or was it a woman with a penis. Oh my God.

“How in the world does that thing make money?” I said aloud.

“You’d be surprised son. Tanya makes $600.00 a day and she is hideous. A young healthy, drug free boy like you could make a bundle. Especially if you have a virgin ass,” he said to me.

I don’t think I ever stood to my feet. I started to sprint down the block slow at first and then a little more quickly. I was halfway down the block when I realized what he had just said. $600.00 a day. If I can get a couple extra days I can pay Sully off in no time. I turned around and headed back down the road. I’m going to have to sell myself.




Last Chapter

Next Chapter

Comments