I knew then what the wolves meant when they said that a tether didn’t have to be a person.
“LOOK AT her,” Rico said, sounding awed.
We looked.
Misty Osborn. Her hair was crimped, and she had big front teeth. She laughed loudly and was one of the popular girls in the eighth grade.
“I like older women,” Rico decided.
“She’s thirteen,” Chris said.
“You’re twelve,” Tanner said.
I said nothing. It was warm, and my sleeves were long.
“I’m going to ask her to the dance,” Rico said, looking as if he was steeling himself.
“Are you insane?” Chris hissed at him. “She would never go with you. She likes jocks.”
“And you’re really not a jock,” Tanner pointed out.
“Just gotta change her mind,” Rico said. “Not that hard. Make her see behind my skinny nonjock body. Just you watch.”
We watched as he stood from the lunch table.
He marched over to her.
The girls around her giggled.
We couldn’t hear what he was saying, but from the look on Misty’s face, it wasn’t anything good.
He nodded a lot. Waved his arms around like a lunatic.
Misty frowned.
He pointed at her, then back at himself.
Misty frowned even more.
She said something.
Rico came back to the table and sat down. “She said my English was very good for someone born in another country. I’ve decided she’s a jerk and not deserving of my love and devotion.”
&
nbsp; Tanner and Chris glared at her from across the lunchroom.
When she stood to leave, tossing her hair, my fingers twitched. Her metal lunch table jerked to the left, knocking her in the leg. She tripped and fell, her face in Tuesday’s lumpy mashed potatoes.
Rico laughed. That was important to me.
THEY TALKED about girls sometimes, Rico more than the others. He loved the way they smelled and their tits, and sometimes he said they gave him a boner.
“I’m going to get so many girlfriends,” he said.
“Me too,” Chris said. “Like, four of them.”
“That sounds like so much work,” Tanner said. “Can’t you just have one and be happy with it?”