CHAPTER NINE
April 1965.
Friday afternoon.
What in all hell did you do that for?!"
The yelling across the store causes me to turn away from the store clerk, wondering what on earth is going on. I shudder a little as I realise that the guy who's shouting is clutching his face as blood trickles between his fingers—whilst Dallas stands next to him, an amused smirk on his face.
"Maybe you need to mind your manners, asshole," Dallas sneers back at him.
"You practically fucking knocked my tooth out!" The guy mumbles again, as he gingerly prods at his mouth then wipes his bloodied hand across his shirt and squares up to Dallas.
"Yeah? Guess you got off lightly then," Dallas retorts, his voice low as he glares back. "Maybe next time you'll think twice about who you're ordering about."
Quickly dropping my money on the counter I turn back to face them, but the store manager is already there, yelling at the pair of them as he stands between them, "Don't give a damn who did what to whom or who started this; there ain't gonna be no fighting in my store! Now get the hell out of here, punks!"
Dallas' expression turns to a scowl, like he's about to give the manager a piece of his mind too, so I hurry back to him, grab at his hand and pull him towards the door and out onto the sidewalk. I'm desperate to get him out of here without any more trouble—even if it does mean his bad mood'll most likely be focused on me now.
"Damn it, Sylvia, what in hell do you think you're doing?" he demands, roughly shaking his hand free from mine.
"Getting you out of there before you land yourself in any more trouble," I suggest.
"Don't fucking need you looking out for me!" he snarls, whirling to face me.
"Yeah, I know, it's just I don't want you getting locked up again, not when you've only been out the reformatory for a couple of weeks," I say, smiling at him as I start to walk away, doing my best not to look back as I carry on talking, and hoping that I sound a hell of a lot more confident than I'm feeling right now. "But if you'd rather risk spending your night in the cells with some old drunk than with me, then go ahead, go fight him."
For a half second—as Dallas falls into step beside me, cracks a grin at me and slings his arm across my shoulders—I think that my gamble might pay off, and that things are actually gonna go my way for once. That is until we get to the corner and he's glancing back over his shoulder to where the guy from the store is still standing on the sidewalk glaring at the pair of us as he curses at Dallas again.
"That idiot just don't know when to shut up," Dallas mutters as he comes to a stop, his hands balling into fists at his side as he glowers back and calls out some choice insults of his own.
"Dal, don't, he's not worth it," I plead, although my request falls on deaf ears as Dallas starts to walk back towards him. "Please?" I continue, "If you go fight him I'm going home; I ain't hanging around to watch."
"Yeah, do as you're told, kid," the guy taunts, "wouldn't want you getting into trouble now, would we?"
Dallas tenses at his words, and even though I'm pretty sure he won't take no notice of me now, and that there's no way he'll walk away from this fight, I still try one last time to talk him out of it.
"Please, Dallas? You don't even know this guy do you—what did he even do that's worth all this?"
But he just laughs, quickly kisses my cheek and starts to close the last remaining distance between them. "Well, guess I'll see you around sometime then, sweetheart."
xxxxxx
Friday evening.
"So who's party is this?" I ask Leigh as we cross the street, and enter the crowded yard.
"I'm not too sure, some guy that Two-Bit knows, I think—Kathy was telling me about it at school yesterday, seems everybody's going to be here. So it should be a good night."
"Yeah, hopefully," I mutter, not sounding convinced.
"What's wrong?" She stops and turns to look at me, one hand resting on her hip. "Don't tell me you're hoping Dallas'll be here? I don't get why you keep wasting your time on him, Sylv, he's always in trouble for something and he never treats you good. You deserve someone so much better than him. I mean, who chooses to get in a fight with some stranger rather than spend the night with his girlfriend? Are you two even still together after what happened earlier?"
I shrug at her as I pull at my necklace. "Guess so, he never asked for this back or nothing, though I suppose he was a bit distracted." Truth be told, I ain't really sure why I keep getting drawn back to him either.
She shoots me a confused look. "It ain't just his choice though, is it? If he's gonna act like that much of a jerk all of the time then you don't have to keep seeing him. Not if you don't want to."
"I know, but he can be real sweet, when it's just us."
"Yeah? Shame he isn't a bit nicer to you all the time."
Scanning the crowded yard, I spot a couple of our friends and call out to them, walking in their direction before Leigh can give me any more of a hard time.
And despite my initial disappointment that there's no sign of Dallas, it turns out to be kind of fun as we stand around and catch up with the girls and listen to some of Two-Bit's tall tales.
As the conversation drifts and more people arrive, me and Leigh get separated in the crowd. She's chatting to some guy I don't recognise, while I somehow find myself stuck talking to a couple of my brother's friends, Danny and Ryan. Danny's asking me something about Nick, if I know where he is tonight, when I first think I hear my name being mentioned. Distracted, I glance over my shoulder and realise it's Curtis and Randle, laughing and smirking as they watch us. The pair of them look worse for wear already, like they've already had more than their fair share of booze, as they giggle and whisper, making no effort to hide the fact that they're talking about me.
"You got something you want to say to me, then how about you come over here and say it to my face you jerks?" I snap, shooting them a dirty look, which only seems to make them laugh even more.
"You want me to handle them for you?" Ryan asks. Guess having a brother in a gang does sometimes come in useful for something—even if it is probably just an excuse for settling some score of their own.
But before I can answer another voice cuts through the noise. "Nah, don't reckon she needs any help from you, Lang," Dallas says as he slides an arm around my shoulders. "Everything alright, Sylv?"
"Yeah, I'm fine; I wasn't expecting to see you though, thought you had more important shit to worry about than being with me?" I ask, running my fingertips across the fresh bruises on his cheek before taking a step back and folding my arms.
"Now you know that ain't true, Sylvia," he murmurs, grinning at me. "So d'you wanna get out of here? Go someplace else a little quieter?"
And I'm about to reply when one of Dallas' asshole friends pipe up with some other comment about me, as the two of them start up sniggering again like a pair of little kids.
"What did you say, Steve?" Dallas asks, his grip on my shoulder tightening.
Only Randle doesn't reply; he just shrugs, as him and his buddy—as well as everyone around us—fall silent, all eyes on Dallas as he starts to speak again.
"Do you see this?" Dallas asks, his speech slow and measured as his fingers drift down to the chain around my neck with his ring hanging heavy upon it. "Well this means she's my girl, so you don't get to talk shit about her, especially not in front of me. So how about you damn well apologise to her?"
"Seriously? You want me to say sorry to her?" Steve snorts. "No fucking chance, Winston."
Dallas shrugs, stepping away from me. "You sure about that, Randle?" he demands, continuing to speak when Steve just glares back at him. "Well don't say I didn't warn you," he laughs, looking as though he's about to walk away and let it go, when out the blue he throws a punch at Steve and sends him stumbling to the ground, before turning back to me like nothing's happened. "So you ready to go then, Sylv?" Dallas asks, holding his arm out for me to take.
Nodding at him, I take his hand and give Steve the most disdainful look I can muster as he struggles to his feet. "Yeah, let's get out of this dump, leave these losers to it."
xxxxxx
Saturday morning.
Running across the road, I just make it to the bus in time, dropping down into the empty seat next to Leigh as it pulls away.
"Wasn't sure if you were gonna make it to work this morning after you disappeared last night," she says, grinning at me.
I shake my head. "Yeah, I can't afford to be late and get on the wrong side of my supervisor, not when there's the chance I could get that full time job now that Janice is gonna be leaving when she gets married. Anyway," I say as I shift a little in my seat to look a her, "more importantly what else happened last night after we left—did you meet anyone nice?"
"Kind of." Leigh smiles a little, as she moves her purse and smooths out the creases in the skirt of her diner uniform.
"And?"
"And what? If you hadn't left so soon then you'd have known what happened. Steve was real pissed, was running his mouth about Dallas to anyone who's listen."
"Yeah? Funny how he never has the nerve to say nothing to his face though, ain't it?"
"Oh and you missed your brother. He turned up about half an hour after you and Dal left. Least I could honestly say I had no clue where you were when he asked me."
"I know, he's been bugging me all week about staying away from Dallas," I mutter, frowning. "Anyway, I don't want to talk about Nick, not when you still haven't told me about this guy you met. Who was it—that guy outta Brumly who was talking to you?"
"No." Leigh looks away, busies herself with staring out the bus window, and won't meet my eye.
Curious, I nudge her and wait until she looks around. "What on earth is so bad about this guy that you don't want to tell me who it is?"
She laughs a little. "Nothing. There's not anything wrong with him."
"Well if he was so nice, then how come you still haven't even told me his name? Come on, Leigh, what's the big deal? Is it someone I don't like?" I stare at her, her face reddening by the second, as I mentally run through who I'd seen there and try to figure out who in hell it could possibly be. "Oh, God. Don't tell me you hooked up with Steve or Soda?"
"No, course not." She rolls her eyes at my suggestions, then quickly glances round to see who's sitting around us and then stares back at the floor before mumbling her answer. "It was Tim."
"What? As in Shepard? As in my brother's best friend, gang leader and all round no-good hood Tim Shepard?"
She nods. "Yeah, I was gonna just go home, but I ran into him and we ended up having a drink together and talking a little, and...we...well then he walked me home."
"Jesus, Leigh. Seriously? After everything you've said about me dating Dallas, you end up with him? You know what he's like—he's with a different girl practically every week."
She shrugs at me. "Well, yeah, so you don't need to give me a lecture, Sylvia. I know it was most likely only a bit of fun to him and it doesn't mean he really likes me. I'm not dumb enough to think that we're dating or nothing. Hell, he probably doesn't even remember my name."
"Well then he's an idiot then ain't he?" And I find myself laughing a little as a crazy thought hits me. "Be kind of a shame if he doesn't want to see you again though, what with him and Dal being friends and all. 'Cause then we could all hang out together."
"Oh sure," she says, joining me in my laughter, and causing the old woman across the aisle to glare at us, "like that's gonna happen. So are things really okay between you and Dallas again?"
Getting to my feet as the bus begins to slow for our stop, I nod at her. "Yeah, of course; you saw him—how he picked me and took my side over his buddies last night—why wouldn't things be good?"
A/N: Sorry it's been an age since I last updated, thank you to everyone who's been reading and I hope you like the chapter. This story has now finally caught up to the time covered in one of my other stories, These Streets, if you're interested in reading from Tim's point of view ;)
