A/N: I'm soooo sorry. It's been forever since my last update but things have been crazy! My High School's musical just ended and I had homework to catch up on, competition dance pieces to learn, and Jonas Brothers concerts to attend. Yea that's right, 3rd row on the floor for their WYLMITE tour. Also, my last dance competition of the year ended tonight. But enough of that…on to the new chapter.
Me and Jack trudged into Tibby's diner at around 3 in the afternoon and I was beat. Being a newsie was defiantly harder than it looked and now I had to go back to the lodging house and clean up for this "party" we were having tonight.
"All in a day's work," was all I had gotten out of Jack when I approached him on how we were going to accomplish this all in one day. More than once today I had had thoughts of home and I was wishing we could go back to being our little seven and nine year old selves again, naively thinking we would actually move to Santa Fe one day and live happily ever after. Skipping through fields of flowers again, telling stories late into the night. I missed that. I missed us. I missed him.
It was Skittery who startled me out of my day dreams this time. I silently commended myself for remembering his name.
"You really gotta stop doing that. You just start staring off into space and it makes people nervous." He said, chewing a bite of his sandwich. The way he looked at me, with those big, brown, understanding eyes made me feel a bit better and I made a mental note to trust him with any secrets I may or may not have in the future that may or may not need telling.
"Sorry," I said smiling slightly, a little embarrassed he'd caught me day dreaming again. I felt my face turn a little pink but he laughed it off and turned back to the others at our table.
Just then the door to the diner flung open and in walked a bunch of tough looking newsies. They weren't from Manhattan, I can tell you that. Jack had assured me I had me all the Manhattan newsies and I certainly hadn't met these boys yet. They all carried sling shots and looked like they could've beaten the life out of me, had they chosen to.
As they walked by me I felt a shiver run down my spine as the leader of the pack turned to look at me. He was shorter than the rest but still just as muscular. He also wore a key around his neck and had icy blue eyes that seemed to look straight through me. Call me crazy but I wondered for a moment if he knew everything I was thinking. If he could read it all on my face.
He waltzed up to Cowboy with an arrogant saunter and it crossed my mind that these might be the Brooklyn newsies I had been told were coming later. It also hit me that the one with the icy blue eyes was very probably Spot Conlon. He was shorter than I expected but I didn't doubt for a second that he could still tear me apart.
I couldn't pull my gaze away from him, even when he looked back towards Cowboy and started to whisper to him in a hushed voice. I leaned over to Race and asked, without ever diverting my gaze from the intimidating leader, "Is that Spot?" Simple as that.
"Yea, that's him alright." He said with a low chuckle, more to himself than me. "Just as smug as ever." He finished, lighting up a new cigar. Again, he said this more to himself than to me and I wondered if I was missing something. If there was something about this intriguing boy I hadn't been told. I sensed there was.
"Why is he here now? I thought he was coming tonight." I asked him, finally breaking my line of vision. I looked at Race hard in the face as he seemed to struggle with things he knew he had to say.
"Sometimes…" he began slowly, choosing his words carefully. "Well you have to understand that Spot likes girls. He is known for having a new girl every week. They don't much matter to him, they're more like trophies. And sometimes Spot and his boys come over before these little planned get togethers to…uhh…" He trailed off and I squinted at him. There was something he was hiding from me. Something he didn't want to say. I feared it was about Jack.
"Race, what is it?" I asked suspiciously. "What aren't you telling me?" I glanced back over at Jack and Spot and they seemed to be looking over at me. Jack looked furious about something and Spot seemed smug. Too smug.
"Well, Jack didn't want you to know too much. He figured it would be better if you didn't know about what he does at night." He said still speaking carefully. My heart sank as I grasped the meaning of his words. Jack was seventeen and living on his own. It had only been a matter of time before he succumbed to the hordes of girls who had probably thrown themselves at him. Only a matter of time before he…
"Hey Cassie," Cowboy called over to me. He seemed quite unhappy about something. I had an idea of what it was. "Someone wants to…ahem…meet you." He shot Spot a dark look and then nodded slightly. Spot nodded back and turned to smirk at me. I felt the color rush to me cheeks again.
I walked over to where they were sitting across the room slowly. I fought to suppress my beating heart and the butterflies in my stomach. I felt like such a baby for being so nervous.
When I reached the table I tried to get out a "hello" but all I managed was incoherent babble. Luckily there wasn't much of it because Jack had the decency to introduce me himself.
"Spot this is an old friend of mine, Cassandra," I flinched when he gave my full name but understood why he was being so formal. He was being a tad overprotective again but this time I didn't mind so much. This Spot kid scared the living daylights out of me and I had no idea why. "Cass, this is Spot Conlon, leader of the Brooklyn newsies." I half expected a ta-da! at the end of that but none came. Spot just smirked even wider and then began to walk in a circle around me, sizing me up.
'Wh-what are you doing?" I asked, finally finding my voice. I was praying it wouldn't crack.
"Trying to see if youse is newsie material. Youse kinda look too hoity-toity to me." He said still circling me, like a predator about to pounce on its defenseless prey. I stared down at my feet and waited for the pounce.
He finally stopped in front of me and I looked up. He looked me square in the eye for a long uncomfortable moment and finally smirked again and turned back to Cowboy. I let out a sigh of relief.
"Well Jacky-boy, I'd take her off your hands for you but for reasons besides making her a newsie." I let out a confident laugh as Jack sank further into his seat. He picked up the cowboy hat tied to his neck and pulled it across his face as he leaned back and tilted his head up at the ceiling. My eyes grew wide with horror as I grasped Spot's real meaning.
Suddenly I had a moment of bravery and I snapped at Spot, "You masochistic pig!" This was not the brightest move I could have made because at that moment Spot's reared back a hand to slap me across the face.
I ducked quickly as I could but their wasn't even a breeze as his hand flew over my head. Instead I looked up to see Jack holding his arm back with a furious expression on his face. All he had to do was look at Spot and instantly his hand fell to his side.
He regained his composure and said "Sorry, that was a bit rude, just don't go calling people masochistic pigs or youse might get seriously hurt." I found the real warning in his words and decided to take this advice. I nodded quickly and mumbled an apology f my own.
It was very long afternoon at Tibby's. I found myself sitting in between Jack and Spot for the rest of the time and desperately wanted to talk to Jack, alone. But there was no way to do that with Spot sitting to my right. I could feel his gaze on me the entire time and I suspected there was something going on. Something Jack wasn't telling me. Something that involved me, Spot, and possibly even all of the Brooklyn and Manhattan newsies. I wasn't sure if it involved the truce between the two boroughs yet but you could be sure I'd find out.
Yes, I knew about the truce. Even thought I'd only been there a day it had been a topic of discussion this afternoon when I was selling with Jack. He'd told me all about it and how it road on his friendship with Spot. One wrong move and it could be all over. One fight and it could mean war.
I shivered at the thought but decided I would ask Jack if I was becoming a part of this truce. I knew enough to realize that what Spot wanted, he got. What if this time, what he wanted, and would be willing to go to war over, was me?