It All Started in Detention

Chapter Twenty-Two

The party got shut down.

The two boys stood in front of a small house in Queens, watching from a distance as police swarmed the area, discussing costs with parents and placing kids in the back of their cars to take them home. Davey swallowed nervously, and Jack seemed annoyed.

"This is bullshit", he whined, rolling his eyes. Davey only stared at him and his movie hands. "Why do the police have to ruin everything?"

Dramatics truly did run in Jack's blood. Davey merely sighed as his friend continued to moan on, partly ignoring him and partly thinking. Disappointment didn't fill him as much as it did Jack, but neither did exhaustion. If he were to go home now, he'd spend the night entirely awake.

He grabbed his phone from his back pocket, checking the time—it was barely ten o'clock—and opening it, ignoring Jack's peering eyes as he texted his mother. "What kind of noob gets shut down at 9:47 at night? The party must've been fucking ass then."

"You bounce back quick", Davey joked, running a hand through his hair, and tugging lightly as a nail got stuck on a curl, placing his phone back into his pocket. "But we've got time to kill.  What do you want to do?"

"Almost everything is closed", Jack shrugged, blowing a raspberry from his mouth. His fingers individually touched the pad of his thumb, and he refrained from humming. "I don't know...Think the guys are still up?"

Which guys, Davey didn't care to ask. He only shrugged, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Maybe. Ask 'em."

Jack pulled his phone out, the bright light illuminating his green eyes in a way the the sun never could. The planes of his face were highlighted just above his cheeks, deepening his cheekbones, leaving them sunken in and knots mysterious. Davey had to admit he understood what Katherine saw in him; he wasn't ugly.

Davey looked over his face, seeing the faded freckles and fallen eyelashes, and blinking when Jack turned his phone off, and looked back at the taller with a smile. "So?"

"Race's grandparents are out of town", Jack buzzed with excitement, like a bee who'd found a large flower. "He's said we could go to his. Like a little party."

"Great", Davey gritted out, trying his best to look excited. He wanted to hang out with Jack, truly, just not with anyone else. He didn't know anyone else. "Are Specs, Mush, and Ike gonna be there?"

"Yeah", Jack nodded, starting his walk back to the subway station to Manhattan, Davey following after him. "Hotshot, too. You ever meet Race?"

"Briefly." Davey kicked a rock down the sidewalk. "We had a project together back in middle school. He's...eccentric."

Jack hummed. Race was definitely a character, whether from a cartoon or a Charles Dickens novel depended on how he felt that day. "He's a good guy."

The silence was deafening. Jack felt the awkwardness of walking so quietly spring up on him, not necessarily letting him go, but not holding on either. With that thought, he assumed he was feeling fear from walking around at night with Davey, specifically.

He'd never been afraid of walking around New York City before, definitely not at night because that's when some neighborhoods seemed the most quiet, as if they too settled down. With Davey, it was different. He felt responsible for him more than he was responsible for himself—if Davey sees something they aren't meant to see, it was Jack's fault; if Davey were to get hit my a car, it was Jack's fault. It made his skin crawl.

"You ever been out at night?" Jack tried for humble conversation, and Davey seemed to oblige.

"Not this late", he chuckled, watching his breath freeze in the air. He hadn't realized it'd gotten so cold. "I usually have homework to do."