The Preston Playboys

chapter one - delinquents and apple pie

chapter one – delinquents and apple pie

Ya know, I very much enjoyed staying under the radar in high school. When I was younger I was very close with 2/3 of the Preston playboys (of course that nickname didn't start still high school.) That I was as popular as the boys. Preston's are always popular and almost always the boys in the family are notorious playboys but that's a story for later. We were born on the same day only a room apart. Our Dad's played football together in high school so it would make sense that we would grow up together.

Kevin, Devin & I were always really good friends but Marc and I... Marc and I had a different kind of relationship. While Kevin and Devin would fight anybody that picked on me, Marc was always standing along side whoever my bully was at the time. I never cared for any of my bullies but Marc made my blood boil. Maybe it was the evil smile on his four year old face when he would pull at my curls or the evil laugh he would do when we were eight and he had just got done knocking over my Lego towers. But I hated him for it. Elementary school wasn't that bad because boys still had cooties.

Middle school was where it got bad because that's when boys started looking cute and let me tell you, I did not have a thing for blonde haired athletes like the older triplets. Of course I had to have a crush on the "bad boy." As bad as a 11 year old boy could be. It didn't help that adults would always say that boys pick on you when they like you because by that standard Marc was in love with me. I harbored that crush for all of 6th and 7th grade. It's really embarrassing how much I liked that toad. All the family dinners I was invited to where I would peer over at him through my thick curls. What makes things worse is that the only person that knows about my crush on him is the devil himself because in 8th grade I asked him to be my date to the Spring formal. Do you know how embarrassing it is to be rejected? And not even publicly. I guess Marc was feeling nice that day because he took me to the side and told me he didn't like me. He wasn't even being mean, he just looked uncomfortable.

He didn't pick on me or even talk to me (not like he was even talking to me when he wasn't picking on me before) for the rest of the year. Marc went to high school with us for three months before he got sent to a boarding school for troubled boys after he started a locker room brawl with the football team for the hell of it. During those three months the boys and I started drifting apart. There was no falling out, we just started getting busy with our own lives. The boys joined the football team, I joined art club and Marc joined a gang ( I'm kidding about that part haha.) We started making new friends and slowly we stopped hanging out with each other as much. There was no hard feelings. We would smile and wave at each other in the hallway. Marc would always make it a point to smile and say "Hi thick Thea!" which earned a glare from me. When I had art club outside while the boys had football practice, I would always cheer them on.

When Marc left it seemed like the waving and cheering slowly stopped. It got to the point where we wouldn't even acknowledge each other in the hallways but that's just how high school is. We grow out of our childhood and shape our adulthoods.

The boys made friends with the other football players and I made my own little misfit group of friends. Laurel was my girl best friend throughout childhood and we never grew apart. You can spot her from a mile away by her overly perky walk and her loud projections of positivity. We met Millie sophomore year when she moved to Eastview from Oklahoma. She's always sporting dual braids and her accent is adorable. Charlie and Mick joined us Junior year when their main group of friends all graduated. They are actually close friends with the boys older sisters May & Sage. Mick graduated last year and now its just the 4 of us.

"Hey thick Thea" Marc fell into step next to me.

"Hey M-Marc" I rolled my eyes and I noticed Marc's intense frown.