Girls Chase Girls | #1 [COMPLETE]

chapter 2 (new)

Phaedra

A week later, Phaedra tucked the tissue-wrapped bouquet of replacement peonies under her arm to check her phone for new messages.

"Still checking on Evel Knievel?"

"Yeah, baby, she's a firework." Phaedra covered her face at once, turned her phone upside down in shame. "Forget I said that. That was terrible."

"Worse than usual, baby Phae," tutted co-captain of the Webber girls' volleyball team and fellow Wild Girl, Tremaine Kilallen. She was one of the few who understood why Phaedra kept visiting the hospital days after the accident that had singed their hands and landed a friend of theirs in the ER for smoke inhalation. "Evel must be keeping you up nights."

"Leave it alone, Tré."

"I'm not trying to start anything, you know I'm not. I just don't want you falling down a straight girl rabbit hole."

Phae grunted, scrolled through texts from her fellow team members for those begging off this afternoon's team practice. So not happening. 'Miss out, get benched. Your choice,' she shot back to each and every one.

"She's an underclassman, not a tripwire. She got banged up pretty bad and I want to make sure there's no permanent damage."

Tré sucked her teeth, doubt written on her sun kissed face in block letters. "If you say so. Didn't know you went to medical school."

"Don't be a dick."

"Finest dick you've ever seen." Blowing a teasing kiss at Phae, Tré grabbed her duffle from the trunk of her car and clomped off to the locker room to change for practice. Phaedra gave her co-captain's car an appreciative onceover, stopping to check that the doors and trunk were secure. If a seventeen-year-old could have a pride and joy, that car was Tré's and with good reason. 1955 fire engine red Chrysler C 300s weren't easy to find. It had a body was built for NASCAR, designed for speed, pushing 350 horsepower, dual Carter WCFB four-barrel carburetors, and a "Hemi" V8 engine. To know the 300 was to love it and Tré loved her well. It was loving anybody else that had her best friend tied up in knots.

Phaedra checked her phone again to see if she'd gotten a text from the hospital.

Nothing.

Guess that makes two of us.

Her ma had texted that jadda had sent her a gift for the first time in a long while. Phaedra groaned. She knew what her grandmother considered an appropriate gift for her athletic, outdoor-loving granddaughter and she wanted no part of it. Phaedra loved her brown skin and how it glistened in the sun. She had no interest in being either fair or lovely, not even to make her mother's mother happy.

'Hold on to it for me, maimah. I have to go to the hospital and then I have v-ball practice. I'll be home late.'

'Ma atyabeck falling in love again.' 

'Mom!'  Phaedra flushed, looking around to make sure Tré wasn't around to tease her even more.

'I'm only saying  ya habibti. You're adorable with your little crush.'

'I'm putting down the phone.' If she didn't cut her mother off, she'd end up hearing--again--about how Black study abroad student Dominick Barlowe had bumped into Galilea Dahmani at Rabat University and stolen her heart instantly. Eighteen years and an arduous overseas immigration later, her parents still had stars in their eyes about each other. Phaedra's mother was sure it would happen for her soon.

'So snarky! You don't know everything yet.' Phaedra could imagine her mother rolling her eyes. 'Oh pick up milk on your way home!'

'Why can't Baba pick it up?'

'Because I asked you...'

Phaedra instantly started to sweat at the ellipses popping up to signal her mom was still typing. She was so about to get told off.

'Nevermind, I'll get the milk <3' She threw her phone to the bottom of her gym bag and jumped in her car. She might be the leader of the Wild Girls, but she would always be her mother's daughter.