Girls Chase Girls | #1 [COMPLETE]

Chapter 12 (new)

Phaedra (continued)

Garvey hummed a contemplative note. She was suspended upside down from the hardtop of her moss green 1970 Ford Torino ; back on the hood, butt on the windshield, dingy Converse sneakers crossed over the roof. She could do this because this car was her baby. Anybody else that tried was liable to lose a limb.

"Girls have been bringing girls to the dance since the '80s," she finally remarked. "They can't've thought that was about to fly with us around."

"Old folks want what they want. There's no sussin' 'em out."

"Antebellum houses, polio, and segregation sounds about the size of it," Phaedra sniped, scooting down the windshield of her convertible with more care than anybody but her girls understood.

"When's the new skirt coming around," Sable prompted, more than ready to change the subject. This wasn't the one Phaedra would have picked.

Phae rubbed the back of her neck. "When she feels like it, I guess."

"Girlie's still got you wrapped around her pinkie. I never took you for the damsel-rescuing type. You hate damsels."

"I don't hate damsels, I just have a preference. Anyway, she's...I don't know, she's different than that. Even if she wasn't, I might like her anyway. I don't wanna talk about it." Her tone brooked no argument.

"Somebody's feeling territorial. Wonder what that's like, huh? Maybe I should have a talk with her." Sable off cigarettes was hell on a good mood. She was a prowling dark cloud with eyes to match.

"Don't mess with her," Phaedra warned, bracing her hands on the hood of her ragtop lest she get the urge to teach her friend some respect.

"Tell Stevie to back off Alayna and you've got a deal."

Mickey popped her gum. "Who the hell is Alayna? Are you dating an energy drink or a person?"

Lucia chipped in, "Sable's tall drink of sewage."

Sable jumped down to swing a steel-toed kick at the Challenger's grille. Lucia threw a bic pen at the other girl's face. "Try that again, Gilbert Grape. I dare you."

By the time Stevie finally roared up in her '69 Shelby Mustang, the air was long since thick.

Tempest didn't have the temperament for drawn out conflict. The moment the dirty blonde was out of her car, she explained, "These idiots are fighting over you hating Alayna. Work it out. Some of us have college apps to finish and could really use a hand." Her piece spoken, Tempe went back to buffing her nails, perched on the Tiffany blue tailfin of her '56 Montclair.

Her manicure matched the two-door coupe's high-gloss paintjob. Her golden brown skin made every color she wore come up roses. Phae wasn't nearly so lucky, but she loved every hue of every thread she put on day by day just the same.

Phaedra sat at attention when she spied Xia slouching out of the main building carting an armful of posters for the V-Day dance. Alayna got to her, too. She had to be on decorating and posting duty with that cargo.

Stevie was on her umpteenth rant about the evils of lusting after straight girls to no avail. Sable had tuned her out and hopped onto Luce's ride for a double-selfie. Those two never managed to stay mad at each other for long. Which would only piss Stevie off doubly; she and Sable held mutual grudges for weeks.

"And that's my cue to split. Don't scratch my car while you're murdering each other." Phae bounded out of the parking lot at high speed, determinedly ignoring the shouting match that broke out behind her. She loved all of them, she refused to pick a side.

"Need a hand, hot stuff?"

Xia looked up from the morass of streamers she was caught in outside the cafeteria. Alayna must have dumped extra on her at the Planning Committee meetup after school. She looked like she'd seen god when Phae offered her halve her load.

"Take everything. Burn it. I'll pretend I didn't know."

"Uh huh. What's Hu got you doing?"

"I've been drafted to help advertise for the dance. I didn't sign up for this."

Xia peeled a single three-foot poster from her stack and affixed it to the door of the caf with scotch tape. Phae took the initiative and put up the next one on the opposite door.

"I thought you liked all this V-Day junk."

"I like it 'cause it got me close to you. This is not romantic, this is manual labor. I didn't sign up for that."

Phae propped her chin on Xia's shoulder, wrapped her rangy arms around the other girl's soft middle and inhaled the scent of lemongrass in her hair. It would have been easier with twenty less posters and a fifty less tissue paper streamers, but Phaedra was adaptable. "We could make it romantic."

Xia laughed, leaning into her arms. Almost dropped everything. She gave Phaedra that unfathomable look she always did, as though Phaedra was playing a very long prank Xia was waiting to end. "You're not real. There's no way."

"Real as night and day, cutie." Phae tugged her backward to kiss her cheek. It didn't help that Xia was just about her height when she slouched. She'd have kissed her neck if she could easily reach.

Xia only giggled more. "How do you have any street cred left? You're basically a bunny rabbit."

"I'm no bunny. I can drop an asshole in five seconds flat. You do not want to catch me on the wrong side of the tracks."

"Scary," Xia giggled, sounding anything but afraid.

Phae kissed her ear, nibbled at her earlobe until Xia shuddered from head to toe, her breath stuttering.

"Y'know, you got a big mouth. I used to think you were quiet."

"I never had anybody to talk to."

"I've tickled the sleeping dragon, yeah?"

"Yup. Not so smart for a smart girl."

"It's not smart, anyway." Phae puffed against her denim-covered shoulder. "I'm captain of the team. If I don't make the grades, I don't play. I don't play, I don't get a scholarship. That's it. That's not smart, that's doing what you gotta do."

"Sounds smart to me."

Phae grinned into her jacket. "You're so stuck on me."

Xia crinkled her nose. "You're sticky."

With that parting shot, Xia broke free, skipping down the sidewalk, trailing streamers behind her and leaving Phaedra to carry pretty much everything else. "Come on, we've got a whole campus to paper with these things, and you still owe me a kiss."

"Owe you?! Lady, you owe me a hundred kisses. Two hundred, one for every dollar."

Xia shrugged. "You can't collect if you don't work. Sorry, I don't make the rules."

Phae followed in her wake, shaking her head and catching any horrid, florid decoration the other girl dropped. She was pathetically sprung on this underclassman and it felt good.

That was the moral of the story: when you got it right, romance felt good; and with the right girl, it felt great. Xia Qi was all kinds of right.