Second Chance

Chapter 16

"Are you sure about this, dude?" I asked Riley nervously, as we walked down the sidewalk that led to the entrance to the town's mall. "I mean, you said it yourself. They'll kick me out the moment they know it's me."

I had been to this mall many times before, but I haven't come back in over a year, since I was officially banned from it. I've been kicked out five different times for doing something stupid, and on my fifth time the security told me that if I ever came back they would get the police involved. So, it was a totally great idea to saunter right back in here, as if I totally wouldn't get arrested at all.

"You'll be fine." Riley reassured me. "As long as you don't act sketchy or try and steal something, you shouldn't get in trouble."

I reluctantly followed him through the front doors of the mall, wishing I had his optimism. "What are we even getting?" I asked, although Riley probably already told me.

"Well, we need new clothes for the party, along with some alcohol. Which is part of the reason why I brought you here, Mr. Fake ID." Riley explained, but I only picked up one word he said.

"Party? What party?" I asked, since I was under the impression that we would get drunk in our motel room then go out and do something stupid, which was what we always did on the first night of any sort of break or holiday from school.

"Oh yeah, you wouldn't have known about that." Riley realized. "Jake Newfold is hosting a party at his place tomorrow night. It's apparently supposed to be a banger."

I grimaced internally, remembering Jake. He was a small nerdy kid back in grade school who was bullied for multiple different things, and I was usually the one bullying him. Then, in grade nine he grew like, eight inches and became fairly good looking. Enough to be a threat to me. He didn't get as many girls as me though, even though he was bigger and taller than me now, but only slightly. Still, I didn't like him. I never have and I never will.

"No way." I said firmly, shaking my head. "That guy's a prick. I do not want to go to his stupid party."

"You're a prick too, Justin." Riley pointed out, grinning slightly.

"Yeah, but I'm not....him." I supplied weakly.

"Come on, man. Alexis will be there." He bargained, but she wasn't exactly a deal breaker to me anymore.

"Nope, sorry. I have Maria now." I said, shaking my head. "If I had to go, could I bring her with us?"

Riley gave me a dry look. "Sure. Bring your fuckbuddy with us on our boys night out."

"Okay, fine. Then I'm not going." I decided stubbornly.

"I'll convince you, one way or another." Riley sighed.

I smirked at him, then said. "We'll see."

—-

We made our first stop at our favourite clothing store. It's where all the badass leather jackets and chain jewelry are. The only problem with this place was that everything was crazy expensive. That's why this store was the one I stole from the most and was the first one I got kicked out of.

Riley ended up choosing a leather jacket with a pair of ripped black jeans and a simple chain necklace. How the hell he was going to afford it, I had no idea. I already had a leather jacket, so I decided on a cool pair of black jeans that had a bunch of zippers, chains, spikes and a few rips here and there. I also got a chain necklace that was connected with a small lock. It was fake, so a key didn't come with it, I just thought it would look good with my leather jacket and jeans. The total for both of our outfits came to one hundred dollars, so we had to use the fifty dollars from earlier today and a few other scraps of money I scraped together earlier in the month.