My Partner In Crime

Chapter 6

"You could have killed him!" I said sharply. He was about to turn around to rejoin his friends, but I grabbed his shoulder and socked him in the jaw. I could see it pinken up, so I knew it would bruise.

"Clem!" Dodge grabbed my arm and pulled me back. We had both turned around to go back to our spot, me more disheveled than him, shockingly enough, but Ray spoke up again.

"You coward, you're letting your girlfriend fight for you?" This time, Dodge whipped around. Before I could catch him, he punched Ray square in the nose. People crowded around and I managed to grab Dodge's hand and pull him away from the brawl before anything serious happened. We sat back down at our spot, but now we were both shaken up.

"Is your fist okay?" He asked after a long moment of silence. He had the quality in his voice that you had to laugh at. (I don't know the word that goes with this sound, but I guess go onto Google Translate and set it to German, type in the word tschuss (bye), and it's the "tsch" sound, but in a laugh) Dodge started laughing as well.

"Yeah," I said, smiling. He picked my hand up and examined it.

"You're gonna have a tough time hiding that from your dad." Dodge said, putting my hand down. 

"Is it gonna bruise or something?" I asked.

"I'd be surprised if it doesn't." He nodded.

"How long, do you think?" I asked, looking at my hand. The skin on my knuckles was pink.

"A few days, at least." Dodge said. Suddenly, police cars appeared on the other side of the bar. Dodge and I jumped up and bolted to his car. "Duck down." He told me as he started driving. "They'll see your face." I did so and his car sped off down the road. The car jolted as he took turns onto obscure roads to ensure that we weren't being followed, since it was incredibly illegal in Carp to play Panic.

"I can't believe he did that." I breathed. The car was dead silent.

"Ray?" He glanced at me.

"Yeah!" I nodded. 

"I wouldn't have died." He said. "I'd probably lose my legs, but I wouldn't die."

"That's still bad!" I exclaimed.

"Okay, I'll give you that. It wouldn't have been good." Dodge said. "At least we did the challenge before they showed up."

"At least." I agreed.

"Do me a favor, hand me my coffee." He asked. "This road's really narrow, I don't want to risk it."

"Sure." I nodded, giving him his coffee.

He dropped me off at my house and walked me up to the door. My dad had already gone to sleep, it looked like. My brother answered the door instead.

"Hey, Jesse." I said, making a move to go inside.

"Are you a couple?"

"N—" Dodge started.

"Yeah, man, a couple of losers!" Jesse finished, grinning a wonky smile. He then looked at Dodge. "You can come in if you want."

"No thanks, man, my mom's waiting for me." Dodge shook his head, then turned to me. "Night, Clem." Then to Jesse. "Night...?"

"Jesse." My brother said, giving Dodge's hand a shake. "Dude, what's wrong with your hand? You get in a fight or something?"

Dodge took a quick look at his hand, which was scraped up on the palm from the metal bar and bruised from hitting Ray. "Bronc riding mishap."

"Sweet." Jesse nodded. I said my goodbyes to Dodge and my brother and I went back inside. "You like him?"

"No." I shook my head.

"Yeah, we'll see." Jesse chuckled. 

"You know what?" I said, putting my coffee down on the coffee table. "I'm going to Valerie's place."

"Dude, you're not even talking anymore!" Jesse retorted.

"Yeah, but you and Kristen are." Kristen is Valerie's little sister. Jesse's eyes drifted down to my fist.

"Bronc riding mishap?"

"Yeah." I fibbed. "He was teaching me how to bronc ride."

"Is that where you were?" Jesse asked.

"Yep." I said.

I soon went to bed, but couldn't sleep. My guess was that my brain was over-stimulated, which happened when big things like this happened. It all felt like a dream; my crossing the beam, Ray shining the laser into Dodge's eye, the police showing up.

I shook the memories away and did my best to go to sleep.