✔️The Greaser and the Skirtchaser [18+]

23. A Sunday Night Sockhop

The dime flashed four times in the air before Blake tossed it up again.

"Should I go with more red? No, just a coral tint is fine." Jenny was painting her mouth with a few more swipes of that peachy lipstick she had. There was a subtle difference to Jenny today, but it was hard to miss when Blake had been involved with her for a whole summer. Her hands were flitting around, light, and she wasn't driving herself crazy with every detail. "Is something wrong, Blake? You barely touched your Shirley."

How they got caught twice last week was still fresh as hell, and Blake hadn't dared to come see Vance that Saturday for their date either, too guilty to try something like that. "Nothin', I'll walk it off. You, on the other hand, look like the cat that got the canary."

"Hmph." She just carried on, glossing over that sweet pink and testing a pout. She dropped her lipstick and moved onto another tiny tin of something sparkly. Jenny's style was unusual since women kind of liked that wine-red color for their lips and wearing some fancy get-up with opera gloves and all, but Jenny favored a more innocent, sweet look. She looked like a doll sometimes, not unlike those old family photos out in the foyer. She glanced at Blake in her mirror. "She's more like a puppy than a canary. She's so devoted that it's cute."

Jenny was more impulsive than she really let on; she went through friends and boyfriends like they were clothes, but it wasn't like she threw them away or something mean like that. She just lost interest quickly—drifted easily. If a relationship started on her initiative, she could make it end just as easily. It was like people were a kind of thing she could make stop and start as she pleased. That was why Blake thought the way she was smiling was kind of weird. She was smiling like she were just any other girl getting ready for a date on a Sunday night.

Kinda picking up that Blake wasn't feeling chatty today, she glanced down at him before picking through her various shiny things to stick in her hair. "I suppose you're hung up on a new girl?"

"Yup." Although, Blake couldn't bring himself to see Vance anytime soon. He was making himself scarce after his stupid mistake got Vance caught. A pulse of guilt shot through him.

"Who?"

"Patient confidentiality."

She'd receive that answer plenty of times from Blake, but she liked to make some sorta game out of it and guess. Before Jenny could very correctly assume it was Vance, he asked, "So, how'd you and Bianca get together anyway?"

She turned back to her vanity, but he knew she would respond. Then, she really shocked Blake because she chuckled. "She glared at me so much that I thought she hated me, but she could hardly look me in the eye when she was trying to return a barette that I dropped. I don't know how I realized she had a crush on me before she did. She's so simple it's disarming."

"Uh-huh." That sounded mysterious as hell.

"And yours?"

Thinking about Vance and all the ways to describe him didn't come up with anything but butterflies and worry. He probably took too long to answer because Jenny stopped pecking at her makeup to look at him in her vanity.

"And you're already in love?" She picked up things like a goddamn bloodhound. "How long has it been? Only a month!"

"A month is a perfectly average time to fall in love." And it was longer if they started from their very first sexy encounter instead of their first date.

"You're gonna burn up that relationship quick and crash soon. I keep telling you to maintain a distance, Blake. You leave such a mess sometimes."

He supposed that was fair enough for Jenny to say considering what ended things between them was when Blake kinda went mental on her old man. He didn't lay a hand on the bastard, but Blake just couldn't stand the old fart saying anything else about his own daughter that raised herself to be a hundred times better than him. Blake even got arrested and dragged from her house over it even though there was nothing to charge.