The Renegades

Chapter 8

Hunter picks Marley up in their usual fashion. She says she's going to Rae's. She meets him down the street. He drives to his house. They hold hands as they walk to the front door.

Marley can hear the music and voices from the driveway, and her heart starts beating faster.

"Do I look okay?" she asks. "Like, I don't look slutty or anything, right?"

Hunter laughs and pulls her into him, kissing the top of her head. "You look amazing, but I'm going to have to fight my cousins off you all night."

They stop outside the front door.

"What if your family doesn't like me?" she asks.

"They're going to love you, mi alma," he coos. "Even if they like you only a small fraction of how much I love you, you're golden because I love you way, way too much."

They enter the house, and it explodes into noise and movement. Countless people rush over to Hunter to greet him and kiss him and hug him and tell him how big he's gotten since the last time they saw him. He introduces each person to Marley. There's so many of them. She can't remember their names or relation to Hunter. They're all speaking Spanish, and she doesn't understand what they're saying. Her dad had told her taking Spanish in school would be more useful than sign language, but she ignored him and took ASL anyway. She really wishes she had listened to him. Hunter gives her hand a squeeze, trying to tell her everything's alright.

Hunter's mom comes over and gives Marley a hug. "Overwhelming, I know."

"¿Donde esta Abuelita, Mami?" Hunter asks. He talks about his grandma a lot to Marley. She feels like she already knows her. He's more excited about Marley meeting his grandma than anything else.

His mom points to the door that leads to the backyard. Marley can't believe there are even more people outside. Her family get togethers are her, her dad, two aunts, and four cousins. There have to be at least sixty people in the Vargas house.

Hunter guides Marley through the mass of people inside and into the slightly less dense mass of people in the backyard. The same thing that happened inside happens again- countless people rush over to the two of them to say hello to Hunter and to meet Marley. A short, plump woman is at the end of the line. Hunter bends down to kiss her on the cheek.

"Abuelita, esta es mi novia," he tells her. Her eyes grow wide and bright. He looks at Marley. "Marley, this is my grandma."

Abuelita takes Marley's face in her hands gently and kisses her on both cheeks. "¡Que hermosa! ¡Ella es hermosa!"

Marley's limited knowledge of Spanish lets her know that she was just called beautiful. "Gracias, Abuelita."

"He oído mucho sobre ti," Abuelita says. Marley looks at Hunter in slight panic, not understanding anything that was just said.

"Marley no habla español," Hunter tells his grandma.

"Oh," she says, nodding her head. She looks at Marley and smiles. She talks slowly. "It is nice to meet you. He talks about you all the time on the phone."

Marley looks up at him and finds that he's blushing. "Oh, does he?"

"Abuela, me estás avergonzando," he says. He leans to Marley's ear. "I said she's embarrassing me."

His grandma pats his cheek softly. "Hasta luego, mi amor. See you later, Marley." She walks away with a slight limp back to her seat next to her husband. Hunter doesn't really like his grandpa. They've never gotten along. They avoid each other at family events like this, never saying hello or goodbye unless forced to.

"So you talk about me to your grandma? That's adorable," Marley teases.

He looks down at her and smiles. "Don't act so surprised. I tell my whole family about you. I know you do it too."

As soon as he says it, both of their smiles disappear. She looks down at the ground, and he looks anywhere but at her. He knows it's not true. She doesn't talk about him to her family. Her family doesn't know that he exists, except her dad. Coach Dickson just thinks he's his quarterback, not the guy his daughter's in love with. Hunter regrets saying it. He can't help but be pissed now- pissed that he's here letting her meet every important person in his life while she won't even tell her dad about him.

"Babe," she starts.

Luckily, a boy who looks around their age comes up to them and does one of those high-fives into a hug things that guys always do.

"What's up, Hunt?" the guy says. He looks over at Marley and quickly flicks his eyes up and down her body. "She's even prettier in person than in the pictures you've shown me."

"This is Danny," Hunter tells Marley. "My cousin. He lives in Flanigan." Flanigan is the next town over. Flanigan High sees Ruby High as its rival school, but Ruby doesn't. It can't be a rivalry if Ruby always wins.

Danny reaches out his hand for Marley. She takes it, expecting a shake. He kisses her hand instead. She pulls it back.

"I'll be back," Hunter says, walking back towards his house before Marley can ask him where he's going or anything. He just leaves her there with his cousin and however many other people she doesn't know.

The song playing through the speakers changes, and a bunch of people go to the center of the patio to start dancing.

"Do you like to dance?" Danny asks, reaching out his hand again to Marley. She takes it and lets him take her to where everyone is dancing. She doesn't have anything else to do.

Hunter darts his way through the crowd of his family members to get to his room. He slams the door behind him and grabs the first thing he finds and throws it across the room. He thinks it was a football. It might've been a lamp. Whatever it was, the loud bang of it hitting the wall and falling to the ground makes him feel better.

He throws himself face down onto his bed, screaming into the fabric of his comforter and the mattress beneath it. "Fuck!"

The last thing he needs is for anyone in his family to hear him screaming curse words. They'd either perform an exorcism or a therapy session... or both... he doesn't know which order they would go in if they did both.

"Fuck!" he yells again.

Six months and she still hasn't told her dad. It makes him angrier and angrier each day that he still has to be her dirty little secret. Every day, he's left wondering if it's even worth it. He always comes to the same conclusion- it definitely is worth it.

He just kind of lays there for a while, trying to calm himself down. He's not sure how long he's been in there when he finally decides to go back out. Marley's still dancing. She's dancing with his Uncle Ronaldo now. Her head is tilted back in laughter. She has the biggest smile on her face. He loves when she smiles like that.

"Can I cut in?" Hunter asks. His uncle pats him on the shoulder and walks away.

"You okay?" Marley asks.

He leans down and kisses her. "I'm perfect."

"I can't argue with that."

"I think you rubbed off on me."

She smiles down at her feet. "Your family's pretty perfect too. I'm kind of super excited about being a part of it."

Ok I don't speak Spanish, so if you do and you catch problems with my Spanish, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE correct me! Three years of high school Spanish completely failed me.