“Motherfucker!” The guy kicked the front quarter panel on the Cuda. He wasn’t wearing boots, just sneakers, so I figured worst he’d done was give me a scuff, but that was bullshit. I went to grab him, but he backed up, right into Wavy. She shoved him back, and he smacked her.

I grabbed the front of his jacket and slammed him into the side of the Cuda. If somebody was gonna put a dent in it, it’d be me. I punched him in the face until I was the only thing holding him up. Then I dropped him on the ground and kicked him a couple times for good measure. Next thing I knew, I had Billy on one arm and Wavy on the other, pulling me back.

“You better stay down, man,” Billy called to the Mazda guy. “He’s liable to stomp a mudhole in you. I seen him do it.”

Before I could, a couple of guys who knew the Mazda asshole came and got him by the arms. They walked him over and sat him on the bumper of somebody’s Charger. I turned around and got my head cleared enough to see Wavy standing there with a big red mark on her cheek.

Nobody stopped me when I walked across to that asshole’s crap car and planted my boot in the door. I kicked it half a dozen times, stove that fucker in. If he could still drive himself home, he was gonna have to get in from the passenger side.

WAVY

I’ve been hit harder. The guy didn’t even knock me down, but Kellen went crazy. After he kicked in the car door, he came back to me with a black cloud look on his face. He leaned down to look at my cheek, close enough I could see tiny freckles of blood on his face. Not his blood.

“Goddamnit,” he said. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”

He tilted my head up and brushed his thumb over my cheek.

“We need to get some ice on that before your eye swells up.”

People whispered as he opened the car door for me to get in. The guy in the Mazda was sitting on the bumper of another car. His face and his blue satin jacket were covered in blood.

“You still owe me a hundred bucks,” Kellen said to him. Then he slid into the front seat next to me and started the car.

I sat in the middle and Kellen kept his arm around me while he drove. He breathed out hot and angry on top of my head.

“I’m sorry, Wavy.” He apologized until I had to say something.

“Not your fault.”

He kissed the top of my head five, ten, fifteen times.

At the gas station, while Kellen pumped gas, I folded my arms on the window ledge and watched him. He was calmer, but he was still under his black cloud.

He leaned down to kiss me again, and I wanted to go on being kissed, but instead he went in to pay for the gas and get some ice for me.

While he was inside, two police cars pulled into the gas station. One sheriff’s deputy, one highway patrolman. The cops got out and walked over to the car, looked at the tags.

I knew what could happen when a dark cloud and the police came together, so I opened the door and got out of the car. That way, when Kellen came out of the gas station and saw the cops, I was there to take hold of his hand, where his knuckles were bloody. Even though I knew it would hurt him, I squeezed his hand hard, to hold him.

“Evening, officers.” Kellen squeezed my hand back, so I knew he understood me.

“This your car, sir?”

“Yes, it is.”

“We had a report you were causing trouble down at the barrens south of Garringer. Is that true?”

“No, I wouldn’t say I was causing trouble.”

“We had a report you assaulted somebody and vandalized his vehicle.”

“I was provoked,” Kellen said.

“Provoked how?”

“That son of a bitch in the Mazda hit … her.” The hesitation was because he didn’t know what to call me. A lie? Daughter, sister, niece? Or the truth?

“Is that true, young lady?”

I stepped away from Kellen, closer to the cops and their flashlights. I pushed my hair back to show them my face. I hoped it looked as bad as it felt. From the way the cops frowned, it must have.

“What was I supposed to do?” Kellen said. “Am I supposed to put up with some asshole punching her?”

“And who exactly is she? She looks a little young to be out this late,” said the deputy.

“I’m taking her home now.”

The patrolman almost laughed, but the deputy frowned.

“Let’s see some ID,” he said.

Kellen got out his, but I didn’t have any.

“And who’s the girl?”

“Wavy Quinn.” I liked my name in Kellen’s mouth.

“Does your mama know you’re out with this guy?” the deputy said.

“Yeah, her folks know she’s out with me.”

The two cops stepped back and whispered to each other for a few minutes.

Then there was so much arguing it hurt my head. The deputy said I couldn’t leave with Kellen. He said, “We need to speak to her mother,” and “We’re going to have to book you anyway, so why don’t we just go down to the station?”

“You’re seriously gonna arrest me for whooping that asshole? Because look at her, you can see he hit her. I got witnesses. So why are you riding my ass? Why aren’t you out arresting him?”

“Don’t you worry, sir, we’re taking care of him,” the patrolman said.

“How’s that? I don’t see you taking care of him. I see you hassling me over bullshit.”

“We just want to talk to her parents, okay?”