Stiffening, Diesel turned just as Jana stepped into the hallway. She wore a ruffled pink mini dress and espadrillesandals. Her eyelids and cheeks sparkled with glittery makeup and tiny butterfly clips that matched her earrings and necklace, decorated her swept up hair. Stacked rings drew attention to her cotton candy green fingernails.
The entire outfit screamed Rebel, although CJ had never seen Jana look prettier.
“You’re added to my list of the beautifulest girls, Jana,” Axel gushed.
Seeing the fury on Diesel’s face made Jana’s smile falter.
“What’s got upyourcockhole, Diesel?” CJ demanded, throwing his words back at him.
The motherfucker ignored him and continued to laser Jana. “I told you that you couldn’t come.”
“R-Rebel invited me,” Jana told him, on the verge of tears again.
“Rebel had no fucking right to overstep what the fuck I told you to do. Go to the—”
Footsteps interrupted Diesel and they all looked in the direction Jana had come.
CJ smiled as his little sister strolled toward them, seeming none the worse for wear after yesterday. Hopefully, she wasn’t fronting and bottling away her real feelings.
Next to any girl, except Harley, Rebel outshone them all. It had a lot to do with her confidence. As pretty as Jana was, she had zero self-assurance. Rebel’s pink floral lace dress with a little bow at the front matched her pink spiked wedges. She wore the same sparkly makeup and butterfly accessories as Jana.
Rebel wrapped an arm around Jana’s waist and smiled at Diesel. “Twinsies.”
“Can you ever mind your fucking business, Rebel?” Diesel demanded.
“Diesel doesn’t want me to come,” Jana said.
“Lucky for him, he didn’t invite you,” Rebel said, dropping her arm from around Jana’s waist. “I did.”
“There’s a fucking reason I didn’t want her there.”
“I wonder why?” Rebel snapped her fingers. “Wait. I know. You’re a selfish, unfeeling, unkind, uncaring dickhead that has sympathy for absolutely no one.”
What the fuck was CJ missing? Especially when he saw Diesel’s regret.
“Reb—”
“Oh, please shut the fuck up and then fucking die a painful fucking death,” Rebel cried, grabbing Jana’s hand, dragging her to the door and rushing outside.
CJ looked at Diesel. “What did you do?”
“It doesn’t fucking matter, CJ,” he said, pulling his keys from his trouser pocket. “Come on, Ax.”
Not waiting for Axel’s response, Diesel turned and disappeared down the east hallway.
CJ only saw Harley from across the room when he finally made it backstage. Ms. Mendez immediately put him to work because several stagehands backed out at the last minute. Luckily, CJ only had to move Verona’s Town Square into place, a few benches, two streetlamps, and the biggest piece, the façade of a building.
After months of rehearsals and bullshit, Harley’s play was finally happening. CJ couldn’t wait to congratulate her. A part of him regretted not auditioning, so this could be something else they experienced together. On the other hand, so muchhad happened to CJ personally, he would’ve failed the class. This wasn’t something he could’ve signed into his dashboard or showed up every now and then like in his other classes.
“CJ!” Harley called, her voice carrying over the hustle and bustle of backstage.
He turned and there she was, delicate and smiling, her eyes shining. It didn’t matter that the makeup was too heavy to cover her bruises or that her face was still swollen. She was just gorgeous in her costume. The only way he knew how to describe her dress was blue velvet in a Medieval style.
“You look so fucking pretty, Harley,” he told her, cursing himself for not remembering to buy red roses for her big debut.
She swallowed. “Thank you.”
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Ms. Mendez’s voice blared from the speaker connected to the microphones onstage.
