“Don’t let him get into any white vans that sayfree candyon the side, probably,” Gideon says, his voice low and right in my ear. “But otherwise…” he shrugs.
* * *
The buildingwhere the derby is taking place is the old gym complex for the satellite campus of Virginia State University in town—the college built a newer one a few years ago, Gideon’s friend Wyatt tells me—and it’s got a charming, midcentury athletics feel to it. There are basketball hoops pulled up against the ceiling, padding at either end of the gym, and wooden bleachers that pull out from the walls. They’re only halfway out right now, and between them the oval track is demarcated with thick black tape on the floor.
“I’d get a couple levels up in the stands at least,” Wyatt is saying cheerfully, a beer in his hand, his orange hair flopping forward over his forehead. “Sometimes they lose control and go into the crowd, which is always kinda fun, but you probably don’t want it to be you.”
“How is that fun, exactly?” I ask as Gideon walks up silently and hands me a beer in a plastic cup.
“Oh, the crowd loves it,” he says. “And everyone knows not to stand there unless they’re willing to get knocked over, maybe, so it’s win-win.”
“What? No one is winning,” Gideon says. “One person gets a penalty and the other gets plowed into.”
“It’s a win in the spirit of roller derby,” Wyatt says confidently.
“Sure,” Gideon says. He sounds utterly unconvinced. “You guys seen Reid?”
“I thought we weren’t chaperoning.”
“We’re not.”
I lift an eyebrow and try not to feel a little squishy inside at the way Gideon is looking out for his little brother while also acting annoyed about it.
“If it helps, I also haven’t seen anyfree candyvans.”
“There’s a free candy van?” Wyatt asks, taking another sip of his beer.
“Yes. They lure children and kidnap them,” Gideon explains, and Wyatt grimaces.
“Oh, that kind. Is that really a thing?”
“Probably.”
“Anyway,” I start. “I think Reid is—”
I am interrupted, again, by a hand mysteriously appearing from Gideon’s other side and going for his beer.
“Hey.No,” Gideon says, glaring as the rest of Reid also appears. “You’re underage.”
“I’ll be twenty-one in, like, five months,” Reid says, tugging his sleeve over his lime green wristband. “C’mon.”
“Then in five months you can have some of my beer.”
“Really?”
“In five months, I’ll buy you a beer,” Wyatt offers. “We all know Gideon’s not sharing.”
“It’s unhygienic,” says the man who’s recently discovered a fondness for ejaculating on my breasts.
“You spend way too much time in the woods for anyone to believe that,” Wyatt says, cheerful as ever.
“I don’t go there to share my drinks.”
“You drink water with fish pee in it,” I point out.
Gideon makes a pained face. “It’sfiltered.”
“I don’t think you can filter out pee,” Reid says.
