Tyson POV

I was standing in front of a corner shop with seven guys, all of them at about my age. To someone passing us by, we would seem like a group of friends. But that person would be wrong.

These guys and I weren’t really close because we all knew that with us it’s every man for himself. I guess you could call us allies, forming a temporary fraction, until we move on to something better. I knew that none of them would hesitate to stab me in the back if they saw profit in that.

Yet those were the people I hung out with. You don’t have much of a choice if you grow up where I did. Right now we were just chilling, smoking and drinking, and some of us chatting. I kept myself quiet as usual. I was leaning on the shop’s wall and was just finishing my cig when I herd Bret wolf whistle.

“Well, well! Look what we have here, boys!” I heard him say. Bret fancied himself as a player, but he just seemed pathetic to me. His pick up lines were cheesy, his hair had so much gel on it that it looked like a petrol spill and he had the sleaziest smile I’d ever seen. His taste in women could be summed up as follows: not too ugly, not overweight and between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five; those were his only criteria and he sometimes ignored them, especially when he was drunk or high.

I didn’t even turn to see who he was talking about this time.

“Aren’t you a pretty little thing, girl!” This time it was Kent who spoke. Now this guy wasn’t a waste of space, little slime ball like his subordinate Bret. Kent was street smart; he was more observing than the other boy, always cautious with his words and actions. His constant encounters with the law had thought him that much.

“Why don’t you come here and have some fun with us?” He carried on speaking to whoever was the unlucky object of their interest.

“I seriously doubt you guys will be able to entertain me.” I heard Alex’s bored voice and my head snapped in her direction.

And there she was in all her five feet glory. Her hair was straightened and tied in a high ponytail. She wore no makeup except thick black eyeliner and maybe mascara. Alex was clad in a tight, strapless black top, short skirt that barely covered her ass and fishnets. With that and her two inch high, up-to-the-knee boots she pulled off the teenage hooker look like a pro.

What the hell was she thinking dressing up like that and coming to this neighborhood? Did she want to get raped?

Then again this was Alex; she probably thought she could just beat up anyone who tried to get their hands on her. And with her skills, she probably could.

The girl stood only about six feet away, but she hadn’t noticed me yet as her eyes were trained on Bret and Kent. The look she gave them sent out the you-are-wasting-my-time-I-don’t-want-anything-to-do-with-you message loud and clear and I was sure both boys got it.

But they decided to ignore it.

“Oh, I bet I can show you a good time!” Kent went on. “Here, why don’t you have some of this?” He extended his hand with the unlit cigarette he had just rolled.

It was a joint.

“I don’t think so,” the girl replied, turning to the left and finally noticing me. “Yeah, sure! Why not run into you as well?” She rolled her eyes at me.

“I’m not exactly ecstatic to see you myself,” I replied coolly.

“Tyson, you know the chick?” Bret asked me.

“We’ve met,” Alex answered for me while looking straight into my eyes.

“I would stay away from this one, Bret. She’s not worth the trouble.” I glared at her.

“Did you just admit I’m too much for you to handle?” She smirked at me. I heard some of the boys snicker and Bret shouted “Burn!”.

“No, I just said you’re not worth wasting my time with you,” I replied in irritation and lit another cigarette, feeling the sudden need to smoke again.

“Yeah, right!” She snorted, turning on her heel and walking into the store.

I took a long drag from my cig and exhaled slowly.

Why was it that this girl always managed to rub me up the wrong way? Her sole presence was enough to make me edgy.

“Hey, Tyson, who was that girl?” Kent queried with a calculating glint in his brown eyes.

It made me want to punch him. He had that look whenever he was plotting something and for some reason, I didn’t like him aiming it at Alex.

“Just a bitch from my school,” I answered vaguely, not wanting to tell him the little I knew about Alexandra.

He kept quiet for a while, with his eyes slightly narrowed. A few wrinkles formed on his forehead as the boy was obviously thinking something over.

What the hell was he scheming this time?

Even if Kent wanted to share his thoughts with me, he didn’t get a chance to: just as he was about to speak again we saw a police car turn round the corner and stop not far away from us. The cops got out and headed for the store.

“Shit!” Kent cursed, quickly dumping the weed in an empty can behind him and leaning casually next to me. I tried to look relaxed as well and adopted a bored expression. Last thing I needed was to get arrested for possession; I didn’t have that particular charge on my record and I planned on keeping it that way.

Bret on the other hand looked around trying to find a safe way to flee. He did not manage that, but he succeeded in gaining the officers’ attention. They took us in and shook their heads disapprovingly.

“You boys stain’ out of trouble?” The older one asked, his eyes darting between us before finally settling on Bret who (the idiot he was) glanced at Kent. The officer returned his gaze to the boy beside me, pretending he had only just noticed him. “Well, hello, Kent! You stayin’ clean, boy?”

“Yes, sir!” Kent replied glaring in Bret’s direction, annoyance clear in his gaze and voice. I swear, I sometimes though the only reason Kent put up with Bret’s stupidity was because the later had on older brother who knew some very… useful people.

“Well, then you wouldn’t mind me checking what you have in your pockets, would you, boy?” And with that the policeman approached us.

But before he could do anything, a piercing scream erupted from the store. Cursing, both cops ran inside with their guns pulled out. The guys and I stood there, staring at the door. Each of us was curious as to who produced that scream and why and finding that out was the only reason we didn’t scatter when we had the chance.

A couple of minutes later the cops got out.

“A spider! A bloody spider!” The younger one was muttering “Can you believe this girl?”

“If I wasn’t a cop, I’d shoot her myself,” the older replied, getting in the car.

They drove away, apparently having forgotten all about us. Alex got out of the shop and watched them leave, a small self-satisfied grin gracing her lips. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who had peeved the two officers.

“A spider?” I asked her while shaking my head.

“Hey, it got them of your back, didn’t it?” She answered smugly. “You can get down on your knees and thank me any time you want!”

I was just about to tell her she could get on her knees and blow me, when Come Undone by My Darkest Days started playing and I reached for my phone at the same tine the brunette started rummaging through her black faux leather backpack. She took her mobile out and pressed the answering button.

“Yeah?” She replied with a bored voice. “Out.” There was a short pause before she said: “Alone…ish,” she added, glancing at us and scrunching her nose; apparently, the girl didn’t like what she saw. She made a longer pause before going on:

“Why do you always…” She was starting to get irritated. She listened for a while before sighing heavily.

“I’m not lying...” She got interrupted again. “Fine, I lied! I am at the local whorehouse having an orgy with all the pimps and hookers!” She exclaimed angrily into the phone.

I heard some of my friends snicker to that while Bret’s muttered “we can arrange the orgy” made me throw him a disgusted look. But although my companions enjoyed Alex’s little outburst, the person on the other end of the line didn’t seem to find it even a bit amusing and started shouting in her ear so loud, she had to hold the phone away from her. I could hear the words but they weren’t in English so I couldn’t understand what he was saying.

The girl started to absentmindedly play with a strand of her long hair, looking semi-bored and semi-vexed by the situation as if the whole thing had happened many times before. After a few minutes of shouting at her, the guy finally stopped, probably to take some air into his lungs.

“Relax, cousin! You know I was only joking. Would I really do that? Wait, don’t answer that!” She waited while he said something else and sighed again. “Yeah, sure. I’ll be there in forty or fifty minutes.”

She ended the call and turned to us.

“Well, as fun as this little run into was,” she started sarcastically, “I got places to be, people to meet… Bye!”

And with that she started to walk away while humming her ring tone. That reminded me it was also my ring tone.

“Why Come Undone?” I queried and saw her turning to face me.

“Why not?” She answered with a question of her own. “It’s a good song. One of my favorites actually.”

I snorted.

“Really? And here I thought Porn Star Dancing would be more your thing… Something you can relate to,” I sneered.

“Perhaps.” She admitted with a shrug of her shoulders and walked away.

I turned to the group of guys. All of  them had their eyes on the departing girl’s body, except for Kent. He was staring at me with that calculating glint in his eyes, the one that always meant trouble was coming, but before I could ask him what the fuck was his problem, we heard Alex singing.

Kelly won't kiss my friend, Cassandra

Jessica won't play ball

Mandy won't share her friend, Miranda

Doesn't anybody live at all?

I held back a smirk. The voice this girl used right now sounded pretty damn awesome: deep, sexy and raspy.

But I wasn’t telling her that.

*****

A/N: I know the chapters so far were not very eventful and were mostly introductory, but from CHAPTER SIX onwards there will be more action and humor.