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"Yo, Star!"
Star looked up from re-packing her duffel bag—she would have been done before now but she'd had to stop and throw up—and up further as her gaze landed around Marko's chin. He and Paul kept startling her with how tall they were.
"Hey," she offered, stuffing the last things away and hissing as her nearly-empty nail polish bottle bounced off the boniest part of her knee.
"Oh, what color?"
Star blinked and glanced at Marko's nails. Right. He did wear polish. He wore a lot of makeup, actually, for a guy.
She held up the bottle. "It's not... special."
"Purple, huh? I don't have any of that right now, but we can get some, easy."
"We can?" Star asked, a little startled.
"Yup. Come on," Marko grinned, expression slightly goofy on his craggy face, and held out his hand.
Star stared for a few seconds. She'd had— not plans, but she'd been feeling extra shitty ever since she'd woken up, with the vomiting and with cramps that already felt like somebody stabbing her and that she just knew were going to get worse, and she'd been meaning to go see if anyone had some coke or something she could bum. She knew what she wanted, but she was flat fucking broke, and she could tell herself coke was almost as good. She'd have seen if Marko had anything, but David and his… boys, she supposed… hadn't pulled out anything stronger than weed, at least in front of her.
Except she'd had fun with them, the past few nights. She'd howled into the night with the rest of them riding bitch on David's bike, going so fast the wind had felt like knives to her face and made tears stream from her eyes, heart pounding as they took hairpin turns without noticeably slowing— she'd even enjoyed playing some of the carnival games on the boardwalk, once they'd all gotten really into it, creating stupid rules to try and beat each other at their own made-up challenges. She'd still felt sick as hell afterwards, sweating and aching, but…
Even though she'd been trying not to let it control her, she hadn't really remembered what having fun was like without using.
That was maybe what made her take Marko's hand.
"Where are the other boys?" Star asked as they approached Marko's bike. She wasn't exactly objecting, but her previous interactions suggested that they came as a package deal.
"Sent me for takeout," Marko said.
"Won't they mind? You getting sidetracked, I mean." She kind of wanted him to go away. Not entirely, but she had the awful niggling feeling that he knew what she'd been wanting to do tonight.
"Nah, David won't mind me helping you out. And it's not as if they can't get their own Chinese," Marko said with a grin, and helped her on. Oh well. She had the whole night. Hell, she had the whole day after. She could live through this. She'd definitely had worse nights, where she didn't have anyone or anything to distract her from how horrible she felt. If Marko did know what she'd been planning… it would be stupid to assume that he had, but at least he wasn't leaving her to suffer alone.
Star wrapped her arms around his waist and enjoyed the wind in her face as they roared off down the boardwalk. They actually wound up in town, at a CVS. Marko parked out of view of the windows and looked over his shoulder at her.
"Not to make too many assumptions, but you've shoplifted before, yeah?"
Star would have protested if Marko had been someone respectable, but he knew. "Yeah, I have."
He smiled at her. "Good. Give me a minute, then come in and pick out what you want. I'll leave after you do."
Star bit her lip, trying not to point out the obvious.
"Hey. It'll be fine." His smile grew teeth. "Us boys have been in town for ages. They know us."
That was admittedly a strong point. She hadn't been hanging out with them for more than a couple of nights, but she'd seen the way people watched them. She should have been more worried about the way they kept paying attention to her, but... the way they treated her made it seem like they were bringing her in on the joke. Marko had wandered off from collecting dinner just to get her nail polish. If there was anything going on, and not just all in her head, they were better at hiding what they actually wanted from her than basically anyone else she'd run into.
And if the employees decided to start following her around, she could always pretend Marko was worrying her too and leave without drawing excess suspicion.
"All right," she said, and watched as Marko swung around and strode into the store like all the rest of the boys were at his back.
She circled the parking lot so she wasn't coming from the same direction that Marko was and slowly approached the doors. The CVS was brightly lit, and Star couldn't help squinting as she walked into the store. Hanging out with the boys had started turning her day and night around, and the lights on the boardwalk seemed gentler than the rows of fluorescents in the ceiling.
She did see Marko near the front, browsing through the impulse-buy shelves, and exactly as he'd predicted the cashier was watching him so warily that Star wasn't even sure she was aware that another customer had come in.
Well. Customer may not be the right word, Star thought as she slipped into the makeup aisle, noting a possible security camera. She didn't want to take too long—Marko was doing her a favor, and maybe if they finished quickly she'd have extra time—so she resolutely ignored the array of other cosmetics and headed directly for the nail polish. There wasn't a whole lot in the way of atypical colors, so she just grabbed the single dark purple and snuck it into her pocket while pretending to compare it, a dark red, and a hot pink that would absolutely not go with her style. She examined the dark red a little longer, then placed it back onto the rack and turned back for the exit, trying to ignore the crawling sensation between her shoulderblades. She did this regularly. There was no reason this time would be different.
Marko had moved away from the snack racks and partway down one of the aisles, just close enough to still be seen from the front. Star could tell because the cashier was leaning partway over the counter, her gaze fixed in a direction nearly opposite the door. Star stifled a yawn and slipped back out with, hopefully, no one the wiser.
"You have great timing," Star said as Marko approached his bike. Weirdly great timing, honestly.
"Ahhh, I figured you wouldn't take too long," Marko said with a grin, swinging onto his bike. "C'mon, let's go try it out."
They wound up back by the boardwalk, Marko driving nonchalantly through a definitely-no-vehicles zone with blithe disregard, even as people jumped aside and swore at them. Star jammed a hand into the spasming muscles in her abdomen and tried not to scan the crowds too hard for the others or their bikes. If they showed up to collect Marko, she could…
Marko parked by an extra thick, low-standing concrete wall between the boardwalk and the beach and swung himself off the bike. "C'mon, show."
Star produced the nail polish bottle with a certain amount of triumph, and Marko grinned. "Oh, not a bad color. And sparkly, that's fun."
"Thanks, it was the only purple they had," Star commented dryly, trying not to let on that the admiration was… nice.
Marko tsked. "Really? They had a whole bunch of dramatic dark colors not all that long ago."
"Maybe around Halloween?" Star teased.
"Y'know, it might've been," Marko admitted after a second. "Still! Success. Let's see how it looks on you."
He held out his hand for the bottle, and Star blinked. "I can... if you need to go catch up with the others..."
"Nah, they'll have got takeout without me by now," Marko shrugged. "Besides, it's easier to let someone else do your dominant hand. Paul helps with mine a lot."
Star made a bit of a face in acknowledgment—hard to argue with that, and she didn't want to piss Marko off by insisting on leaving when he was being nice—and handed over the nail polish, sitting on the concrete. Being hunched over maybe helped a little with the cramps. Marko hopped up too and shook the bottle before peeling off the plastic seal and unscrewing the top.
Marko had a steady hand, Star noted as he drew the brush across her nails. He worked in long, broad strokes, and he managed to get the right amount of polish onto the brush so that there weren't pauses for re-dipping or to mop up an excess.
"I think you're better at this than every girl I've known," she commented as he finished going over her right hand the first time.
He peered up at her through his hair from where he was bent over her hand, and she could feel the sudden spike of tension. She wasn't sure what exactly in what she'd said had set it off, but it felt like every hair on her body was standing on end.
Star forced her voice into calmness, lifting her hand to examine the polish. "It looks great."
That settled things down a little, but Marko still wasn't quite looking at her head-on.
"I've practiced a lot."
"You mentioned you had other colors? I bet they look great on you," Star offered, still trying to keep from sounding nervous.
The remaining tension in the air disappeared as Marko lifted his head, his expression only a little worried. "Yeah. I'll show you sometime?"
"I wouldn't mind doing this again," Star offered, realizing with a bit of surprise that she meant it, even with the weird moment from just a few seconds ago. "We could make it a regular thing. Nails and talk." Maybe he'd be interested in doing it high.
Marko's mouth slowly turned up in a smile, and Star had to take a breath for a second at… everything. "I've been wanting to try doing nail art, but the guys won't sit still long enough."
"I'm willing to learn," Star offered. "Then you could have it, if you wanted."
She stomped on the part of her brain yelling about making commitments. Just saying something didn't mean she had to do it.
Marko's smile turned into a grin. "That would be great."
"So this is where you got off to," Star heard from behind her and clamped down on a reflexive flinch.
"David," Star started to say, looking over her shoulder, but Marko interrupted.
"Yep. Ditched you guys to do our nails." Star could hear the grin in his voice, and when she finished her turn she saw David was smiling too, carefree and pleased.
Her heart slowed as David sat down between them, lifting Star's hand to examine the new color. "Very pretty."
"Want to do yours?" Marko asked, holding up the applicator.
"I'm not sure if purple is his color," Star said, giving David a sidelong glance. She noticed Marko duck his head again for a second, and filed that to think about later. Something about guys and nail polish?
"It could be," David said calmly, turning his hand to show off his nails next to hers, nudging her shoulder with his. His nails were long, which she'd noticed while reading his palm the other night, and shaped into pointed talons. "The real problem is I have enough trouble keeping these in good shape— if I tried polish it would chip off the first time I looked at it."
"You could wear it chipped," Marko said. "I do."
"And I have no idea how you stand it," David said with a wry smile as Dwayne and Paul came into view. "Ah, here's the food. Star, stick around. We can have some fun after we eat."
Dammit. But they probably would have fun, and it wasn't like she had a good excuse to duck out. And… she maybe felt a little less shitty, just now. She didn't hurt quite as much. So maybe she could put off getting high for a bit longer.
"Yo, boss, we eating here?" Dwayne asked, hefting a box full of takeout cartons.
"Good a place as any," David replied, letting go of Star's hand and wrapping an arm around Marko's shoulders. Their legs were still touching, an awareness of not being alone that Star was a little startled to realize how much she liked. "Give."
Dwayne tossed a carton and chopsticks David's way, which he caught handily, and sat down across from them as Paul plucked another carton out of the box. Marko pulled out an offering too, popping open the top to reveal fried rice, and scooped a plastic spoon out of a pile of utensils. Star grimaced— the smell was making her realize she was actually starving, but her nails were still wet.
"Oh, we can't leave out our Star," David said, a piece of breaded meat held deftly in his chopsticks. "Here."
Star watched him lift the food to just under her nose, her eyes crossing. "For real?"
David consistently read like he was flirting with her, but he was... a little confusing. He touched her, but he also touched the boys. He clearly wanted her to spend time with him... or maybe with them, given the way Marko had been right about David not minding him ditching an errand to do something for her. She couldn't quite get at what what going on. At what he wanted from her.
"There's a story about a Buddhist who visited heaven and hell," Paul said, interrupting her thoughts. "Everyone was sitting at a feast, but with chopsticks too long to be able to serve themselves. In hell, everyone was sitting at the table starving. In heaven, people were feeding each other."
"Do Buddhists have a concept of hell?" Star asked, but she took the point. Dwayne snickered and Paul rolled his eyes, and Star let David feed her the bite. Sweet and sour chicken, as it turned out, and it was still hot enough she had to breathe out with her mouth half-open.
"You all right?" Marko asked, spoonful of rice half-raised.
"'Ot!" Star managed, and breathed a few more times before managing to chew and swallow.
David's expression was... almost entirely sheepish, though a glint of mischief crept in after a second. Star cut him off before he could offer to blow on the food for her or whatever he had in mind. "Just— give it a minute to cool off."
"The rice is fine," Marko said, still chewing. "Want some?"
Star couldn't help the glance at David. If he'd been flirting… but he hadn't twitched, digging around in the chicken container and exposing some of the tightly packed pieces to the air. Dwayne and Paul didn't look like they were waiting for anything either— Paul was eating noodles and Dwayne was tossing bits of beef in the air and catching them in his mouth.
"...Sure," she said. In any other situation she would have sworn that there was something else going on, and she could feel that like an itch on the back of her neck, but...
The only thing that happened when she closed her mouth on the spoon was Paul saying, "Hey, what if I want the long chopstick thing too?"
Marko grinned at him. "Let me paint your nails."
Paul considered for about three seconds before saying, "Done," and scooting over to put his hand in range.
"Me after!" Dwayne added, licking sauce off his fingertips and shuffling in too, ending up pressed against Star's side.
"Ah, right, shit," Marko said after he'd drawn the brush across Paul's thumbnail. "Star, we can get you another one if these idiots use all of it."
Star waved a hand, having to be careful not to smack Dwayne. "I don't mind." Marko had helped her get the polish, she could share.
"Cool enough now," David said, right into her ear. She turned and found him offering another piece of chicken.
Oh, what the hell, she thought, and leaned in to take it.
In the end even David was wearing the nail polish.