Kitty Sue talked to preachers, teachers and high school counselors, little league softball, baseball and football coaches, neighborhood busybodies, anyone she could to set up her network of Nightingale/Savage Child Watch. Even with all this effort, it didn’t work so well.
Allyson Nightingale is my best friend and has been since birth. Ally is Kitty Sue and Malcolm’s youngest child and she’s far crazier than me, mainly because she isn’t scared of anything.
Lee’s another story altogether, Lee’s a Bad Boy with capital Bs.
After getting caught on the side of the road puking our inebriated guts out by Jimmy and Danny, Ally and I smartened up. After that, when Ally and I were underage, out partying and were done over-imbibing, we called Lee and he came to get us.
No matter what, no matter where, Lee would show up in his vintage Mustang, hold open the passenger side door and grin as we stumbled out of someone’s house and into his car. Lee knew the exact sounds a person would make before they were going to hurl and thus knew when to stop and haul a body out so they could do it on the side of the road and not in his car. Lee also had lots of experience with holding a girl’s hair back when she threw up.
In our partying days, we tried calling Ally’s other brother, Hank, a couple of times but he would always give us a lecture. Hank’s the oldest of the three Nightingale children and therefore felt the need to behave responsibly. He may have lectured but he didn’t snitch, snitching was a shade too far.
Not surprisingly, Hank became a cop.
No one knows what Lee is.
Henry “Hank” Nightingale was captain of the football team, prom king and voted Best Athlete, Most Popular, one half of Best Couple and Best Smile. He’s six foot one, has thighs that could crack walnuts, has just the right assets to fill both the seat and crotch of his jeans, a killer smile, thick, dark brown hair with just enough wave and whisky-colored eyes. In High School, Hank was good-natured, chivalrous and had a steady girl. Not much has changed (except there was no longer a girl).
Liam “Lee” Nightingale could hot-wire any car going, had both a Mustang and a motorcycle, started smoking when he was thirteen, was rumored to be able to get a girl pregnant by just looking at her and was also voted Best Smile. He’s six foot two and gives the impression that faded jeans had been divinely created just for him. Lee also has thick, dark brown hair with just enough wave and chocolate-colored eyes with a heavy rim of long lashes. Lee was good-natured as well, but in an entirely different way. Without any effort at all, (mostly by crooking his finger, casting a glance or, if a girl was playing hard to get, he’d pull out The Smile), Lee nailed everything that was female, had long hair, big boobs, a fine ass and was breathing.
Every female, that is, but me, no matter how hard I tried and let’s just say I tried real hard.
I, too, have big boobs, a helluvan ass, long, russet hair (with just enough wave) and was, as far as I could tell, not the walking dead.
I’d been throwing myself at Lee since I could remember.
I should have picked Hank. If I’d have picked Hank, I would now be married with children, probably very happy and definitely getting it regularly.
But I like them bad.
I’m a rock ‘n’ roll chick, that’s just the way it is.
Ally and I decided when we were eight that I was going to marry Lee so I could be her “real” sister. She was going to be my maid of honor, we were going to live across the street from each other in houses with white picket fences and Lee and I were going to name our first daughter after her.
We even made a blood pact on it by sticking our thumbs with safety pins and mashing them together. We spent the next twelve years attempting to make that fantasy a reality in every way our somewhat devious and definitely outrageous minds could dream up.
It was my bad luck (considering Lee’s moral code was a bit sketchy) that I fell into Liam Nightingale’s Ethical Rule Book at Rule Number Two (with Rule Number One being “Thou shalt not nail your brother’s girlfriend”), I was “Thou shalt not nail your little sister’s best friend”.
I also grew up like a member of the family which made me practically his little sister by default and, in my last effort to throw myself at him (when I was twenty and he was twenty-three), he’d told me exactly that. It was pretty fucking embarrassing, but then again, so were all of my other attempts and that never stopped me.
Still, for some reason, that last one really hurt. Lee wasn’t cruel or anything he was just… final.
The Great Liam Chase ended right then and there, at least for me. Ally still has (very) high hopes. Not to mention Kitty Sue, who I think has always wanted me to fall for one of her sons and it’s been pretty clear that her druthers would put me with Lee. Probably because she thinks we deserve each other.