Brooke's Wild Ride Ch. 01

"Silly? SILLY? He's ruining EVERYTHING I've been working up to! He's making me a laughing stock!"

Brooke crossed her arms. "Lars, stop that. Ryan barely even knows you..."

"It's fucking ridiculous! I'm losing against a guy who doesn't even realize there's a war on!" He was pacing now, working himself up into a frenzy, his voice getting louder and louder.

"Lars, there is NO WAR! He's just a nice guy, a nerd who's getting some pussy all of a sudden, and he's being really sweet about it! He's just like you from last year, after you started getting laid because you stopped feeling sorry for yourself all the time!"

Lars whirled on her. "I AM NOTHING LIKE HIM! I'm better than him!" He lifted a finger, as if he was about to say something more, and then turned away, and angrily kicked their chair across the floor. "And you know what the worst part is?"

"Lars, sweetie..."

"The WORST part is that I can't do anything about it! He's fucking protected!"

Brooke raised her eyebrows as she picked up her school bag. "...Protected?"

"Yes! Look at Kyle Bowman!" Brooke frowned, trying not to think about that last time when she'd had to make out with Kyle, and Lars continued ranting. "Kyle, stupid-ass thug that he was, put Ryan in the hospital, and in no time flat, someone fucking destroyed Kyle's life forever. Everyone knows Ryan was behind it! Who else would it have been? It's like he's got people looking out for him, doing his dirty work! If I so much as LOOK at Ryan Collins sideways, that hit squad will probably come for me next!"

Brooke looked away, shuffling her feet. She'd been a part of that 'hit squad', and was glad to have done it, but now was not the time to admit that. "Lars, stop. You're my friend. I feel like I hardly even know you, when you talk like this."

He didn't hear her. "So you know what, Brooke? Go ahead. Go sit on Ryan's big perfect cock, and take it right up that stretched-out ass of yours. I'm sure it'll be great." He made a show of wiping his finger on another chair, the finger that he'd had inside her backside just minutes before. "Just don't come looking for me next Tuesday, unless you want to watch me make Darla Cohen beg for it in her tight little virgin ass, right over that desk. Okay?"

A dozen responses jumped to mind for Brooke in that moment. Some of them angry, some of them trying to give comfort, some of them trying to smooth things over. Smooth so that they could go back to the way things used to be until today, where she'd get a nice casual fuck from a guy she considered a good friend and a great lover, every Tuesday and Thursday like clockwork. For every idea that came to mind, she could see him twisting it to work himself up even further, to find something new or worse to be angry about.

So she said nothing, not even goodbye. She just turned and left.

As her footsteps echoed through the empty annex hallway, she sniffed. "I'm not gonna cry," she muttered to herself under her breath. "This is his problem. Not mine. He'll either work it out on his own... or he won't."

She had nothing else to say about that. She had better things to focus on.

***

The bell rang, marking the end of seventh period and the school day as a whole, and Brooke scrambled to get her books and belongings together. At the desk next to her, Cleo Price, a fellow cheerleader, waved a paperback copy of THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. "I'm telling you, Brooke, the key to test tomorrow is to think about the symbolism of the river, Mrs. Draco said outright she'd be focusing on that. If you want, I can come over tonight and we can study-buddy it."

As Brooke stuffed her own copy deep in her book-bag and followed it with half a dozen other items, she shook her head. "I'm, like, still amazed you're so comfortable reading that book, Cleo. I mean, doesn't the n-word kinda freak you out? I mean, I'm not even black, and it freaks ME out to read that."

Cleo gave a husky laugh, and gestured to her bare arm and its very dark skin. "Huck uses the word because it's the word he was taught to use for folks like me, but he doesn't have hate in his heart. He loves Jim like a blood-brother, and it's his actions that matter, not the words." She pointed the corner of the book at Brooke. "Mind you, if I ever *do* catch you saying that word around me, we are going to have some words of our own that day."

Closing the last zipper, Brooke shook her head vehemently. "I would totally NEVER do that, Cleo."

"I know, I'm just messing with you, Blondie. You're a real sweetheart, and no joke. So you want me to come over or what?" Cleo's voice dropped to a whisper. "I heard you got some new toys we could play with afterwards, hmmm?"

Brooke blushed a little, remembering the last time Cleo and her had taken a study break to dig into Brooke's considerable "toy collection". The evening had ended with both cheerleaders on their knees as they frantically rammed their backsides against each other, sharing a long double-headed dildo. "It *has* been a bit... but, like, I can't tonight. I need to bolt, 'cause I need to catch Mallory about a costume thing before she leaves." She looked up, and realized that Mallory Dourif was just walking out the door. "Seeya tomorrow, Cleo! Love ya!"

Cleo watched the bubbly blonde go, and twisted one of her many long micro-braids around a finger. She flipped open her paperback to a random page, looked down, and read the words by Mark Twain that she found there. "'He was sunshine most always-I mean he made it seem like good weather.'" Cleo closed the book, and thought about Brooke's broad smile lighting up every room she entered. She closed her hand lightly around the tiny cross pendant hanging around her neck, and looked upwards with a smile. "Oh, you're real cute, Lord. Real subtle. Yeah, I like her too." With a chuckle, Cleo started packing up her own book-bag.

"Mallory, like, wait up!" Jogging through the moving throng of Regan Hills High School's hallways, Brooke managed to spot the taller girl, and make it to her side. As Brooke reached her, she paused to admire her classmate's beautiful looks. Mallory was generally agreed upon by most of the student body to be one of the prettiest girls in the school, even before she accentuated things with her endless array of artful costumes. Mallory's face had a classic perfection to it, with a delicate nose and mouth, a slightly pointed chin, sleek cheekbones, and unusually bright blue eyes. What she lacked in curves, she more than made up for my carrying her slender body with flawless grace and poise. There was a faint dusting of freckles here and there on her pale skin, and her light chestnut-brown hair was cut short, only a hint longer than a full buzz-cut.

Brooke remembered when Mallory used to have a gorgeous head of long flowing hair that was the envy of half the girls in school, and the shockwaves that rippled through the rumor mill when she'd shown up with a shaved head one day. Some thought she'd been through a nasty break-up, others thought she'd joined a cult, but the Puma Press school paper eventually revealed that it was a show of solidarity for her younger brother, who'd just lost his hair from chemotherapy treatments. Brooke remembered when Cynthia Mayweather had gushed at Mallory in the girl's locker room about how "inspiring" that article and the whole situation was, only to be shocked into silence when Mallory damn near ripped the girl's head off for bringing it up.

Don't mention the hair thing, check, Brooke thought to herself. "Mallory, wait!"

Mallory turned and gave Brooke a quizzical look, one carefully trimmed eyebrow raised in surprise. "Brooke? Uh, can I help you with something?"

"Can we, like, chat for a minute?" Brooke rocked back and forth on her feet, wearing her best cheerleader smile.

"I... guess?" Mallory gestured to one of the exits. "I'm parked in the west lot. You?"

"Same! Let's, like, walk and talk!"

"How very West Wing of us." Mallory chuckled, and adjusted the strap of the book-bag on her shoulder as they started moving again. "Is this a school thing, or something else?"

Brooke blinked, not sure what the "West Wing" comment was about, but shrugged it off and followed along. "It's not school stuff. First, I totally wanted to say that your outfit today is, like, SUPER gorgeous. Where'd you get it?"

Her taller classmate was wearing a long flowing summer skirt in a deep shade of blue. It reached her ankles, but was slit up one side to mid-thigh, showing glimpses of the long and slender legs that Mallory's cosplay persona, "Mal Mega", was rightfully famous for. She was wearing black sandals with straps that coiled around her calves like helixes, and not for the first time, Brooke wistfully wished she could trade her own relatively short legs for those of Mallory's. The waist of the skirt bore a fashionable slender belt in white and gold at a jaunty angle, and above that was a black blouse with asymmetrical shoulders: one side's sleeve extended down her left arm to the elbow, while the right side had her shoulder entirely bare, kind of like a tank-top. There was a blue-and white symbol stitched over the left breast that looked like a bird wing, or maybe an angel wing, surrounded by a white circle. On her bare right upper arm, she wore a faux-gold armlet that Brooke recognized from the recent WONDER WOMAN movie.

Mallory looked down at herself. "Well, the skirt's nothing special, I think I got this at Target, but the blouse I made myself. Saw the look online, found the pattern, and boom."

"Whoa. I could never do that myself. My aunt Charlotte, like, once tried to teach me how to sew, but I kept stabbing my fingers with all the needles. That's so cool! I guess if you can make your own costumes, what's to stop you from making regular clothes too, right? What's the angel wing about?"

Mallory gave her a sidelong glance. "Do the words 'Mass Effect' and 'Paragon' mean anything to you?"

"Nooooo." Brooke scrunched up her forehead. "Should they? Was that something from Mr. Bosch's physics class?"

"Not hardly. It's a symbol from a sci-fi video game, Brooke. Don't worry, I won't bore you with a big long explanation. But thank you, I put some hard work into this blouse." They shouldered their way through the lingering crowds and the exit door, and stepped out into the open sun, walking towards the lot. As they stepped around a gaggle of freshman nerds sitting on the steps, negotiating a trade of some odd-looking playing cards, Mallory craned her neck to see what they were doing, but didn't break stride, and they continued onward. "So, what *did* you want to talk about? We hardly know each other."

Brooke winced, remembering using that exact phrase with Lars earlier in the day. "Would it be so bad to say that I wanted to, like, change that?"

"It's fine, Brooke, but..." Mallory pursed her lips. "I guess what I really want to know is Why. Why now? Why not earlier in the year, or over the summer, or back when we had freshman algebra together?"

They walked in silence for a few steps as Brooke considered how to answer this. Then, she stepped out ahead of Mallory on the sidewalk, and held up a hand. "This is gonna sound totally weird, and it might not sound right if you only hear, like, part of it. So I want to ask you to hold up and hear me out all the way before you, I guess, say or do anything."

Crossing her arms in front of her, Mallory raised one eyebrow again. "This should be good. Okay, I'll try to keep an open mind."

Clapping her hands, Brooke flashed another brilliant smile. "Thank you, Mallory! Here goes." She took a deep breath, and began. "So, I used to really kind of look down on nerds. I mean, I am a cheerleader, and y'know, kinda part of the whole jock scene, so my friends and the nerdy types never really mixed. So I didn't know any better. I guess I had this idea in my head that they weren't, like, worth my time. It kinda sounds really stuck up, now that I say it like that."

"It is stuck up." Brooke looked up, and Mallory just gave her a straight look. "Sorry, but it's true. But I said I'd listen all the way through, so keep going."

"Okay, it IS stuck up, but that's what I'm getting at." Brooke set her bag on the sidewalk, and clasped her hands behind her back. "Right after school started, I happened to meet a guy. A nerd guy. And we started, like, hanging out. I'd teach him yoga to help him get fit, he let me borrow a couple nerdy books I'd never read before, stuff like that. And it got me thinking that maybe..." She paused, and slashed her hand through the air. "Scratch that. That I'd DEFINITELY been, like you said, totally stuck up. And that nerds could be, well, kinda neat."

Mallory chuckled briefly to herself. "Are you sleeping with this nerdy guy, Brooke?"

"Oh, totally!" Brooke bit her lip, thinking back to the first time Ryan slipped his thick ten-inch rod inside her, thrusting deep and grinding into her clit at the same time. "He's SO good, makes my toes curl just thinking about the next time I get to fuck him, y'know?"

Mallory laughed out loud, clapping her hands in applause. "Well, congrats to whomever this guy is! Achievement Unlocked, and all that!"

"Huh?" Brooke lost her train of thought.

"Come on, Brooke. You're a *cheerleader*, and a smoking hot blonde one at that." Brooke's mouth fell open in surprise, her cheeks warming at the sound of those words, but Mallory kept going. "A nerd who gets to date a sex-goddess cheerleader like you? That's living the ultimate nerd dream, Brooke."

Brooke blushed and held one open palm. "Oh, we're not dating, he's just, like, friends-with-benefits. Really NICE benefits. He's not really dating material."

"Uh-huh. And what *is* dating material for you, then?"

That brought Brooke up short. "I... don't really know. Especially, like, now." She licked her lips. "I guess I'll know it when I see it." Unbidden, Brooke found herself wondering what Mallory looked like without that blouse on, and what sounds she might make if Brooke were to kiss along her neck...

"I'm sorry, I interrupted you when I promised I'd let you finish. You go ahead, Brooke." Mallory's voice brought Brooke back to reality, and the cheerleader shook herself for a quick second to focus back on topic.

"...Right! That's okay, it's okay. So... I figured that I needed to give nerds a fair shake in general. And when I was doing some research on costume stuff for Halloween, I saw that you did a lot of, y'know, cosplay stuff, the 'Mal Mega' thing, and the photos and costumes and all you did were really cool! So I thought, hey, we're in English Lit together, maybe I could, like, broaden my horizons or something!"

Mallory grinned, her voice dipping into a husky low pitch for a moment. "From the stories I've heard, your horizons are already pretty broad, hmmm?"

Brooke's eyes went wide as she stared into Mallory's bright blue gaze, with that honeyed voice echoing in her ears and all the way down through the rest of her petite body, turning into a little ball of heat between her legs. The wind fluttered, exposing Mallory's bare thigh through the slit in her skirt, and Brooke's mouth went dry.

"I'm sorry, I did it again, and that was really rude of me. Brooke, please continue."

Brooke shook her head. "It's... okay. I'm almost done, but this is the hard part." Mallory silently gestured for Brooke to continue, so she plunged onward. "So, the reason I was researching cosplay stuff is because I want to put together a really good costume for Halloween, but I need help to do it." She held up one finger before Mallory could say something. "I TOTALLY swear on like, everything, that I'm not just coming to you because I need cosplay help. I really, really do want to meet more people and be friends with more people too! I really don't want you to think that I'm just trying to, like, use you or something." She suddenly thought back to Lars again, and suddenly felt as if he'd just been using her, or rather, her body, all this time. Every Tuesday and Thursday at lunch. Gritting her teeth, she gave a nervous laugh. "Help Me Obi-Wan Mallory, you're, like, my only hope!"

Mallory gave a long sigh, adjusting the strap her bag. "That's... okay. Okay." She pursed her lips again. "You're being really open here, so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that you're sincere about all of this." She looked around, and up at the sky. "It's going to rain soon, come on. Walk with me to my car."

Brooke picked up her own bag again, and walked beside Mallory, nervously watching her face.

"I won't lie, Brooke. I could use some more friends these days, so I'm actually really touched. It might be nice to just, I don't know, hang out some time and just do, well, girl talk or whatever. So that's fine. The problem is that right now is a really busy time of the year for me. I've already got two huge projects in the works, so I don't have time to help you with a costume before Halloween."

Brooke held up her smartphone, which displayed a payment receipt from the "Mal Mega" website. "Even if I paid the 'Emergency Project Rush Fee'?"

Mallory leaned in to look, and then grabbed her own phone, frantically swiping through her notifications. "You're willing to pay that much? With that money, I can get some extra supplies that'll save me a lot of time..." One last swipe, and Mallory looked up. "I guess you did pay that much. Huh. Okay, I guess you hired me. I wasn't kidding about being super busy, though — we'll need to get started on this really soon."

"Sweet!" Brooke bounced, her pigtails bobbing back and forth. "Can I come over, like, today?" When Mallory gave a nod, Brooke enveloped her in a huge hug, pinning the willowy woman's arms to her sides with the embrace. "I love you, Mallory, thank you so much! And then when you have more time after Halloween is over, we can totally get into friend stuff and not just costume stuff!"

Gently untangling herself from the cheerleader's embrace, Mallory shook her head with amusement. "You're, ah, welcome. So if we're doing this today, do you at least have an idea of what sort of character you want to cosplay?"

"Uh-huh! Harley Quinn!"

Mallory grimaced. "You do realize that there's probably going to be five dozen other Harley's around on Halloween, right? She's kind of overdone."

Brooke sighed, tilting her head as she opened her arms in a big shrug. "Yeah, I saw that when I did my research. But it, like, HAS to be Harley, nothing else will work for what I have in mind. But you know what?" Suddenly, the diminutive blonde moved right up into Mallory, the tips of her chest rubbing into Mallory's ribs as she looked up into the taller woman's eyes. "I bet," she said with her voice dropping into a husky pitch like how Mallory had earlier, "that you're so good that you could dress me as a totally unique Harley, that no one would mistake for, like, ANYONE else. I bet that you could make me feel..." she paused, and stared hard into Mallory's eyes, carefully enunciating the last word: "...special."

Mallory felt her pale cheeks go bright red, completely at a loss for words.

Holding the gaze for another moment, Brooke pursed her lips, and then bounced away. Her voice resumed its usual bubbly high pitch. "I'll email you my phone number right now — text me your address, and I'll be over in an hour, okay, Mallory? Byyyyyyye!"

***

As Brooke walked into Mallory's workshop and bedroom, she checked the clasp on her shoulder bag, to make sure it was held closed. She'd been feeling inspired, and stopped by home to pick up a few items, but it wouldn't do to just let Mallory see those. Not yet. Nerds were notoriously skittish, after all — even girl nerds.

"Like, I have NO idea who any of these cartoons are, at ALL. But they're pretty!" Mallory's room had even more nerdy gear and posters in it than Ryan's did, which was saying something. She pointed to one poster on a nearby wall. "Who's the redhead in white?"