Almost Kings by Max Doty Read Free Book Online

girls.”
    “Your brother and his friends hook up with a lot of girls, huh?”
    “Not my brother, but his friends, yeah.”
    She arched an eyebrow and smiled.
    “So you’re playing matchmaker?”
    “Something like that.”
    “Cool,” she said. “I’ll help. I know a couple of girls that have been talking about going to a football party for like the last month. We’ll see if they actually have the balls to come.”
    We looked across the room at Emily, who was studying a book of maps.
    “Not her,” said Kallea. “Her parents totally flipped after that last party. Besides. We know way hotter girls.” Actually, Emily was a seven. She might not have been the best dresser, baggy in all the wrong places, but she had a pretty face, and her yearbook photo made her look hot. I wondered if anyone would take her fourteen points.
     
    Over the next couple of days, Kallea and I asked every girl we knew to come to that week’s party. A lot of them said no, like Steph Chapman, an eight who, not realizing who my brother was, said she didn’t want to come to our “nerd party” or Lily Hellman, a five whose parents had grounded her indefinitely for smoking pot.
    A lot of girls, though, were happy to be invited. Most freshmen don’t get invited to decent parties, especially that early in the year, and they were excited to come. You could tell the ones that really had no idea what a party was when they asked what to wear or if they should bring any food. Tina Polis, a four, asked us if it was cool if her parents dropped her off.
     
    After school one day, I bumped into Truck by the sequoia, and he asked me if I wanted a ride home. A lightning storm had rolled in, and the other football players had hit the gym, but Truck preferred working out on his own in the garage, and the coaches didn’t give him any grief.
    “I don’t like you biking in the rain,” he said. “You track me down on days like this, and I’ll get you home one way or another.”
    We threw my bike in the back of the Ford—it was hard to tell which one was rustier—and were about to take off when Lizzie ran up.
    “Hey!” she said. “There’s something I want to show you.”
    “You sure you want to do that with Ted around?”
    “Ha ha,” she said. “Actually, he should come. This involves him too.”
     
    Lizzie sat between me and Truck as we drove, playing coy the whole time, only pointing out “left here, right here” until we got to an apartment complex at the edge of town. It was one of those new developments that got started right before the market cratered and went unsold for years as people waited out the downturn. The small lot by the side of the development where Lizzie told us to park was mostly empty.
    “What’s this?” my brother asked.
    “You’ll see.”
    We got out of the car and followed Lizzie down a concrete walkway toward one of the units. A gray box with a keypad was latched to the door, and a key popped out of it when Lizzie entered in a code. She put the key in the door and opened it.
    Inside the small apartment, everything glistened. Light poured in from big windows in the living room and reflected off the hardwood floors. The granite of the countertops shimmered as if wet, and the steel sinks hadn’t been marked by so much as a fingerprint. Truck and I walked through the halls, careful as burglars. We tried not to touch anything. It all felt new, like we were the first people who had ever stepped inside.
    “Lizzie—” said Truck.
    “Before you say anything, let me tell you the price. Two years ago, this place was selling for three hundred thousand. Now it’s less than half that. A hundred and twenty-nine! It’s a little longer of a drive to work and school, but it’s not that bad. I’ve been talking to Miller, and he says his dad will totally cut us a deal, waive the realtor’s fee and everything.  Oh! There’s a second bathroom, under the stairs, and—”
    “So what,” said Truck. “I just move in with