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Just when she thinks she couldn’t possibly love him more, he goes and does the sweetest thing in the whole wide world and Lexi is once again awed by this angel she gets to call her boyfriend.
“Uh, you like it, Lex?”
She snaps out of her stupor and a smile blooms on her pretty features.
“Y-Yes. Oh my god. Fezco, I love it!”
The relief he feels at that is clear to see, his trepidation melting away so a soft smile can dawn on his face as well.
“Good, you had me nervous.”
And it’s a silly thing to say, really. Because how could any girlfriend-, scratch that, how could any person not love a gift so nice. The golden chain glints so nicely in the light, the little links move like a snake against the maroon upholstery of the box. It’s tasteful, androgynous, and so incredibly beautiful.
“I’m sorry, I just-, this is the sweetest, kindest thing anyone’s ever done for me. I don’t have a lot of people giving me gifts out of the blue.”
“Well shit, you got me, baby. I’m finna keep you dripped up and iced down.” And she laughs heartily at that, pulling the herringbone chain from its velvet box. She unclasps the necklace and pulls it against her slender throat. As she struggles to connect the pieces together he perks up and starts to move towards her.
“I can help wit that.” He says with a confident smile, his rough fingers taking the clasp from her small ones. She sweeps her hair from her neck, her ever-curly baby hairs escaping her grasp and tickling his hands.
He has her clasp well secured and rests his hands on each of her shoulders, her own hands coming up to mingle with his. He presses a tender kiss at the nape of her neck, right over the chain, that has her toes curling.
“There, now we match.” And oh how sweet a thing, to be matching chains with her drug-dealing, ass-kicking, sweetheart of a boyfriend. All she can think to do is turn her head over her shoulder and seek out his lips for a kiss.
It’s all the thanks he ever needs.
***
The chain doesn’t leave her neck.
It becomes a security blanket of sorts, a constant little piece of Fezco to soothe her anxieties and calm her nerves whenever he’s not around to do the job himself (rare).
She brings it up to her lips absentmindedly during rehearsals, feeling the tiny little links pinch her lips, even sucks on it from time to time. She runs her fingers back and forth over it when she’s nervous. She showers with it, sweats with it, and sleeps with it. It’s been three and a half weeks when she’s applying her SPF in the morning that she starts to marvel that her skin hasn’t turned green yet.
She starts to wonder if it’s stainless steel, or maybe rhodium or titanium? She thinks back on the metals unit of Chemistry last year and tries to remember other metals that don’t turn skin green and are therefore good options for jewelry. She thinks about it a bit more as she finishes up her skincare and puts on some light makeup, but the though is out of her mind before she is out the door.
***
Maddy clocked that chain the second Little Howard walked into school wearing it.
She was big enough to admit she was jealous. She missed the days of boyfriends lavishing her with gifts, although she’d much prefer this over being under Nate Jacobs’ thumb.
She, like everyone else in school, knew about Lexi Howard and Fezco O’Neill. It was the biggest piece of gossip since the news of Cassie and Nate got out. But Maddy knew Lexi, and she sort of knew Fezco, and she could see that they were bigger than any high-school bullshit. It made her wistful to see them tucked away together at parties or to see how loving and protective they were of each other. She’s happy for them, she is, but also envious of what they have.
When she first saw that necklace, she could tell right away Fezco got it for her because it matched the one he wore around his neck constantly. Fezco knew how to dress, something she’d noticed years ago when she first started buying from him. He’s decked out in Palace, Ralph Lauren, Burberry, Adidas….the man isn’t afraid to drop a couple stacks on a fit. If Maddy had to bet, he probably doesn’t wear fake jewelry either.
Now that she had a closer eye on Lexi’s chain, she was nearly positive it was real. She was gonna prove it.
***
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
The high pitched tone sung through the hallway.
“At least that scumbag was good for something.” Maddy remarked, pulling the jewelry checker away from her diamond stud earrings, gifted to her by none other than Nate Jacobs.
“Here, check mine!” Cassie asked, pulling at her ear lobe so Maddy had better access to the very similar studs in her ears.
She held the pointed tip to the device, waiting for the alerting noise, but heard nothing.
“Oh, that fucking bitch!” Maddy yells, outraged for her own friend. How dare that cheap fucker gift her best friend fake shit.
“What a fucking Jerk! God I hate him!” Cassie yells, pissed that she ever deigned to stoop so low as to fuck around with Nate-Fucking-Jacobs.
“Don’t worry, we’ll just have your sister’s man beat his ass again.” Maddy spits with conviction.
“Speaking of Little Howard,” Maddy perks up and Cassie spins around to see Lexi and Rue coming down the hallway, Lexi playing with her chain as always. “Lexi!” Maddy beckons.
“Hey guys!” Lexi skips over, Rue bidding her adieu to go find Jules. “What’s up?”
“We need your boyfriend to beat Nate’s ass again. I’d just have you write another play and make him cry again but I need instant gratification on this one.”
Lexi laughs nervously but jokingly concedes. “Okay, I’ll get right on that. What’d he do this time?”
“Fucker gave your sister fake shit, see look.” Maddy put the checker back on Cassie’s earlobe to prove the point.
Lexi shoots Cassie a half-smile in apologies, “I’m sorry, Cass.”
“It doesn’t even matter,” Cassie says, “At least now I have no reason to hold on to them and I can just trash them.” And she is already ripping them out of her ears.
“Well, I will say this: at least now you know he did actually love you at some point. In his own fucked up way.” Cassie said, throwing the earring carelessly into her locker to be disposed of later.
Maddy nodded back, clearly agreeing with Cassie’s logic. Lexi frowned at that, not following. “What do mean?”
The older girls looked at each other than back at Lexi. “Hello! If a guy really loves a girl, he buys real jewelry. And, if a guy doesn’t buy a girl real shit, he doesn’t love her.” Maddy explains as if its obvious, Cassie nodding along this time.
“It’s true!” Cassie chimes in, “McKay bought me a gold and Garnet promise ring when we were going out.” And then, as an afterthought, “My birthstone, of course”.
Lexi rolls her eyes. “That is so ridiculous. Love isn’t about money. What if a guy can’t afford real jewelry. If you love someone, you’d be happy with anything.”
“Oh, you’re one to talk, Howard.” Maddy remarks.
Once again, Lexi feels out of the loop. Her furrowed brow is the only response she can get out before Maddy is bringing the device up to Lexi’s most prized possession and the loud beeeeeeeep rings through the hall like an alarm.
Lexi looks down at her chain like it burned her, for the first time in all these months feeling like it doesn’t belong on her neck, like she shouldn’t be wearing it.
“If love is about money, then Fezco is down bad.”
Lexi fingers the necklace, touching it like fine bone china rather than her own jewelry.
“Like, bad, bad Lexi.” Cassie adds.
Lexi, pale-faced and sorta frozen, asks the dreaded question. “Like-uhm, how bad, exactly?”
The two older girls look at each other and then back at Lexi before Maddy responds, “Like, close to a grand bad.”
Holy Shit
***
Her bike clangs roughly against the pavement, she doesn’t take the time to set it against the building nicely as usual. She storms into the bodega, hair whipping behind her.
“Hey baby, what’s goo-,” He’s cut off by the maroon box being shoved into his chest.
“Take this back.” She demands.
He’s confused for a second, registering what is being pushed his way and trying to steel his nerves. “What? Lexi, I gave this to you, it’s yours.”
“No, it is not,” She says firmly. “I cannot keep wearing that. How could you not tell me its real?!?!”
Fezco is nervous still, but mostly confused, “What else would it be? I didn’t know that needed explainin’. Shit, Lex, I wasn’t gonna get you nothin’ fake.”
“Why?! Why not!? A fake would be perfectly fine!! A fake could be chewed on and sweated on and showered in! A fake one would not cost a thousand dollars!!!” She’s fuming.
“Lexi,” he tries to calm her, his hands resting on her shoulders to ground her, “I bought you a real gold chain cause I wanted you to have a real gold chain. That’s all there is to it, ain’t no reason stressing about it now.”
“Yes, Fez, yes there very much is! If I had known I wouldn’t be wearing it all the time!! I’m gonna destroy it! I’m, like, beating it up!!”
“Lexi, that’s the whole point of buying real shit. You ain’t gotta worry about any of that. And I wouldn’t want you to take it off. Not really happy seeing it off you right now, as a matter of fact.” He starts to reach for the box to put the necklace back in it’s rightful home but she is quick to stop him.
“Fezco, I cannot wear that. I’m serious. I’ll just ruin it. And I really don’t need anything that…” Flashy? Expensive? Nice? “I just don’t need it.”
He frowns at that and brings his warm hands up to cup her flushed cheeks. “Lexi, you deserve all of this type of shit. I like buying you nice things. And I’m serious that I don’t want you to take em’ off, so I wanna buy you good shit that don’t need to be taken off.” He’s slow to reach back for the box, grabbing the glittering chain and circling her slowly to reach her back as if she were a wild animal he was trying not to scare off.
He unclasps the chain and brings it over her head and back around her neck. “Besides, you my girl. I gotta keep you icy. Don’t want no other motherfuckers thinking they can swoop.” She smiles, can’t help herself. He clasps the chain and hugs her from behind, his arms around her shoulders.
She hugs his arms closer to her chest and nuzzles into the hairs at his bicep. “Now do me a favor, don’t ever let me catch you not wearing this shit again. I’m serious, ma.”
She nods and kisses his forearm and he smooches the crown of her head. He pulls away only when a customer comes in a few moments later and he has to ring them out. Lexi shoots him heart eyes the whole time before her attention is pulled by the tatted twelve year old walking out of the freezer.
“Can’t fuckin’ believe you thought we’d buy you fake. You fuckin’ trippin’, white girl.”