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For Chris, wherever you are riding now
This is the kind of life I’ve had.
Drunk, and in charge of a bicycle,
as an Irish police report once put it.
Drunk with life, that is, and not knowing where off to next.
But you’re on your way before dawn. And the trip?
Exactly one half terror, exactly one half exhilaration.
—Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing
Chapter One
It was tradition for a junior to host the end of summer bash, and Ballard was the obvious pick. He had everything a good party host needed: a giant lake house, easy access to alcohol, and parents who worked more than they breathed.
I borrowed Mom’s car to make the thirty-minute trek to Lake Martin, freshly shaved and worried I went a bit too heavy-handed with the cologne. I kept the windows down to air myself out and tried not to stress about the night ahead.
Beside me on the seat, my phone buzzed, but I ignored it until I parked.
Where are you? It was Ballard.
I rolled up the windows and turned up the air-conditioning while I took three deep breaths. Then I replied, Outside. In the car.
Well get out of the car. You said you wanted to have more fun this year. It’s a party. Have fun.
For Ballard, it was that simple. Show up. Have fun.
I’m coming in. Probably. Just give me a second.
Ok. I’m putting my phone away now. This is your call.
To party or not to party? Should that even be a question? I took one more deep breath, turned off the engine, and got out of the car.
Of course, I ran into Wade Bond not three feet from the front door. His blond hair was spiked in front like some boy band heartthrob, a girl in an American flag T-shirt draped across his arm.
“Hey there, Luckie.” Wade’s foot shot in front of me. I wasn’t quick enough to dodge it, but I managed a little jump and turn, so I didn’t fall flat on my face. Years of practice improved my balance when it came to recovering from bully-foot-in-the-path.
The girl with him laughed, and Wade called after me, “Where you off to so fast? You need to see the wizard?”
I flipped him the bird, but only because it was dark and he couldn’t see me anymore. I would stand up to Wade eventually, but not while he was drunk. That wouldn’t be smart.
In the living room, I spotted Erin Mielke and her latest boyfriend. She waved, and I stopped to say hi.
Erin and I met in first grade. I hid under her desk during a meltdown and she screamed and told the teacher I was looking up her dress.
That was in Auburn, where my mom used to be an associate pastor and Erin’s mom was finishing a master’s degree. Erin’s family went to our church and, when Mom was reappointed to Moorhen to start The Exchange, she hired Brian, Erin’s dad, as her worship pastor. His wife got a job teaching art, thanks to amazing timing—what Mom would call God’s timing.
And there we were, Erin and me, growing up in the same churches, playing tag around the same pews, setting up endless games of Monopoly while our parents planned every aspect of The Exchange for years and years.
“This is Miles,” Erin said, gesturing to the guy beside her.
Miles and I nodded at one another. We’d seen each other around school, but I didn’t know much about him.
I joined Miles and some other guys playing Call of Duty on the big screen and zoned out for a bit.
By ten o’clock, the music was loud and the people around me were louder. Since I was sober, I remember more of that night than anyone else. Ballard’s reddish-orange hair flared on the back deck and I followed the signal. Mostly I’d stayed with the Call of Duty group, but nervous energy made me restless.
I hadn’t run into Wade since I first arrived, but that couldn’t last. This was a party, and Wade was one of the gods of the Moorhen High football team. He wouldn’t stay on the fringes for long.
“Yo, Stephen!” Ballard hollered from his Adirondack throne, a Solo cup held out like an offering. Wade may have been a football god, but Ballard was still king of this party.
I stepped into the golden glow of a lantern that hung above our heads, hands in my pockets to keep my newest tic from drawing attention. My fingers flexed involuntarily and I gritted my teeth.
“Here.” Ballard pushed the cup toward me and I waved it away.
He knew I wouldn’t drink it, not while on the kind of meds I take. Still, he pushed it at me again, and I shook my head in refusal. He was like that when people were around, less my friend and more the cool class clown.
“He doesn’t want it,” someone said.
I glanced around the group. It was Joan Pearson. I’d looked right past her earlier, not recognizing her with newly dyed black hair. Her hair used to be a soft brown. She had these piercing dark eyes, and she narrowed them in Ballard’s direction, defending me. She had a bit of a messiah complex going on.
“I can speak for myself,” I said.
A sudden thump of bass from the speakers drowned me out, NF’s quick tongue shooting lyrics like arrows all over the deck. Joan tossed back raven hair and sipped from her own Solo cup. Ballard shrugged and turned his attention back to the others.
Erin and Miles stepped out of the house and made their way to where I was standing. Some friends were there, plus a couple of girls I didn’t recognize, and Joan’s friend Sylvie. Sylvie was showing this guy, Andrew, something on her phone.
“Awesome,” Andrew said, grinning. “Let’s play.”
“Play what?” one of the girls asked. Her hair was curly and damp, like she’d just been for a swim.
“Sylvie found this app like spin the bottle.” Andrew waved the phone in our direction, its glittery red case catching the lantern light.
“We put everyone’s name and picture into the app,” Sylvie explained. “Then we spin the virtual bottle and it tells us who to kiss.”
“That’s boring,” this guy, Case, said. “If I wanted to kiss any girl here, I’d do it. I don’t need an app for that.” Case didn’t need alcohol to act like an idiot, but he’d had some.
“I dare you,” Ballard said. He motioned with his cup as a group of girls walked up the steps. One of them wore a Tallassee High T-shirt and I figured that’s why I didn’t recognize half the people there. They were from nearby towns, crashing from some other party at someone else’s lake house.
Lake Martin was surrounded by tiny Alabama towns full of tiny Alabama lives. One day, I’d get the hell out of this place for sure.
“Pick a girl,” Case demanded, unable to turn down a dare. “Any girl.”
“Her.” Ballard pointed at one of the new arrivals. She wore jean shorts and a yellow bikini top. I stared a little too long. My foot jerked twice, fast, and I fell into the chair next to Ballard. No one noticed, too intent on Case and the girl.
Case tried to march across the deck, but he’d had a few too many and sway
ed as he went. The girl turned when he planted himself beside her. Case leaned forward, but the look on the girl’s face was enough to make him back down.
We laughed so hard I pulled my hands out of my pockets to hold my sides. Ballard spilled his beer on my shoes, and Joan said something to Sylvie, something that sounded like “assholes.”
Case didn’t bother coming back to the group. He went into the house, hunting for another beer to drown his humiliation. I wasn’t sorry for him. He had to know he deserved it. I’d never kissed anyone, but even if I’d kissed a million girls, I couldn’t imagine walking up to one and laying it on her.
Maybe I was naive.
Okay, I know I was naive, but I was positive I could never be as big of a jerk as Case Malone.
“Hey, great party, man.” Another guy joined our circle, reaching over to fist-bump Ballard.
We were an odd combination, Ballard’s court of fools. Andrew was a junior like me, an okay guy. Joan was a tough girl, smart and always angry for no known reason. She had this existential angst factor that kept her from fitting in much of anywhere, but she used to date Wade. He was her ticket into any group—him and Sylvie. Sylvie was one of those all-around friendly people. She could fit in comfortably anywhere. Beautiful, with white-blond hair and round honey-brown eyes, like some kind of angel, Sylvie was welcome wherever she went. None of us had dated her, but we all daydreamed about it, unable to ignore the shape of her in tight jeans and a red sweater. Red was her color. She always wore something red.
“Come on, let’s play.” Sylvie called our attention back to her, and we all willingly gave it. If Ballard was king that night, Sylvie was queen.
“All right, set it up,” Ballard told her, leaning forward in his chair.
“We’re out,” Erin said, giving me a little wave as she wandered away with Miles.
“What’re we playing?” A new guy, Michael, dropped into a seat. I didn’t know him well, but I recognized him from the football team. His presence made me nervous, because usually the football boys hung together. So if this guy was here, Wade would appear soon. The idea of dealing with Wade made my fingers flex like crazy. I stuck my hands back in my pockets.
Sylvie explained the game and the guys complained it was boring. “Just a kiss? Some stupid little peck on the cheek?”
It didn’t sound boring to me, but those guys had rounded home while I was still in the dugout. I glanced around and caught a girl from school watching me. Her nose was crinkled up, like she’d smelled something bad. I blushed, thinking she was worried about playing this game with me, about having to maybe kiss me.
A few more girls joined the group, bringing another football player with them. Someone called someone else a prude. Joan rolled her eyes, and I forgot about the spin-the-bottle app. I watched Joan.
I was always watching Joan, and the black hair made me see her in all kinds of new ways. Her skin glistened underneath the lantern light. Her tank top revealed the edge of her lime-green bra, its elastic strap falling off one shoulder.
I’d loved Joan for four years.
I’d also hated Joan for four years.
When I looked up from the neckline of Joan’s tank top, her eyes were on me, and my cheeks burned. I expected anger, her usual, but instead she sighed, shook her head, and whispered something in Sylvie’s ear.
“So we change the rules,” Michael said. “We up the stakes.” He was a quarterback, used to calling the plays.
“What is this? Poker?” Joan asked. I forced myself to focus and not get caught staring again.
“Better. Instead of a kiss, you go in a bedroom with whoever’s name pops up.” Michael wiggled his eyebrows. It was supposed to be suggestive, but he looked silly. His nose was a bit big for his face, and he had a zit right under his left eye. But it didn’t matter, because he was an athlete. If you could throw a damn ball halfway down a field, you were golden.
I couldn’t throw a ball halfway down a hill.
“Ew, no.” Sylvie wrinkled her nose. “I’m not having sex with someone because an app tells me to.”
This made Ballard laugh again, his face bright red and then purple. I slapped him on the back.
“Not sex,” Michael said in a tone that would’ve made me feel like an idiot but of which Sylvie was unaware. “Just go in the bedroom for five minutes. We’ll never know what you do in there.”
My hands were sweating. My fingers flexed once, twice, three times. I shoved them deeper in my pockets. I had to get out of there before the game started. Getting off the sidelines had been a terrible idea.
“I’m in,” the curly-haired girl said.
Everyone else started talking at once, and Sylvie shushed them. “I need to take everyone’s picture and put it with their name.”
I stood up, planning to return to Call of Duty, a game I could handle, but it was too late.
“Look, Stephen volunteers to go first,” Ballard said.
A breeze lifted his empty cup and scuttled it across the deck. I watched it go and was jealous. Jealous of a damn cup, because it got to leave and I didn’t.
“All righty, Stephen, smile.” Sylvie snapped my photo.
Just like that, I was playing a kissing game with a group that included Joan Pearson.
I sat back down. My foot jerked, my fingers flexed, and my mouth did the grimace. I hate the grimace. It’s a twisting of my lips so fast and harsh it leaves them sore. I wanted to cover my mouth with one hand, but my flexing fingers made it impossible.
That’s how my body reacts to stress. I have Tourette’s syndrome, and my medication makes the tics manageable, but as soon as I get a bit anxious, my muscles rally into action.
I turned my face away from the light and tried not to cry while Sylvie went around the circle, snapping pictures and typing names. Her tongue poked from the corner of her mouth in concentration.
The crying is another thing. It used to be bad. I’d cry over anything, and there’s nothing NOT humiliating about being a boy known for sobbing in class. I took a few deep breaths and suffered through another grimace before the game started.
I rarely got to be this close to Joan, and the last thing I wanted her to notice me for was my tics. At that moment, I would have given anything to make them stop. Forever or just for the night.
Joan kept looking around. Probably for Wade.
Wade, douchiest of douchelords.
Michael volunteered to spin first, and the virtual bottle landed on one of the girls I didn’t know. She followed Michael into the house, short skirt swinging against tan thighs.
Around me, people laughed and talked, trying to be heard over the music. NF had given way to something slower by Drake. Solo cups littered the deck and wind rustled tree limbs. Ballard’s mom had at least ten sets of wind chimes hanging in the trees, maybe more. Some were metal, and some were crystal, and all of them were singing.
When Michael and the girl hadn’t come back after five minutes, Sylvie decided to take her turn, tapping the phone screen and glancing around at each of our faces. The app whirred, and just when it seemed there was a glitch, it dinged.
“Stephen,” Sylvie chirped, her voice on pitch with the nearest set of chimes. They were copper, swinging into view behind her head.
Ballard shoved me and said something I didn’t understand. My heart thumped louder than the bass line. Sylvie was already crossing the deck, and my fingers flexed so many times I lost count. I made fists in my jean pockets as I followed her into the house and up a flight of carpeted stairs. Behind me, the guys were hooting and calling encouragement.
The only empty room belonged to Ballard’s little sister. The bedspread was aqua with bright flowers. Barbies littered the floor.
“Ouch.” Sylvie was barefoot and stopped to rub her heel. A pink plastic shoe was the culprit. My foot jerked. If she noticed, she didn’t show it.
“I’ve never kissed a girl.”
I blurted that out. Go me. Smooth operator.
Sylvie smiled, her li
ps shiny with gloss. She sat on the edge of the bed and patted the place beside her. I sat and listened to my own heart.
The music was quiet up here. Sylvie was wearing a red sundress, her hair long enough to fountain over her shoulders and frame the first set of breasts I’d ever been close enough to touch.
I imagined touching them. I bet they’d be soft and light, like Sylvie.
My foot jerked.
My fingers flexed.
And she kissed me.
I didn’t have time to make an awkward first move. Her lips were sticky from the gloss, and she tasted like raspberries and mint gum. She put her hands on my wrists and pulled them out of my pockets. Potential finger flexes forgotten, I wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her closer. I touched her white-gold hair and it was like feathers.
She pushed her tongue against my lips. Her fingers curled into my hair and I pressed against her, tilting her back. My body was ahead of me, brain picturing her lying on the bed, how it would feel to peel her shirt off.
That didn’t happen.
Instead, she resisted my push and our lips parted. She looked me in the eye and gave her same sweet smile from earlier.
“I hope your first kiss was pleasant,” she said.
It’s the kind of dreamy-voiced thing Sylvie was known for saying. She spoke a bit like somebody’s grandma, but with her face and body, none of us cared how she talked. She could speak Swedish, and we’d hang on her every un-understandable word.
Back on the deck, Ballard waggled his eyebrows and asked me how it was. I blushed and didn’t answer. I was strangely calm, and I wanted to hold on to that feeling.
“It was lovely,” Sylvie told our crew, another thing none of the other girls would ever say after a make-out session. She looked at me with those light brown eyes, all soft and happy. “I’m tempted to rig the game so I get to kiss him again.”
I met her gaze as Ballard passed me the phone. She winked.
Fingers shaking, I tapped the screen and let it whir. Once again, it seemed to take forever.
Kiss and Repeat Page 1
