At the top of the boardwalk stood a short policeman. Beach bonfires require a permit, which requires a police detail. He was there as a formality, however; he knew that he was no match for hundreds of high schoolers or anything involving the strength of a raging fire (or the swiftness of a great typhoon, for that matter). Still, him being there probably stopped teenagers from doing activities they wouldn’t otherwise do—like streaking across the pier wearing nothing but a coconut bra.
“Boys,” he looked at Carter for a moment longer than was necessary. Austin saluted him. Carter ducked inside his shirt.
We came to a stop on a sand dune overlooking the fire. It was already enormous and the heat radiating from it could have warmed a small army, a.k.a., my classmates.
“See you on the other side, gentlemen,” I said.
Anything that happened from this point forward was every bro for himself, unless there was some kind of emergency, in which case the other two bros were to abandon everything they were doing to assist the third bro in said emergency.
The three of us trudged through the refined sand to where Robert Maxim and Madison Hayes drank out of totally-not-suspicious paper bags. Across the fire, some guy in a denim jacket and jeans lazily strummed a meek ukulele that was about the size of his forearm. A gaggle of girls surrounded him, creating the howls Carter hated so much. Next to their group, Jamal Sanchez—the Jamal—manned one of the beach’s many red-oxidized grills.
The crowd contained a bunch of familiar faces, except the one I was looking for.
“Got this for you.” Madison pushed a paper bag at me.
“He’s our ride.” Austin intercepted it. A hiss and pop came as he cracked the tiny can inside.
“Yo!” Jamal waved from the grill. “You guys bring the speakers?”
“Duh.” Carter pulled a tiny Bluetooth box from his pocket. A bro is always ready with tunes, and Carter’s were the best, reason number six hundred that it was mandatory for him to come to this. That tiny box was like Captain Kirk on the USS Enterprise—or, I mean, something relating to a coach and his locker room pep talks—the thing could command a room.
As soon as Kelly Clarkson started blasting, the girls flocking around the guitarist made a dance floor closer to us. Among them were Hannah Green and a few of Eliza’s friends.
Where is—nope—you have a problem, dude.
Austin moved first. He casually strode over to the girls and introduced himself to the few he didn’t know, or that he forgot he knew. He gestured for me and Carter to follow. I shook my head.
“Nick, try to have fun,” Carter said, joining Austin. “Don’t be a turd.”
“None of those girls is even a maybe on the bangability scale,” I muttered. Plus, the barbeque called my name like football called Tom Brady. I couldn’t not answer.
“Hot dog or cheeseburger?” asked Jamal. Six-four since freshman year and an expert in all matters of food (he’d watched every episode of Chopped and Chopped Junior), Jamal was one of the coolest people in our school, if not the country.
“Hot dog, extra ketchup,” I said. “Definitely made the right choice coming over here.” It was Jamal’s party, but as with all his other parties, he loved to be on the periphery, making sure his guests had the most awesome time possible. Four fishing-sized coolers were parked on the dusty sand behind him, one with a package of paper lunch bags resting on its lid.
Her flowery perfume hit me before her hand touched my shoulder.
“Make that two,” I said, turning to face her. “You hungry?”
“How’d you know?” Madison smirked back.
She wore tight jeans and a top that clung to her like it was a second skin, and the last of the sunset cast a rich shine through her loose black hair. As much as I told myself, and her, that I didn’t ride with one chick, something about Madison had always been irresistibly exciting.
“It’s my job to know,” I replied.
“Yeah? What else do you have in my file—” she started, cut off by Jamal.
“Leave room for Jesus,” he teased, handing us the hot dogs.
I waved my food in thanks, careful not to have ketchup fly into the sand. Another reason Jamal was a bro: he always knew what to say in every situation. That wasn’t part of the code, though it for sure helped a regular dude achieve bro status.
“Want to get out of here?” Madison asked. She slid the tip of her hot dog into her mouth, making a show of licking off the ketchup.
Madison’s expertise lay in color-coordinating her shirt with her shoes and always knowing how to make me pay attention to her. Next thing I knew, I tramped behind her, falling into the sand and a situation we knew all too well: taking a break from a full-out rager to have even more fun.
“How long has it been,” I asked, once we had our own private slice of beach. “A week?”
“Wayyyy too long, handsome,” she laughed. “This hot dog is really testing my patience . . .”
“Good.”
We plopped down, elbows hitting each other as we inhaled our food, like a decadent, chocolate mousse dessert was waiting for us.
Madison finished first. The crashing of the distant waves was soon forgotten as she crawled into my lap, her legs digging into both sides of my waist. Instinctively, my hands pulled her hips closer, like we were picking up where we left off.
Her shirt was silky against my chin. It wasn’t until she kissed me breathlessly that the adult beverage on her lips fully registered.
Sand flew into my shirt, my hair—everywhere—when she pushed me onto my back and fumbled with my jeans. Heat pulsed through the humidity around us, stirring my need for her.
“Don’t they have a cocktail named after this?” she asked.
“Aren’t you too young to know what that is?” I cleared my throat in an attempt to think straight. Something felt weird about this, but I couldn’t . . .
“Older than you.” She took her hands off my zipper to adjust her hair. “Can you imagine?” she whispered, moving my fingers down her legs. “Sand everywhere, hands everywhere.” She practically purred over me.
A million out of a million times, I would have let her make that sentence come true.
But.
“I can’t,” I said.
Madison pulled back. “Are you serious? Maguire, we’re by ourselves out here.”
“I know.”
The music had faded into the background of the ocean waves, and the firelight had disappeared into the starry sky. That wasn’t it, though. It hadn’t been there when we’d left the party together. A taut ache in my neck, an ache for her, still kept my grip tight on her jeans.
But.
Sensing my hesitation, Madison wrinkled her nose, as if I were some nerd saying I loved her after we’d kissed once. Madison didn’t do feelings. And didn’t take uncertainty.
“Nick, what the hell?”
I wanted to say it was whatever she’d been drinking, which lingered in the air between us like Eliza’s words from a few weeks ago had hung about when she told me about the horror of making out with drunk Josh. But Madison and I had both screwed in worse states and it wasn’t her. It wasn’t me either, or any of that cliché. And it wasn’t that I would do anything to avoid being like Josh Daley—even though he was trying to be like me. It was—
My phone vibrated in the sand. Madison, still pouting, fished for it. It was Carter.
“Sorry.” I sat up, sand cascading off my T-shirt. Bros before hoes, I wanted to say. “Hey, man, what’s up?”
“Found that dustwad Josh, but I can’t find Eliza. Could you look for her?”
Madison examined her nails, keeping herself admirably composed, like I wasn’t worth the breath she’d waste with angry words.
“Right now?”
“Yeah, Austin and I are kind of in the middle of something.”
“
Dude,” I hushed, “I am too.” It should have bothered me that Carter was making me Eliza’s official babysitter, especially when he could have easily looked for her. It bothered Madison more.
She stopped straddling me, dusting her cropped jeans. She flipped me off and stalked back to the party.
“Fine.” I hung up. I shouted after Madison, “Are you going to be okay? Where are you going?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she shouted back.
“Madison,” I said. She put her finger in the air, signaling the end of this conversation. Whatever. She could be a drama queen if she wanted. This wasn’t the first time I’d made her mad and she’d stormed away from me, and I didn’t think it would be the last.
Whoosh. A low plane flying overhead pulled me back from my thoughts. A hollow reminder to rejoin the party.
“Nick Maguire,” Robert called from the sand dune. He reached for a high five. “Dude. Madison again? You’re the man.”
“Don’t forget it,” I said, giving him the obligatory shoulder punch.
Fifty or so more people had scattered around the fire during my brief intermission, and a sense of pride caught in my throat. This scene had every kind of student from all the senior cliques—the athletes, the smart athletes, the theatre kids, computer science guys and the one computer science girl, the princesses, the stoners, and even the stoners who had made the trek from other schools—everyone mingling and making memories.
This would be what I missed the most about high school: the rare moments of forgetting to pretend.
Eliza was settled in a camping chair a few yards away from Jamal’s grill, roasting a marshmallow. By herself, her yellow hair caught both the moonlight and the fire, accidentally creating a gentle, mesmerizing glow. How had Carter not found her?
“Hey, dude.” I plopped in the dirt next to her. “What’s happening?”
“Hello, Nicholas.”
A light tap touched my shoulder. “Let me guess,” said Jamal, “two hot dogs, extra ketchup?”
“How ’bout some waters? And one with a lime. For the lady.” Jamal shot me a thumbs-up.
“Jamal knows your food order?” Eliza asked. “How often have you come over here?”
“Actually I think the line is, ‘come here often?’”
“Duly noted.” Eliza slid the marshmallow off her stick. Its gooey center oozed between her fingers, while its exterior was burned black. Just how I liked them too.
“It’s truly an honor to have pick-up lines explained to me by Nick Maguire himself.” She chewed her marshmallow, keeping her eyes on the bonfire’s playful flames.
“What can I say, O’Connor. You’re special.”
Jamal approached with the waters, handing Eliza a plastic cup with a lime wedge in it. I had been joking about the lime—how Jamal had thought to bring limes to this bonfire was anyone’s guess. That bro knew his way around a party.
“Tell Madison that too?” Eliza sipped. Jamal retreated to bro-ing the grill. “Can’t have been what made her cry, though.”
Not even the calming ambience of a roasting fire and Eliza’s mellow energy could stop me from wincing. Nope. Not talking about that.
When faced with a question a bro does not wish to answer, a common strategy is to deflect and turn it back onto the asker. For instance, asking Eliza, “Why do you care?” In my experience, a different approach has a much higher success rate for avoiding certain topics: the classic change of subject.
“Where’s John?”
“Nice try. Josh is by the pier.”
“And he left you here all by yourself?”
“Whatever,” she muttered. “If he wants to sabotage his shot with me, he can go right ahead. And for the record, I hate limes.” She pulled the wedge out of her drink and hurled it at the flames. It splatted a few feet from the kindling.
“Pretty sure you bring it up every time your mom even attempts to bring one into your house.”
“You’re mean,” she said.
“It was the perfect way to mess with you and Jamal. Two birds.”
Despite the actual bonfire ten feet away from us, Eliza shuddered like her lime had come back from the dead and was now haunting her.
“Can we go for a walk?” she asked. “Starting to feel crowded.”
“Let’s do it.” My sneakers slid as I jumped up. Sure enough, a wide group of hungry teenagers edged towards Jamal’s five-star makeshift establishment. Among them were Josh Daley and Austin, but Eliza had booked it halfway to the ocean before I could ask if she’d seen them. Which answered that.
She didn’t stop until she’d reached the waves. Her shadowy figure was barely visible in the moonlight, even in her white long-sleeved shirt and black shorts. The breeze blew her hair in every direction. She kicked off her flip-flops and threw her phone on top of them.
“In Australia,” Eliza toed the Atlantic Ocean, “we swam every morning. My dorm room was right on the water. My roommate and I’d wake up with a quick beach run and hop in.”
That explained the tan.
“Ever swim at night?” I asked, imagining how the city’s bright lights would look over the water.
“Wanted to.” She stepped until her ankles were covered. “Doing it alone seemed super dangerous, and my friends had studying to do.”
“Nerds,” I coughed, surprised Eliza herself had wanted to do something besides study.
“Like you even know what studying is.”
“Ha. Ha. Everyone knows it’s when you deeply mourn a stud for dying. C’mon, Eliza. Too soon.”
“L-O-L.” Eliza lightly kicked the frigid water. Her splashes vanished into the peaceful waves.
“That’s pretty bold,” I said, “spending so long in 50-degree water.” When, exactly, did Eliza get to be cool?
It occurred to me that if she were a different girl, my move here would be to fulfill her wish of swimming at night and we would plunge, laughing, into the freezing water. Fade to black. Roll the credits. My spontaneity would totally sweep her off her feet, and the walls around her would melt away. It would be just us—no rules, no expectations.
Jesus Christ, Nick.
Her hair flew in tangles, her shirt was sooty from the fire, and coarse sand covered her legs. The textbook definition of a hot mess. Emphasis on the . . . stop.
“Hi, earth to Nick.”
Just have fun. Carter’s earlier demand popped into my head.
And so, I kicked off my blue foot-mobiles (sneakers), rolled my jeans above my knees, left my phone safe in the sand, and joined her in the great big pond (ocean).
“Ah, that’s cold. Real regrets.” The water lapped against my ankles. A chill had already shot my nerves.
“I did not think you’d come in,” she said.
Eliza had ventured deeper, now up to her knees. Hopping on one leg (to keep the other safe from frostbite), I waded over.
“Phew.” Holding her shoulder for support, I turned towards the twilight horizon, overdoing trying to seem pensive.
“I mean,” I said, “you should be swimming here with your boyfriend. Since he’s not around, looks like I’ll have to do.”
“If you push me in, I swear to God . . .” she said.
“I would never.”
“Nick—” Eliza gripped my arm as my body swerved, teetering from one leg to the other, purposefully off-balance.
When both my legs were safely back in the water, I gave her one last twirl, spinning her with our fingers locked together.
“Nick!” her shriek pierced across the ocean. She tugged on my T-shirt for dear life.
The moonlight sparkled on her lips, almost making me forget our impending hypothermia. She shivered against me as the calm waves crashed against our knees, the air filled with the salty ocean mixed with spicy cinnamon. Her loose hair tickled my face as it whisked in ev
ery direction.
Abort, abort, abort.
Somehow, my arm wound its way around her back, helping both of us balance against the electric weight of the other. Her waist pressed against mine, slowly swaying with her quiet breaths.
Eliza dragged her fingers through the water, swirling tiny ripples into my rolled-up jeans. I flicked a splash at her, well aware that she could have stepped away by now. Even more aware of how she was much warmer than I thought she’d be.
“Nick?” Eliza whispered. She relaxed her grip on my shirt and shook her hair into place. “Thanks, Maguire, but I didn’t come here with you.”
That statement was enough to throw anyone off their game.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, though we both knew what she meant. Though my thumb remained loosely tucked through the belt loop on her shorts.
I didn’t come here with you.
“Okay.” She stayed put too. “You throw me in and I’m taking you with me,” she said. “Mutually assured destruction.”
“In that case.”
Eliza yelped as I scooped her up, careful to keep my hands away from where they shouldn’t be. She fit into my arms like a goddamn princess, her warmth mixing with the cool breeze to make a dangerous energy.
Rocking her in the air, I tried not to freak her out. Tried not to freak me out.
“One . . . two . . .” I reluctantly let go.
The shock of ice-cold water erupted through me as I swung her into the ocean. She’d grabbed my hand at the last second, true to her word. We plunged into the waves, heads-first into the rocky sand. My face prickled with water shooting up my nose. My lungs, unprepared, fought for a gasp of air.
But it was her shrieking laugh, right before we’d disappeared underwater, that had left me the most breathless.
RULE NUMBER 7
A bro shalt set up another bro only if he has asked to be set up.
Bros can talk about what happened at a really awesome party, but for a really really awesome party, a latency period applies. That was why, for the rest of the weekend, I had no idea what went on during the rest of the bonfire. I had heard a rumor that Jamal taught everyone to do backflips, and Hannah Green’s mom showed up with her supermodel friends . . . but I didn’t know anything for sure until school on Monday.
The Bro Code Page 7
