The Fixes

by Owen Matthews

  “We should be filming this,” he tells Eric. “The fans are getting restless. Get your phone out.”

  Eric aims his iPhone at the garbage drum—

  (now just a shadow on the dark grass).

  Jordan aims his Galaxy at the garbage drum too. Eric grips the cedar for support and ducks as low as he can. Aims his iPhone out around the trunk and wonders if it’s the last he’ll ever see of his hand.

  Jordan grins at Eric. “Fire in the hole,” he says.

  Then he presses the send button.

  178.

  Nothing happens.

  “It might take a second,” Jordan says. “Cellular signals and whatnot.”

  Eric nods. “Okay.”

  “You’re still filming?”

  Eric shows him the iPhone. “Still rolling.”

  “It’s coming.” Jordan peers out around the cedar. “It’d better be coming.”

  179.

  But there is no kablamo.

  They wait two, maybe three minutes.

  Maybe more.

  “Do you have the wrong number?” Eric asks Jordan. “Maybe you’re just calling some random.”

  “I have the right number,” Jordan says. “I tried it, like, eight times. It should be working.”

  “Maybe you didn’t pay your phone bill. Or, like, the coverage isn’t good here.”

  Jordan glares at Eric. “I fucking paid my phone bill, E. Something’s fucked up.”

  He stands and walks out toward the picnic area, still typing things on his phone.

  “Wait,” Eric calls out. “Don’t mess around while you’re out in the open. You could get blown up.”

  “Thanks, Captain Obvious. If I’d known you were going to be so much of a pussy, I would have made you wait in the car.”

  Jordan walks up to the garbage can, leans over, and rummages inside. “It should be working,” he says. “What the shit is going on?”

  “Maybe the wiring was loose, or something?”

  “Or maybe you screwed it up when you jostled it,” Jordan says. “I told you to be careful.”

  Jordan kicks the garbage drum. The sound resonates. It scares Eric a couple steps backward. He’s still filming with his iPhone. Jordan sees it, and flips out.

  “Am I on-screen? Turn the fucking camera off,” Jordan says. “For fuck’s sake, E.”

  Eric turns off the phone.

  Jordan paces.

  Eric watches, and tries to figure out the right thing to say. “We can probably fix it,” he says.

  Jordan spins at him. “What are you, E, fucking retarded? It’s fucking ruined. Wake up!”

  He starts walking away, out of the picnic area and back toward the trail to the parking lot. Eric hurries to follow.

  “Wait,” he says. “Where are you going?”

  But Jordan doesn’t slow down. “I just can’t hold your hand right now, E,” Jordan says. “Just leave me the fuck alone, okay?”

  He stalks toward the parking area. In the distance, E can hear his car pull away.

  180.

  Eric stands there, alone in the woods, for a while.

  (This is not the way this night was supposed to go.)

  He can’t shake the empty feeling in his chest. He’s never seen Jordan this way before, never knew Jordan Grant could flip out so incredibly thoroughly.

  Damn.

  181.

  Eric walks back to the picnic area. Back to the garbage drum.

  He tells himself he’s getting rid of the evidence. Protecting Jordan and the rest of the Pack in case someone else finds the bomb.

  That’s a lie, though.

  Eric knows it as soon as he lifts the bomb from the drum. He’s not thinking about protecting Jordan.

  He’s thinking about convincing Jordan he’s not a complete fucking failure.

  182.

  Eric and Haley and Paige were supposed to have plans with Jordan on the weekend. The weekend was when Eric was supposed to tell them his Fix. But it’s Saturday now, and Jordan’s bailing. He’s not returning calls. He’s AWOL.

  (Which is partially good, because Eric still has no freaking clue what he wants to Fix.)

  (But at the same time, it’s bad, because the Capilano High group on Kik is clamoring for more action.)

  (There hasn’t been a Suicide Pack Vine since the robbery at The Room. Allen Headley’s Corvette never made the highlight reels, for obvious reasons. And the Pack’s fans are getting restless.)

  Where the fuck is the Suicide Pack?

  More more more.

  Did they just bail out, or what?

  We need more.

  FEED US.

  183.

  With the Suicide Pack sidelined, Eric suddenly has a lot of free time on his hands. He should be thinking up a good Fix for the others. Instead, he’s researching bombs.

  This is because Eric didn’t get rid of the evidence, like he probably should have. He didn’t destroy the bomb.

  Instead, he carried it back up the trail—

  (very carefully).

  He packed it into his mom’s G-Wagen—

  (very carefully).

  He drove it home with him and brought it down to his

  room—

  (also quite carefully).

  And now he has the bag on his desk, and he’s lifting out the bomb to dismantle it—

  (more carefully than he’s ever done anything in his life).

  184.

  It looks like, you know, kitchenware.

  (It is, after all, a pressure cooker.)

  There’s no stew inside, though. Just gunpowder, a blasting cap, and a cheap plastic cell phone. A jumble of wires.

  Eric locks his bedroom door. Opens his laptop. Sits down and tries to rebuild Jordan’s bomb.

  185.

  It takes some looking, but Eric finds the website that Jordan probably cribbed from. It’s an underground portal, ANARCHIST HAVEN, very deep web. There are schematics and diagrams for all kinds of effed-up shit. Eric studies them until he finds something that looks familiar. He sees the mistake right away.

  (It’s so simple.)

  Jordan messed up the wiring from the burner phone. He crossed the wires up and hooked them in backward. It’s an easy mistake.

  (It’s easy to fix.)

  The wires are backward, Eric texts Jordan. I fixed it, so we should be good now.

  E presses send. The message delivers.

  186.

  Jordan doesn’t answer. Not right away.

  Twenty minutes pass, and Eric closes down his laptop. Paces the room. Checks his phone obsessively.

  He’s just about to, like, raid his mom’s bathroom for an Ambien or something when his phone buzzes.

  Jordan.

  You fixed it?

  I fixed it, Eric says. Good as new. Better. ☺

  A long pause. E puts the lid back on the bomb. Carries it gently to his closet and hides it behind his Givenchy high-tops.

  His phone buzzes again.

  Party at T Miles’s tonight. I’ll pick you up in an hour.

  187.

  Terry Miles lives up in the Properties, high on the mountain slopes overlooking Capilano. The mansions cling to the cliffsides, the roads turning and winding in switchbacks to where it gets too steep to build anything higher. Jordan drives fast, the Tesla’s engine working hard to keep the speed up. Haley and Paige are in the backseat. Eric’s riding shotgun. Nobody says anything. Nobody asks Jordan where he’s been.

  He reaches the top and slows the car and pulls into a driveway behind, like, eight Range Rovers, a couple Porsches, and a Mercedes CLS. The house is Tudor style, and dramatically lit, and when Eric climbs out of the Tesla he can look down and see the city far below, the lights of the bridge like a string of luminescent pearls.

  Eric takes it in for a minute or two. Then Jordan comes up beside him. “When the big earthquake hits, all these hypocrites are going to come crashing back down to earth,” he says. “And it’s going to be awesome.”
<
br />   Then he nudges Eric. “Party favors.”

  Haley’s holding four little pills in the palm of her hand. She takes one and swallows. Washes it down with a sugar-free Red Bull. Passes the can to Paige, who does the same. Then Jordan. They all look at Eric.

  “Molly,” Haley says.

  “All for one, E,” Jordan says. “Down the hatch.”

  For a moment, E has a twinge.

  Of his old worries.

  His old sense of responsibility.

  (But what’s a little recreational drug use when you’ve already built a bomb?)

  188.

  This party is a lot like the last party.

  There’s a bunch of kids and a bunch of red plastic cups, some crappy DJ spinning crappy hip-hop/classic-rock mashups and smiling about it, like he’s the first person to think of playing Kendrick Lamar over a Hall & Oates record.

  Elsewhere, people are coming out of the bathroom in pairs and threes, wiping their noses and fixing their clothes, and Terry Miles’s dad—his freaking dad—is bopping around with his own red plastic cup and acting totally age-inappropriate, leering at the cute girls who are dancing with each other in the living room.

  Jordan catches Eric gawking, slaps him on the back. “Boring as shit, right?” he says. “What a bunch of knobs.”

  189.

  Then they’re outside, on a balcony, watching a bunch of kids throw each other in the pool. Paige and Haley are down there with some girls they know from Cap, and Paige keeps glancing up at Eric and Jordan because she knows exactly where they are.

  “I shouldn’t have flipped out the other day,” Jordan tells Eric. “I’m sorry. I just really wanted that bomb to work.”

  The balcony is nothing but shadows. The door is closed behind Eric and Jordan so the noise of the party is muted. Eric and Jordan are alone, just watching the party.

  (Down on the pool deck, a bunch of juniors from the lacrosse team are trying to throw Paige and Haley in the pool.)

  Jordan’s leaning on the railing. He’s close enough to Eric that Eric can smell the pot and whatever soap Jordan uses, something spicy and probably expensive.

  (Eric likes that Jordan’s close, but he wants to get closer. The pill is pushing his inhibitions away.)

  (The Molly has Eric’s brain swimming in bathwater, unable to focus, unable to do anything, really, but just be.)

  “It’s cool,” Eric says. “I mean, whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter,” Jordan says. “We’re the Pack, right? We stick together. I shouldn’t have blown up at you.” He pauses. “No pun intended.”

  Eric laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. Jordan laughs, too.

  (They’re leaning on the railing, side by side. Eric keeps looking over at Jordan, watching his mouth while he talks.)

  (His lips.)

  (Snap out of it.)

  (But the Molly is kind of taking over.)

  Jordan catches Eric checking him out. He smiles, sly and mischievous and intoxicating. “You bugged out at Fincher’s Bluff. What’s up with that? You don’t have any secrets?”

  Eric closes his eyes. Sees Jordan anyway, Jordan on the Sundancer, shirt off. Jordan’s six-pack. And there’s so much he wants to talk about.

  “I couldn’t,” he says. “I can’t.”

  “Aha. You don’t trust us.”

  Eric feels another wave hit him.

  “I can’t,” he says again. “It’s, like, you and Haley are together, right? It would just make everything awkward.”

  The words come out before E even knows what he’s saying. But Jordan only smiles again. “Someone’s been feeding you incorrect information,” he says. “Haley and I hook up sometimes, but we aren’t, like, together. You need to stop worrying so much, E.”

  (Eric doesn’t answer.)

  (Jordan is so freaking close right now.)

  “Just do what you want, E,” Jordan says. “Live in the moment, remember?”

  And that’s when E decides he can’t take it anymore. He leans over and kisses Jordan, quickly, suddenly, before Jordan can react. As soon as their lips touch, E’s brain goes into meltdown. He pulls away, quickly, ready to apologize, duck a punch, run.

  (Or all of the above.)

  But Jordan doesn’t yell. He doesn’t gag or hit E.

  He just smiles even wider, and kisses E back.

  190.

  It’s a good kiss.

  (It might just be the drugs, but E doesn’t think so.)

  There’s a pace to it, no urgency, as if they’re a couple and they’ve been kissing each other forever.

  (As if it’s the thousandth kiss between them, and not just the first.)

  E closes his eyes, feels Jordan’s tongue brush against his own. Then, all too soon, Jordan pulls away.

  “See?” he says, grinning. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  191.

  E’s beyond caring about whatever point Jordan’s trying to make. He leans in to kiss Jordan again, thinking there must be a spare bedroom around here, or maybe Jordan’s backseat, somewhere, anywhere, thinking:

  You can’t just cut me off now that you’ve finally blown my fucking world apart.

  But Jordan puts his hand on E’s chest, not unkindly. He nods down toward the pool—

  (where the lacrosse douchebags have Paige and Haley cornered.

  They’re laughing, and Paige is shrieking,

  and they’re about to throw the girls in the pool).

  “We’d better save them,” Jordan says.

  His hand on E’s chest feels like Electricity.

  “Do we have to?” E says.

  Jordan smiles again, that mischievous, all-knowing smile. “Come on,” he says. “Before those assholes throw them in.”

  192.

  E and Jordan duck back into the party. There are kids everywhere, in all manner of intoxication. E can taste Jordan on his lips, and he’s sure everyone can tell what they’ve been doing.

  (E doesn’t want it to be over.)

  E follows Jordan through the house and out to the pool. They cut in between the lacrosse douchebags—

  (who are just about to grab Paige)

  (who is laughing about it, but who stops laughing and smiles wider when she sees E and Jordan)

  —and E puts his arm around Paige, and Jordan takes Haley, and together all four escape from the pool area, away from the douchebags—

  (who stare, mouths agape, too shocked to do anything).

  (And E’s thinking, now that Paige and Haley are saved, he and Jordan can wander off somewhere and continue what they started, but Haley has other ideas.)

  “This party’s bullshit,” she says when they’re almost at the back door. “I think we’ve done all we can here.”

  193.

  Paige heads to her cousin’s condo. The other three go back to Jordan’s.

  “I’m too high to sit still,” Jordan says. “Let’s go swimming.”

  They’re in his backyard now, on the pool deck. The mansion is completely empty.

  (Jordan’s dad is in Los Angeles, and his stepmom is in, uh, Fiji? Some transcendence retreat. She’s never around.)

  Jordan goes into the pool house and flips a switch, and the pool lights come on, some multicolored psychedelic show that looks amazing with the Molly. He comes out with a bottle of Johnnie Blue. Twists open the whiskey and takes a pull, passes it to Haley. Then he takes off his shirt.

  “What are you waiting for?” he says. “Strip.”

  Haley and E look at each other.

  “No time for bathing suits,” Jordan says. “Are we swimming, or not?”

  E takes a sip of the whiskey. It burns going down and sits warm in his stomach. He passes the bottle to Haley, and unbuttons his shirt.

  They drink in silence, peel off their clothes until they’re all three of them in their underwear, their skin glowing pale candy colors from the lights from the pool, the night a blanket all around them. Jordan takes a last drink of
whiskey and puts down the bottle and grins.

  “Last one in is guilty of a seditious act of terrorism,” he says, and then he’s jumping in the pool, diving down deep and swimming underwater toward the shallow end. E doesn’t wait for Haley. He dives in and swims after Jordan.

  194.

  Haley jumps in behind E. Surfaces, laughing. Shrieking. She and E follow Jordan to the shallow end.

  The night air is cool around them. E sits low, so only his head is above the water. Haley and Jordan do the same. They look at each other.

  “The Pack is back, bitches,” Haley says, giggling, and she slides back down in the water until she’s completely submerged, and then swims, pulling and kicking, for the other end of the pool.

  And it’s at that moment, while she’s underwater, that Jordan slips in beside E and kisses him again.

  195.

  (HALEY)

  Haley swims to the far wall. Bursts to the surface, gasping for air, then dives down again and swims back to the shallow end. She comes up again in the shallow end, panting, grinning like a maniac. Wipes the water from her face, the hair from her eyes, and there are Jordan and E, making out.

  Haley watches them as she catches her breath. It’s actually kind of sexy, if a little, you know, surprising. Jordan and E are both hot, and the pool lighting and the water on their tanned skin isn’t hurting, either. What the hell, Haley thinks, why can’t I enjoy this little show?

  (Still, it’s hard not to feel left out.)

  (#ThirdWheel.)

  Haley’s standing there in the shallow end, wondering if she’s supposed to keep swimming or, like, go inside while Jordan and E get it on, or what. Then it’s as if Jordan reads her mind. He breaks the kiss off with E and looks over at her. Gives her his sexy/cocky smile.

  “Come here,” he says, and the meaning is clear.

  Come be with us.

  Both of us.