by Dean, Ali
I could go on and on, but that’s how it was with every group. Surface friends. It was cool. I liked it this way. I could do what I wanted. And tonight, that meant I was at the Lake. In short shorts and a halter top. People must have carpooled because there were more people standing around the bonfire than I expected from the dozen or so cars parked. Maybe forty or fifty already.
“Hay-Zel!” Isaiah spotted me first. He whistled as we came into the light by the fire. “Girl you are lookin’ F-I-N-E fine.” Isaiah was loud.
I didn’t have to look around to know that Cruz wasn’t here yet. All the attention had shifted to me, and conversation quieted. The girls I’d walked over with began to fidget and then stopped walking forward altogether. Being the focus didn’t faze me though, and I strode toward the basketball player.
“You clean up nice yourself,” I told him with a wink, going in for hugs with the others he was standing around. After Cruz Donovan, Isaiah Cross was one of the best athletes to come out of Defiance Falls, Massachusetts.
People quickly returned to whatever they were doing and I felt the weight of the eyes leave me. I knew Cruz and his guys weren’t here yet. Everything was heightened when he was around. Right now, the air was easy to breathe and the vibe was mellow. No, that wasn’t right exactly. There was still a zing of energy pulsing around the bonfire. Anticipation.
This was Cruz Donovan’s party. His family’s property. He’d get here soon, and everything would turn up a notch.
Isaiah threw an arm around my shoulder. “Haven’t seen you all summer, Haze. Were you hanging with Blake?” He’d managed to tone down his voice from the initial greeting, but everyone in our circle stopped talking, waiting for my answer.
I’d started dating Blake Carmen after Christmas break, knowing he was graduating a few months later, and club soccer season would keep me busy. It was safe. There was an easy out.
“Nah, we split at the beginning of the summer.”
Hanna, another senior soccer player, didn’t hide her surprise. “Seriously? Man, I thought you guys were together this whole time. Will he be here tonight?”
I couldn’t hide my grin. There was the inner bitch coming out. I hadn’t seen it from Hanna yet, not really, but she was now looking at me with eager eyes. My teammate, a girl I played on not one, not two, but three different soccer teams with, wanted to bang my ex-boyfriend. Wasn’t even trying to be subtle about it.
I shrugged. “Maybe. He might have left for Harvard already.”
She pulled at her bottom lip. “Do you think I should text him to see if he wants to come?”
She was really asking me this. “Uh, yeah. Sure. Why not?”
I started to turn around, and then remembered Isaiah’s arm was still on my shoulder. And that he had been the one to ask the question. Oh, ah, I got it now. I looked up at Isaiah, deciding how to play this smooth, when I heard the roar of an engine. My head spun toward the noise and I spotted a green Hummer coming toward us, veering off the dirt driveway.
Its horn blared a few times, and then it parked inches away from a group of people. Spike Matlock leaned his head out the open window. “The kegs have arrived!” he shouted. The announcement was followed by hoots and hollers and everyone moved in that direction.
I stood rooted in place, waiting for Cruz to get out. But it wasn’t Cruz who stepped out of the passenger seat. It was Peter Moody. Tall, lanky, and the poster boy for cool geek, I found myself doing a double-take every time I saw him these past few months. He’d grown at least half a foot and filled out some too. The boy was no longer awkward and gangly. He was kind of a hunk actually. Moody was used to being the least attractive of this group when it came to the ladies, but I didn’t know if that was true anymore. He had swagger, he just didn’t know it yet.
Next, my cousins got out of the backseat.
Bodhi and Emmett Boyd were only two months younger than me, born a week before Christmas. They weren’t identical, but the resemblance was unmistakable. Dark hair, blue eyes, soccer player builds, I knew they’d be the hottest guys in school if Cruz had remained at Mayflower Academy. They had mischief written all over them from day one. Mimi – our grandma – sometimes still referred to them as Trouble and Double Trouble. Tonight was no different. There was a glint in their eyes as they looked around the bonfire, searching. I sighed, remembering Dad texted them I’d be here.
I’d grown up with these two since birth, Moody and Spike since kindergarten. The five of us had been best friends through elementary. In middle school, the four guys began to hang out more without me, and I lost my footing. It wasn’t intentional, not exactly. All of us played soccer with the same club, on ODP, and at school. That was where we spent all of our time. By age twelve they kicked me off the boys’ teams and I had to play with the girls. That was the same time Cruz Donovan joined the guys’ club team and ODP. Eventually, he took my place.
I hung in the shadows now, not ready to be sucked in. I was waiting for Cruz to get out of the Hummer. I wanted to watch, take it in. But he didn’t get out. The guys circled around the back and I wondered if he’d been sitting in the trunk with the kegs? No. Cruz Donovan wouldn’t take a bitch seat.
And once again, with the frenzy of their entrance simmering down, I realized I already knew he hadn’t come with his guys. My body wasn’t tingling with awareness, the electric current wasn’t pulsing yet in the air. So I relaxed. Only for a beat though.
Bodhi, aka Double Trouble, had spotted me and he made a beeline through the crowd forming around the Hummer.
He was grinning wide and his twin was hustling behind him to catch up. When he reached me he put his hands on his hips. “Haze.”
I raised my eyebrows before mimicking his movement. “Bodhi.”
Emmett bulldozed us a moment later, tackling me with a hug and taking his brother down with him. The three of us ended up in a tangled heap on the ground.
“Get off, you jerks,” I said with no punch behind it whatsoever. “Was that really necessary?”
“Hell yeah,” Emmett said, rubbing my head with a noogie and jumping to his feet before I could retaliate. He put out a hand to pull me up and I took it, but then used all my force to tug him back down. Em stumbled but managed to stay upright.
Bodhi licked the side of my face before getting to his own feet. I wasn’t surprised to smell tequila on his breath.
“Come on, Haze, we’re just happy to see you,” Bodhi protested. This time, the two of them worked together to scoop me up onto my feet.
“You saw me yesterday at Pops and Mimi’s,” I grumbled. Sunday night dinners at our grandparents’ were mandatory. The only exceptions came when we had to travel for soccer tournaments. Otherwise, no excuses.
The doofuses kept grinning at me, eyes wild with excitement, and my heart rate picked up. Shoot. I hadn’t really thought this part through.
Bodhi and Emmett exchanged a look then and when their smiles got even bigger, I took a step back. “Don’t even think about it,” I warned.
“No, not that. We just think you need to loosen up. Come on.” Em gestured for me to follow him but I shook my head.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said, squinting at them suspiciously.
“What if we promise not to throw you in the lake?” Bodhi asked, trying and failing to sound genuine.
“I wouldn’t believe you.”
“That’s fair,” Bodhi conceded.
“We just want to help you loosen up a little so you can enjoy yourself,” Em declared, walking backward with his arms out in a conciliatory gesture.
I started to roll my eyes but then I felt it. That shift I’d been waiting for. The hum of energy that went straight from my head to my toes and settled low in my belly.
The twins must have sensed something too because they looked over my shoulder. The fifty or so people who had been here when I arrived had already grown in number in a short time. Most of them had been working their way to the keg, half focused on Moody and Spike while ke
eping a curious eye on the twins. No one had noticed the figure gliding through the trees. Why was he coming from that direction?
Shadows danced across his face as he emerged into the clearing. His eyes met mine. Everything quieted for that instant and I sucked in a sharp breath. His mouth parted and then his lips tilted up. The air crackled, or maybe it was just the bonfire. My entire body was on high alert. Kind of like it got before game kickoff or a penalty shot. Only this wasn’t just in my blood and bones. It was tingling along my skin and low in my belly. Cruz’s eyes remained locked on mine as I tried to steady my breathing.
After all these years, my infatuation and subsequent heartbreak should have faded. I’d been with Cruz for a shorter time period than my other ex-boyfriends, and I still wasn’t even sure we’d been anything real. We were so young. It was before high school even started. Yet even now, going into our senior year, I had no control over my reaction to him. My mind went haywire and my body lit up. It never dulled. I swear, it was only getting stronger with time. Did he have any idea what he still did to me?
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