“I love experiments,” Conner declared, shouldering through the kids behind Harry, a cigarette dangling from his mouth; his already short polo sleeves rolled up to accentuate his biceps. “Who is our experiment fucking with?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Harry said, sending him an annoyed backward glance.
Conner gave a contemptuous crinkle of his brow. “I never worry, bro. But I am a nosy dick and I keep hearing stuff about you guys.” He jabbed the cigarette in my direction. “You gotta let me in on your secret.”
I batted away the smoke, twisted to retrieve my beer, and pretended to take a sip of the warm brew. Harry was newly absorbed in cracking his knuckles.
“I hear you like running around naked where they found that dead bitch when we were kids.” He paused. “Yeah,” he continued smugly, as if Harry or I had made some noise of admission, “I know all about your secret orgies.”
I watched the beer swirl in my cup. My hand shook with the desire to throw it in Conner’s face.
“Whoa, classy,” Harry said. “You always talk about victims like that?”
Conner’s grin grew mean. “When they’re trash, yeah.” He tapped the cigarette, ash falling to the hardwood floor. His attention latched onto me. “What about you, Izzie? I think you’re probably the kinkiest. You like scissoring under the full moon?”
“I don’t think you understand the fundamentals of that term,” I said.
He turned to give me side-eye. “You know. One in every school. Carries her diary in her backpack. Doesn’t do makeup ’cause it’s sexist and shit. But get a few beers in her and she’s stripping.”
I gave him the glare equivalent of a middle finger.
“You’re right, man, you are a dick,” Harry said. “And we don’t care if you wonder about us, just do it someplace else.” He cut Conner out of our little corner with his back.
“Fuck,” Conner said. “I’m trying to be a nice guy. We want to know what you’re into. Everyone does after last night. People have eyes is all I’m saying, bro.”
Harry’s neck became red, the tendons pronounced.
“What happened to you, Conner?” I asked.
“Huh?” he grunted, running a hand through his yellow hair.
“You didn’t used to be mean. Do you remember third grade when I came back to school after my grandpa died and I played you at tetherball? Big game. Our whole class watched. You usually crushed everyone at tetherball. But you let me win. So what happened to you?”
He recoiled—or maybe I imaged he did. “Shut up already, freak,” he said, shoving past kids to get away from us.
Harry let out a loud, shaky exhale.
“Who cares what he thinks or says?” I told him. He nodded but the voltage in his eyes worried me, like he might go after Conner any second.
“Hey, listen.” I tapped my ear.
The hip-hop song playing transitioned into something jazzy and old-timey remixed with hip-hop. Harry’s frown eased. And then Conner was forgotten and we were talking about music—Harry’s record collection, how he was saving up for a portable record player, how I missed the record player I’d had when I was younger, and the last concert I’d gone to with Viv in Los Angeles the summer before.
After music, Harry and I played a game where we picked someone out of the crowd and pretended to read their thoughts. I closed my eyes during a laughing fit and opened them to realize that most of the kids had left.
“C’mere,” Viv slurred from her post at the fridge. She was between Jess and Rachel. Amanda sat on the kitchen island, drilling the cabinets with her stacked heels. Graham was taking a hit off a joint, standing by the open patio door with the boy band. Reluctantly Harry and I migrated over to Viv.
“Amanda wants to know what we do in the barn,” Viv said clear enough that I doubted the initial slur in her voice. Her eyes twinkled. Sharp. Focused.
“Hang out and study,” I said. I took a backward step. They were all staring at me.
“C’mon,” Amanda whined, her heels hitting the cabinet with a vicious drive. “Study?”
Viv’s eyelash extensions brushed her cheeks as she shrugged coyly. “Sometimes we do homework in there, when we’re not bonfiring and—” She bit her bottom lip. “Oops, I forgot I can’t say. I’m such a lightweight.” And there it was: a juicy morsel she’d let slip to entice the others.
“C’mon, tell us,” Rachel said, swaying a bit on her feet.
“Please,” Jess said.
“It’ll go in the vault,” Amanda promised, raising her right hand to make a pledge.
Graham took a sip from a flask I’d never seen him with. “What do you think we do? Theories?”
I widened my eyes at him.
“You’ll say if we guess right?” Jess asked.
Graham shrugged, handing the flask to Campbell.
Jess leaned forward conspiratorially. “I think you’re pagans who worship anything with an evil eye, sacrifice four animals every full moon, read tarot cards, and don’t believe in monogamy.”
Was the emphasis she placed on four animals every full moon a coincidence? She was still leaning over, breasts bubbling up, tongue flicking her front teeth. Graham’s eyes dimmed. “Creative,” he said flatly. Why wasn’t he picking up on her flirting with him?
“Oh, me now,” Amanda exclaimed, childishly clapping her hands. “I think you’re playing a high-stakes game of truth and dare. With dares like you shoot apples off of one another’s heads with arrows and punk people who piss you off.”
“And sex,” Trent said, laughing, his bloodshot eyes running from me to Viv. “Campbell saw you butt naked.”
“I never said naked,” Campbell said, returning the flask to Graham’s waiting hand.
Amanda twirled her cardigan’s top button as she studied us. “Are you having sex parties?”
Conner coughed midinhale of his cigarette.
I feigned a yawn. “I’m tired. Can we please go?”
“Oh my god, I was kidding about sex parties,” Amanda’s hands flapped. “But listen.” She smoothed her hair in a self-satisfied way. “I’m not dumb and you four aren’t as smart as you think. It’s obvious you’re into something crazy and this year is basic as fuck, so we want in.”
“You want in,” Graham repeated a little bug-eyed.
“Yeah.” She yawned with disinterest, but her wheedling tone betrayed her. “Whatever bonfire, streaking, truth or dare, prank pulling, punking shenanigans you guys are about, we want in.”
“You can’t have in because there’s nothing for you to be in,” I said. I turned to Graham, who’d driven us. “Home, please.”
“What were you and Harry doing in Berrington yesterday?” There was a sweet snare to Amanda’s voice.
I spun around. “Are you following us?”
“Please.” She swatted the air. “Rachel’s cousin does nails in downtown Berrington and she does Rachel’s for free before every dance.”
“I saw you,” Rachel said. It rang of childish accusation.
I smirked. “You see us all the time.”
“Why’d you buy so much meat at the butcher shop?”
“It’s not your business, but my parents are having a barbecue,” Harry lied smoothly.
“But you were carrying these huge containers and running,” Rachel insisted.