“Not now,” I say after a minute.
She trails a fingertip over my face, atop my ear, and then she kisses my lips. Fuck. I flip the tables, getting Evie under me and straddling her hips. So dangerous. Oh God, I’m so damn hard.
“You have to go upstairs.” I press my cheek against her cheek. “You have to. Please.”
She does.
Tomorrow, we can’t even make it to school. We onto a dirt road off a county road, and we get further with our hands and mouths. So far, I have to change into my soccer shorts.
It’s wrong—but it feels so damn right.
Ten
Evie
I don’t realize there’s a party Friday night until Makayla tells me at the end of band class.
“Jake’s dad is in South America.”
“Um, what?” I’m taking my clarinet apart.
“Yep. Gone the whole week, so he’s throwing a party.”
Jake’s dad is a pediatric neurosurgeon who gives conferences all over the world. The Yahns’ house is big and beautiful, in the Asheville hills, not far from mine.
“Anyway,” Makayla says, snapping her flute case closed, “you have to go. Landon is going.”
“He is?”
She smiles wickedly. “Jake’s forward-thinking ass invited some of the guys over for a fishing thing last week. He didn’t mention his parents’ absence, so none of the guys had to play it off to their parents. Now everyone has permission to be gone that night—so all you need is to spend the night with me and we’re golden.”
I think this over while I spread some oil on one of my clarinet’s corks.
“Oh, come on, you giant square. No one’s going to pour liquor down your throat. You can be my handler. And Landon’s.”
My stomach tightens as she says that, and my best friend leans toward me. “Evie, I know you. Since we were two,” she whispers. “If nothing’s happened yet, I’d be surprised.”
I look down at my shoes, a gray suede boot on my right foot, and the black plastic boot on my left. Makayla throws her arms around me. “Okay, Eeyore. I’m sorry that I said something. But you’re coming tonight. You are.”
Of course I am.
Mom and Dad have no problem letting me stay with Makayla, whose parents they trust. And Makayla’s parents have no problem letting her stay with me. Neither of us has ever given them any reason to distrust us—that they know of.
Landon leaves with Jake and the guys shortly after school lets out, for a weekend of fishing at the Yahns’. Their property is beautiful and fairly big: a hundred or so acres of prime hill country. So the fishing/camping story is a good one.
I feel a little bad for lying to my parents, but I mostly feel excited as I pack my overnight bag. I get into Makayla’s car in jean shorts and a light blue top. She takes one look at me and shakes her head. We make a pit stop at a gas station while Makayla sends me inside to change into a dress she brought me.
“It’s going to be too short,” I tell her. (Makayla is only five feet tall; I’m five-four and a half). She shakes her head.
“It’s too long for me.”
I emerge feeling surprisingly confident. The dress is navy blue, with fun, flouncy sleeves and a cheer-skirt type of hemline. It’s casual and cotton, so it looks fine with my plain sandal and big black boot.
“It’s perfect. You’re still low-key, but you look less ‘just bounced on a trampoline.’”
“I have a cast, you dweeb. I never looked like I bounced on a trampoline.”
Makayla sticks her tongue out, and we head to Jake’s house. Because she is my best friend, she doesn’t say a word about Landon. I’m telling her via ESP to stick a sock in it, and Makayla hears me.
Jake’s house is…insane. Cars everywhere, the whole lawn lit up with white holiday lights. We find out once we’re inside the massive graystone that Tia had her older sister, a professional real estate stager, come do the yard up for the night, so she could take pictures of it for a magazine.
Within thirty minutes of milling around inside the house, I’ve see everyone from school, kids from other schools I only know from the country club and summer camps, and a whole gaggle of people I’ve never seen in my life.
But I haven’t seen Landon. That is, until I spot him by the fireplace in the living room, chatting with some skinny, black-haired girl who’s wearing butt-short jean shorts.
I look them over from across the room. She might notice me staring, but Landon doesn’t; his back is to me. He’s wearing a hunter green T-shirt, khaki shorts, and leather flip-flops. And a hat. I didn’t even know he had a ball cap.
Landon talks to this hussy for forever. And ever. So long that I leave the room with a twisting feeling in my stomach and a heavy lump in my throat. What if he gets a girlfriend? What if he’s trying to?
When I see him again, I’m in the kitchen, pouring myself lemonade from a pitcher on the table.
I see Landon walk into the kitchen from the other side of the room, and watch him walk to the refrigerator. He’s alone—thank God. He’s opening the fridge when another guy, a shorter dude with thick, fluffy brown hair and a popped collar, slaps him on the arm. Landon turns to him, and I can see his face go slack with…shock?
I stop eating so I can watch as Landon looks down at the guy. He nods a few times, says something, and leaves the room without getting anything out of the refrigerator.
Weird.
I wonder why he hasn’t talked to me yet. Maybe he’s just being smart. We should avoid each other out in public, I guess.
My night unfolds in normal party fashion, which is to say, I talk to all my tipsy friends, struggle to finish one gross-tasting cup of beer, and laugh at all the antics going on around me.
Behind Jake’s house, in a space a little larger than a football field, are two ponds, with a thick, grass median between them. If I recall, each pond is stocked with different types of fish.
On the left side of the ponds is a giant field, and if you keep on going, a trailhead that leads up to a sizable waterfall. I only know about it because Jake’s parents and mine are friends, so we grew up around here.
It seems, from where I’m standing on the deck, as if the party is mostly confined to the pool deck and the ponds directly behind it. In the median between ponds, the boys have pitched a few tents.
Because that’s not transparent…
Thirty minutes later, my clan has wandered out beyond the pool, where there’s a rowdy game of water volleyball, and toward the pond to the right, where I see splashing in the water near the mucky shore.
Makayla and Tia stop to get some water bottles from a nearby cooler, but my eyes are glued to the figures in the water.
It’s two guy-and-girl couples, seemingly fighting; the girls are on the guys’ shoulders.