My back straightens. “What did you say?”
His lips turn up into a smirk. “Yeah,” he says. “You have a problem with girls. You dumped Gwen and she’s hot. You gay, man?”
Rage ignites inside me and as my muscles tighten to rush forward, delicate fingers wrap around my arm. “He’s not worth it,” Beth says in a smooth voice.
Chris and Logan slide in between me and Tim, a barrier of skin, muscle, and bone between me and the guy I want to pound.
Tim continues to taunt me. “Real men aren’t saved by girls.”
“You’re drunk,” Logan announces to him in a bored voice.
From the other side of Logan, Tim holds out his hands. “Come and get me, Ryan. Prove that you’re a man.”
My fists curl and I step closer. “I’m game, Tim. Let’s do this.”
Chris pushes against my chest, but the pressure does nearly nothing to hold me back.
He yells at Beth, “Get him out of here!”
Her fingers intertwine with mine and that soft, feminine voice breaks through the anger.
“Let’s go.”
My eyes flick over to her. “Ryan,” she says.
“Please.”
Her one please breaks through the chaos disorienting my brain long enough to propel me in the opposite direction of Tim. I tighten my grip on Beth’s hand and lead her back to my Jeep, but not before snagging a six-pack of beer from a cooler.
Her fingers still clutch mine as we walk through the tall grass without saying a word. I release her when we reach the Jeep and we both hop in. My heart bleeds and anger courses in my veins. I turn on the engine and peel out of the clearing.
My brother left.
My brother is gay and he left and he’s never coming back. My father acts as if he never existed. My mother is miserable. My parents—people who once loved each other—hate each other.
Driving alongside the creek, I wait for a shallow part before crossing. I’ve tortured Beth enough. With this Jeep. With my presence.
Isaiah said I made her cry. My fingers tighten on the wheel. Beth’s right—I’m a jerk.
I’ll take her home, then ride to the back field of my house. And drink. By myself.
Drinking may not undo history, but it will cause me to forget for a few hours.
I jerk the wheel to the left when the rushing of the creek slows to a trickle. Water barely laps the tires as I cross, but the moment I hit the other side, I know I’m screwed. Mud.
Too much mud. Deep mud. I press on the gas and pull the wheel to the right to try to force the front tires on solid ground before the back ones sink, but it’s too late. The back tires whine and halt all forward progress.
“Shit!” I slam my hand on the steering
wheel. Knowing that fighting will drag us deeper, I cut the engine. I’m stuck. I yank the hat from my head and throw it to the floorboard. That sums everything up—I’m in deep and I’m stuck.
My leg sinks a foot into the mud. Beth will be full of colorful words when I tell her we’re going to have to walk. The mud acts like slow-drying concrete, making each step nearly impossible. My jeans rub and slosh in the filth.
I’m a complete mess, but I don’t have to let Beth get this dirty.
I haven’t been much of a gentleman to her. In fact, I’ve been the opposite. Not that her shining personality has made it easy. I open her door and hold out my arms. “Come here.”
Her forehead furrows. “What?”
“I’m going to carry you out of the mud.”
She lifts an incredulous eyebrow. “The show’s over, Bat Boy. You don’t have to be nice to me anymore.”
Not in the mood for her mouth or an argument, I slip my arms underneath her knees and lift her out of the seat. She won’t be bitching me out the entire walk home because I ruined her shoes.
“Wait!” Beth wiggles in my arms and reaches for the Jeep.
Can’t she permit me one nice act? “Dammit, Beth, let me help you.”
Ignoring me, Beth leans into the passenger side. The back of her shirt hitches up, exposing her smooth skin and Chinese symbols tattooed along her spine. My eyes follow the path of the symbols until they disappear into her jeans.
Way too quickly for me, she leans back into my arms, two six-packs of beer cradled against her chest.
My eyes flicker from the beer to Beth.
She shrugs. “Six wasn’t enough.”
For me, it’s plenty. I don’t want a drinking partner tonight and if I did, it wouldn’t be her. I kick the door shut and wade out of the mud.
Beth’s light. Weighs one hundred; maybe one-o-five wet.
“You’re obsessed with touching me,” she says.
I jostle Beth to shut her up. The beer cans clank together as she juggles them to prevent them from falling out of her lap. “Readjusting”
Beth did shut her up, but it positioned her head closer to mine. I stare straight ahead and try not to focus on the sweet scent of roses drifting from her hair.
“You are obsessed with touching me. You could have put me down forever ago.”
Withdrawn into my own head, I hadn’t noticed that we’d entered her uncle’s woods.
“Sorry.”
I place Beth on her feet, snatch both six-packs from her hands, and stalk in the direction of her house. Scott all but bought billboard signs announcing that alcohol was off-limits for Beth.
Lucky for her, I drove along the creek toward Scott’s property. Otherwise, it could have been one hell of a walk—for her.
Something tells me she’s not the outdoorsy type.
She stays a few steps behind and I appreciate the silence. Fall crickets chirp and a slight breeze rustles through the leaves on the trees. Right over the next hill is Scott’s pasture and his back barn. A twig snaps behind me as Beth rushes to my side. “Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you home.”
A light grip pulls on my biceps. “The hell you are.”
I stop, not because Beth’s touch halts me, but because I find her attempt to physically stop me amusing. “You’ve fulfilled your obligation. You came to the party, now I’m taking you home. We’re done. I don’t have to look at you. You don’t have to look at me.”
Beth bites her lower lip. “I thought we were starting over.”
What the hell? Isn’t this what she wanted— to be left alone? “You hate me.”
Beth says nothing, neither confirming nor denying what I said, and the thought that my words are true causes my heart to clench.
Screw it. I don’t have to understand her. I don’t need her. I turn my back to her and push forward—through the tall grass of the pasture, toward the red barn.
“Have you ever drunk alone?” she asks.
I freeze. When I don’t answer, she continues, “It sucks. I did it once—when I was fourteen.
It makes you feel worse. Alone. My friend…”
She falters. “My best friend and I agreed that we’d never drink alone again. We promised we’d have each other’s backs.”
It’s weird to hear Beth talk so openly and part of me wishes she’d go back to being foulmouthed and rude. She seems less human then. “Is there a reason why you’re telling me this?”
The grass rustles as she fidgets. “Six of those beers are mine and I have a little more than four hours to curfew. I guess I’m saying we could call a truce for tonight and neither one of us have to be alone.”
“Your uncle Scott would crucify me.”
“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
I glance over my shoulder and watch as she weaves through the flowing grains to reach me.
“I swear I have more to lose than you do.
He won’t know.”
Mud spots her face, cakes in her hair, and stains her clothes. Half of that mud Beth gained on our trip in. I should have told her what she looked like before we went to the party, but Beth was laughing. Smiling. I selfishly held on to the moment.
On top of that, Isaiah said I made her cry. I assess the small beauty in front of me. There’s more to her, I know there is. I saw it in her eyes when she laughed with me in the Jeep.
Felt it in her touch as we danced.
I must be losing my mind. “One beer.”
Beth
STRAW IS SOFT TO LIE ON.
Sort of scratchy.
Comfortable.
Great for weightlessness.
It smells musty and dusty and dirty. The corners of my lips flinch in a moment of joy.
Musty. Dusty. And dirty. Those words flow well together. Staring at the shadows from the light created by the camping lantern Ryan found in the corner of Scott’s barn, I inhale deeply. I’m finally high.
Not pot high. Ryan’s too straitlaced for that.
Airy in alcohol would be a better description.
Three beers. Isaiah would laugh his ass off.
Three beers and I’m floating. Guess that’s what happens when you stay sober for a couple of weeks in a row.
Isaiah.
My chest aches.
“My best friend is pissed at me and I’m pissed at him.” I’m the first to break the silence beyond the crack and hiss of beer cans popping open and the rustle and cooing of birds in the rafters. “My only friend.”
In slow motion, Ryan rolls his head to look at me. He sits on the ground with his torso sloppily supported by a stack of baled hay. A glaze covers his light brown eyes. I give him major props. At six beers, the boy has drunk me under the table. Correction—under bales of hay. “Which one?”
“Isaiah,” I say and my heart twists. “He’s the guy with the tattoos.”
“Is the other one your boyfriend?”
I mean to chuckle. Instead it comes out more of a snort and a hiccup. Ryan laughs at me, but I’m so weightless I don’t care. “Noah? No, he’s helplessly in love with some insane chick.
Besides, Noah and I aren’t friends. We’re more like siblings.”
“Really?” The disbelief oozes from Ryan.
“You don’t resemble each other.”
I wave my hand frantically in the air. “No. We’re not related. Noah can’t stand me, but he loves me. Takes up for me. Like siblings.”
Love. I purposely knock the back of my head against the ground in frustration. Isaiah said he loved me. I search the cobwebbed corridors of my emotions and try to imagine loving him back. All I find is a hollow emptiness. Is that what love is? Emptiness?
Ryan narrows his eyes for a deep-in-thought expression, but six beers in an hour tells me he probably spaced out. “So you don’t have a boyfriend?”
“Nope.”
Ryan cracks open another beer. I start to protest as he has infiltrated my stash, but decide against it. I want weightless, not puking. I have to return to Scott’s in three hours and coherency will be required.
“Why is Isaiah mad at you?” he asks.
“He loves me,” I say without thinking, and immediately regret it. “And other things.”
“Do you love him back?” That’s the fastest Ryan has responded since his second beer.
I sigh heavily. Do I? “I’d throw myself in front of a bus to push him out of the way.” If it would save him. If it would make him happy.