Last Stop This Town (22 page)

Pike loosened his grip on the kid’s collar a bit. Amazingly, after all these years, Pike’s parents still had no idea Pike was a stoner, and they were actually pretty strict. “Okay, okay, hold up. What do you want?”

“Give me the weed.”

“Sorry, it already got stolen.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true,” Pike said with the utmost sincerity.

The busboy looked disappointed. “Fine, then I guess I’m keeping the phone.”

Pike had had enough of all the bullshit and suddenly found himself without the will to keep arguing with this guy. “Fine. Keep it,” he said as he let him go.

The busboy brushed himself off and pocketed the phone.

Pike turned to leave, then stopped. Something dawned on him. He turned back to the busboy.

“Wait a second. My phone doesn’t have a
speed dial
.” It was a brand new BlackBerry, not a piece of shit Nokia from 2007.

Their eyes met. Busted.

The busboy ran and quickly disappeared in the crowd. He was gone.

Pike screamed out once again, “Fuck.”

Tonight was not his night, he thought. It occurred to him in that moment that everything that had gone wrong had been a direct result of Pike being stoned. Maybe Dylan had a point about easing up on the pot.

Pike hung his head low and was just about to start back to the bar when he heard…

“Pike?”

He turned. It was Walker, with Genevieve.

“Hey, you made it!” Walker boomed excitedly. He looked around. “What happened to Haley?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Pike noticed Walker was holding Genevieve’s hand. Then he looked at Walker’s face and stared into his eyes. Something was different. A disturbance in the Force.

Walker had gotten laid.

Pike knew, and without a word passing between them, Walker knew he knew. Walker blushed a little.

But there was nothing to be embarrassed about. Pike smiled and patted Walker on the back, genuinely happy for him.

A thought sprang up in Pike’s addled brain. Even after all the shit he’d been through tonight, seeing Walker with that glow, that confidence and knowing maturity washed over his face… somehow that made it all worth it. He knew that one thing had nothing to do with the other. Or did it? Whatever the answer, in that moment Pike felt that all was right in the world.

“Come on,” Pike said as all the negativity left his body. “Let’s go find the guys.”

Dylan stood at the bar alone, watching the talent walk by, but he wasn’t in the mood for any more female companionship tonight. He ordered another beer from the bartender.

“Dylan?”

He turned and saw someone he knew. It was his friend Pete, the one who told him about the party, the guy from the ski trip. Dylan couldn’t believe it.

“Pete! No way!”

They hugged, then Pete asked, “You didn’t have any trouble finding the party, did you?”

Dylan laughed. “Yeah, no problem at all.”

Just then, a girl returned with a drink for Pete and he kissed her. With tongue. Dylan recognized her. It was the hooker from Houston Street.

“This is my date—” Pete began but Dylan interrupted him, “Yeah, we’ve met. Hi, Coco, good to see you again.”

She smiled knowingly.

Just then, Dylan’s beer arrived and he grabbed it. “Well, you guys have a ball,” he said as he bid them farewell. Then he added under his breath, “Or three.”

Dylan walked back to the place near the bar where he had agreed to meet everyone. Just then, Noah returned, looking defeated. “I can’t find her anywhere. There’s too many people.”

Dylan hated seeing his best friend looking so sad and hopeless. He had to do something. “I’ve got an idea. Follow me.”

Noah followed Dylan to the DJ platform.

The DJ was a hot chick with a blonde Mohawk. She was busy doing her thing but Dylan gently touched her bare shoulder and she turned to him. She saw he wanted to say something, so she took off one side of her headphones so she could hear him.

“Hi. Listen. My friend here needs to borrow your P.A. system for a sec.”

And then he smiled.

The three brothers searched the party, looking for the dead men that had dared fuck with them. “They’re here somewhere,” Anthony told his brothers.

Sarah and Kim Striker were having a great time, dancing along to the music. By now Sarah knew that Kim was into her, and by the way she let him grab her ass and grind her on the dance floor she made it clear that she was into him as well. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him.

All of a sudden, the music stopped.

There was some confusion, some murmurs from the crowd, then…

“Excuse me,” Noah announced over the P.A. system. “Sorry to interrupt the party, but I’m looking for my girlfriend Sarah Larson.”

Sarah turned white. “Oh, my God.”

Kim Striker looked at Sarah, a little ticked off, asking her, “Wait. You said you two broke up.” But Sarah wasn’t paying attention to him anymore.

Noah continued, for the whole crowd to hear, “Sarah? If you’re out there somewhere, I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

He was talking into the microphone at the elevated DJ platform, trying to look out into the crowd, searching for Sarah as he spoke. “I’d really love to do this face to face. Are you out there?”

A hush fell over the crowd.

Suddenly, a spotlight appeared and started scanning the crowd.

“Sarah?”

The spotlight searched the crowd.

Sarah finally raised her hand timidly.

The spotlight zeroed in on her.

Noah’s eyes lit up on seeing her. She had never looked more beautiful.

She called out, “What do you want, Noah?”

Another spotlight turned on Noah. And from somewhere else in the crowd, Anthony looked up at the DJ platform. “There! That’s the guy!” Anthony shouted triumphantly. They lumbered toward him.

Noah continued, “Everything is changing so fast, I feel like it’s all slipping away. But I don’t want to lose you.”

The crowd let out a collective “aw” and Sarah’s heart was starting to melt as well.

“Who knows what’ll happen when we go off to school, but why not spend the summer together? Maybe the odds are against us, but who cares? Why waste the time that we do have?”

Noah suddenly realized he didn’t have to keep talking into the microphone. He handed it back to the DJ and headed through the crowd to her. “Excuse me, let me through, excuse me.” The spotlight followed him.

Noah made his way through the rapt crowd and finally reached Sarah as the two spotlights merged into one.

She was a little teary-eyed. “I thought you said we had to be realistic.”

“But isn’t that what high school is all about? Being unrealistic?” He took her hand in his. “Look, Sarah, I love you, and that’s all that matters.”

Sarah wasn’t one to drag things out when her mind was made up. She kissed him! And the crowd went wild with cheers and applause.

The music started up again and amid the deafening noise, Sarah whispered, “I’m scared, too.”

“I know.”

They kissed again. Sarah suddenly realized that Kim Striker was still standing there and she came up for air. “Oh, so this is my friend Kim.”

Noah shook his hand. “Hey. Sorry to ruin your date.”

Kim Striker threw up his hands. “She’s all yours, dude. No way I’m getting in the middle of this.”

Suddenly, there was a scream. Noah looked back at the DJ platform and saw the three brothers dragging Dylan to the floor. Noah’s heart sank. “Dylan!” He raced through the crowd with Sarah close behind.

The crowd of people had formed a circle around the fight and no one dared to interfere. Anthony and Sal held Dylan by the arms as Vinnie delivered a powerful roundhouse punch to the face. Blood splattered from Dylan’s mouth.

In a fair fight, Dylan might have been able to take any one of them. But three against one was different, and even an experienced Army Ranger would have had a hard time fending off three hardened street fighters. Still, Dylan eked out a bloody smile, not willing to give them the satisfaction of seeing him suffer.

This further enraged Vinnie. “No one steals from us!” he shouted. Then he punched Dylan in the gut, doubling him over in pain and wiping the smile off his face.

But Dylan was treating this as a matter of pride. Or endurance. He recovered, looked up at Vinnie with a glimmer in his eye, and said, “Fuck you.”

Just then, Noah pushed through the crowd and
tackled Vinnie
, slamming him into the ground. Sarah screamed!

The other two brothers dropped Dylan and rushed over to Noah who put up his hands defensively. “Stop! Stop!” he pleaded, and the guys stopped to hear him out.

“Look, we’ll pay you the money. But you did steal our marijuana.” Noah looked over and saw Pike and Walker rushing toward him with Genevieve.

Pike whispered to Walker, “
These
are the guys who stole my weed?”

Pike and Walker glued themselves to Noah’s side and squared off against the three brothers. Noah helped Dylan up. Now at least it was a fair fight.

Each of the four friends had had an occasional fist fight in his day. What normal American boy hadn’t? But this was different. Judging by Dylan’s injuries, they were probably going to wind up in the hospital shortly. But in that moment, none of them was thinking about the consequences. They weren’t scared, even a little. They were acting on instinct, an instinct that was telling them to protect their friend. It was a moment of pure camaraderie. They glanced at each other for a split second and smiled. There was no place in the world they’d rather be.

“You wanna do this?” Sal asked rhetorically, “Let’s do this.” He raised his fist, but before he could throw the next punch, someone grabbed his arm from behind.

He turned to see
Chuck
towering over him. And behind Chuck was the rest of the Hall High football team, ready to fight. Dylan and the guys broke into big smiles, elated that Chuck Zambrelli was going to save the day.

“No,
now
let’s do this,” Chuck said dramatically.

Fists started flying with the four friends in the center of the melee. It was chaotic, with punches and kicks flying from every direction.