Party (9 page)

Anthony kinda grinned after them as they headed out to the back patio, then turned back toward the TV. The mute button must’ve been on, because that closed-captioned thing was scrolling at the top of the screen. Something about the economy. F’ing
boring
.

I moved off the long couch and sat nearer A-train, but keeping plenty of space between us. “Fag seat,” I called it. Two dudes can’t sit next to each other all close like that.

“So you’re playing next season, yeah?”

Anthony cocked an eyebrow and looked at me. “I don’t know.”

“You should, man, you’re real good.”

He turned to the TV again. “We’ll see.”

“I remember that game against Goleta, man,” I said. “What was it, like, a forty-yard run? Dude, that was cool, juking all those dudes.”

Anthony almost smiled. “Yeah.”

“You could take State next year, man, no sweat.”

“Maybe.”

He took a longer swig from the bottle.

“Too much pressure?” I guessed.

“What’s that?”

“Too much pressure,” I repeated. “At the games.”

“Naw,” Anthony said. “It wasn’t that.”

“Well, what the hell happ—”

“Don’t worry about it.” He set the remote down beside him
and started rubbing one palm with his other thumb, like his hand had cramped up or something.

The A-train sounded like he was serious, so I shut up. Luckily, Max showed up finally with two cups of beer and handed me one. “About time!” I said.

“It’s all crowded in there, man,” he said. He nodded to Anthony. “Hey.”

Anthony nodded back, then sorta studied Max. “Hey, man, I saw you couple years ago at tryouts, right? Why didn’t you play ball?”

“Graduated,” Max said.

“Naw, last couple years, man?”

“He was in love,” I said.

Max got all pissed. “Shut up!”

But Anthony laughed. “That right?”

“No!” Max said, then stuttered, “I—I mean, yeah, but no, that’s not—”

Me and Anthony both laughed at him. I felt bad, but only a little.

“Brother needs to get himself laid,” I told Anthony.

Anthony grunted and Max glared.

“He’s right, you know,” I said to Max. “Maybe you should’ve played. Got a scholarship or something.” I turned back to A-train. “You got any coming?”

“Naw, man.”

“How come? You were a great receiver, bro.”

“I know.”

“Didn’t your brother get a scholarship? ’Cause you’re way better than—”

Anthony reached out with his left hand and grabbed my shirt in a bunch. I damn near spilled my beer. I thought for sure he was going to deck me right there.

I been in a couple fights here and there, like at the skate park or whatever, but this dude could tie me into a knot, so I just froze and hoped for the best. Anthony didn’t even look at me, just held me there by my shirt.

Max moved closer, all business. He was bigger than Anthony, but not half as scary.

But Anthony didn’t even look at him as his hand relaxed. He pulled it back. “Sorry, just messin’ with you,” he said.

“No problem,” I said, happy to still have my teeth.
Dude
, that was close. I didn’t even know what I did!

I started to get up, but Anthony pointed at the TV with his bottle. “You believe this shit?”

I looked. The news chick was reporting about all these soldiers being deployed overseas.

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s messed up, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Anthony said, and took another long slug from the Jack. His eyelids started to droop a little. “Yeah,” he said again.

Right about then, this chick Fat Beth started making out with this dude on the arm of the couch next to Anthony. Anthony didn’t seem to notice. He just leaned forward and read every letter of the scrolling captions like they were the Raiders’ secret playbook.

Damn, man. Watching the
news
. At a
party
.

The Jack was half gone already. So was A-train, for that matter. But he just sat there staring at the TV and drinking.

The scene was getting old. I turned around to tell Max we should hang out on the patio, maybe near those two chicks, who I could see through the picture windows. But Max was standing there like a lighthouse, scanning the crowd, looking for his soul mate Beckett. He had his lame-ass Lucky 13! card out again, wiping it up and down his fingers.

“Dude,” I said. “Would you just forget about it?”

“It’s gotta be tonight,” he said. “I have to do it tonight.”

I took a breath to tell him how lame he was when I noticed none other than Beckett f’ing Montgomery creep into the house through the front door. Max’s back was to her. She looked like a little animal being chased by wolves or something. She bolted across the room toward a hallway and disappeared. Max didn’t see her.

Maybe I should have told him she showed up, but I didn’t. What good would it have done? Then he woulda just stood there all night, talking about
this time, this time
, just like he had the last three years, and
hell
if I was gonna listen to that anymore. There was drinkin’ to do.

Plus, something occurred to me as I watched Max playing with his stupid card and A-train staring at the big-screen.

“Hey, man,” I said as Max toyed with the card and stared hopefully out the windows.

“What?” he said.

“You know thirteen is not a lucky number, right?”

W
E WALKED IN TOGETHER
, M
ATT
, J
OSH
, R
YAN
, T
OMMY, AND ME
. We looked badass, like we moved in slow motion to cool theme music. The house was full of people, most of whom I recognized from school. It was really dark, hard to make out faces.

We stuck together and tried to locate the alleged keg that was supposed to be the whole point of the party, but we got hung up in the living room of this enormous two-story house. A ton of kids were dancing and yelling at each other over this gigantic sound system, which was playing, if I’m not mistaken, a really old Social Distortion song. I didn’t think anyone else in our school was cool enough to know Social D. besides Josh, even if we did live in Southern California.

Ryan immediately started talking to Bethany Carter, who I recognized from junior English, and within seconds was able to suavely coax a red plastic cup of beer from her hand. Somehow, he made her smile when he did this. What a soldier. A couple of text messages from Super Cuca’s and the right smile, and bam. He was hooking up.

Matt and Tommy stuck near to Josh, like they were keeping an eye on him. Josh examined every girl in the room. Looking for Morrigan, I’m sure. Part of me hoped she wasn’t here, but another part thought it might be sort of fun. But maybe that cute blond friend of hers had talked her out of showing up. I was in the mood to drink and smoke and chill out with my buds, but I wouldn’t mind breaking up what was going to be one hell of a skirmish if Josh talked to his girlfriend again.

Or rather, I reconsidered, his ex-girlfriend.

I looked aimlessly around the room, looking for other people I knew. The only light came from this huge plasma TV, one lamp in the corner, and light spilling in from the kitchen adjoining the living room. It was like being at a miniature concert in here, like a live band was playing. Everyone’s faces blurred together, and we hadn’t even started drinking yet.

I watched Ryan sit down on the couch with Bethany on his lap. They were all smiles and giggles. They ignored and were being ignored by the guys who also sat there, some skater and Anthony Lincoln, our all-star receiver. The guy had glue for hands, most of the time. He was watching the news, but I
could tell the sound was off because those white-on-black closed-captioned letters were scrolling along the top of the screen. The reporter was saying something about how fourteen soldiers—real ones, that is—had been killed that day. Bummer. Anthony was taking hits from a bottle of Jack Daniels and staring at the screen while this skater dude was talking his ass off.

Who comes to a party to watch the news? Weird.

The guys and me started shoving our way through the room toward a sliding door leading out to the backyard. The yard wasn’t quite as crowded. Better for kicking back.

“What do you think?” Tommy said as we wormed through the other kids. Matt and Josh followed behind.

“About what?” I said, tapping some dude on the shoulder to squeeze past him.

“See her?” Tommy said.

“Nope, not yet.” We broke through the crowd and onto the back patio.

“Guess again,” Tommy said, and jerked his head to our right.

Morrigan was in mid-stumble toward Ashley, who was kicking back in a lawn chair. Even at a distance, the blue of Ashley’s eyes glittered. She smiled at Morrigan, who collapsed onto her butt and crossed her legs at the ankle, tapping her red Chuck Taylors together in an irritated sort of way. She had a bottle of beer clutched in one hand.

“Might have to check that out in a bit,” I said, giving Ashley the once-over.

Tommy grinned and slugged my shoulder, and I slugged him back.

The backyard of this house was humongous by Santa Barbara standards. I didn’t know the guy whose house it was, but I knew he was like an actor or something in the drama department. The flyers we’d gotten at school never gave a name, just the address and a Photoshopped pic of the house engulfed in flames under some twisted font that said
SHORELINE BEACH PARTY
. We were just up the street from the beach and Shoreline Park, but I hadn’t seen anyone headed that direction when we pulled up; they were all here, jamming to the music and getting liquored up.

“Hey,” Matt said, appearing next to me. “We’re gonna maybe hang in the kitchen or something. Thought I saw the keg.”

Matt nodded slightly toward the two girls, then gestured back toward Josh with his eyes. Josh hadn’t seen them yet; he was still inside the house, behind Matt, and too short to see over anyone and through the large windows that separated the patio from the living room.

“Cool,” I said. “We’ll be out here.”

“What’s up?” Josh called from behind Matt.

Matt whipped around and shoved him back into the crowd before Josh could catch a glimpse of Morrigan. “Let’s raid the fridge!” Matt said, and pushed Josh toward the kitchen.

Well, it would work for a little while, anyway.

I pointed. “Beer. Now.”

“Craptastic,” Tommy said.

We walked over to two blue ice chests and helped ourselves to bottles.

Tommy shook his head. “Didn’t think there’d be this many people,” he said as he popped the cap off his brew and flung it into the bushes. There were maybe twenty other kids standing and sitting in little groups all over the yard and near this awesome brick barbecue on our left. I could smell pot in the air.

“Where should we kick?” Tommy said.

“Wherever,” I said, but was trying to find a place where we could watch Morrigan and Ashley. For a couple different reasons.

Tommy gestured to a small hill beside a palm tree, and I followed his lead over to it, swishing over this pristine green grass. We both sat down with exaggerated, old-man sighs, our knees up and dangling our beers between our fingers. For some reason, at that moment, I finally felt like a senior. Like the next year was going to be awesome in a major way, if only Josh would feel better.

And if I could find a cute girl to hang with.

I glanced over toward Morrigan and Ashley. Morrigan was finishing her beer, then opened another while Ashley relaxed and kicked absently at the concrete. Ashley looked stone-cold sober. Morrigan was intent on adding to whatever buzz she already had going, and was talking a mile a minute. I was too far away to make out the conversation, but Ashley kept smiling and nodding her head, as if accepting—as it appeared Matt had—that her job tonight was to keep an eye on her friend.

“I should go talk to her,” I said.

“Who?”

“Ashley.”

“Go for it, man,” Tommy said, and began packing a fresh box of smokes.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Tommy said. “Tear it up. Just remember, we’ll have our pick of chicks next year, right? Chick picks!”

“I sure as hell hope so, soldier.”

“So go talk to her. C’mon.”

I shrugged, not wanting to let on how much I wanted to do just that. “Maybe in a bit.”

Tommy just laughed at me. He knew I was full of it. Probably my best bet was to find him a girl too, so I’d be free to mess around with someone next year. He hadn’t dated since like last summer.

We chilled out and drank and smoked, just like we’d planned. We both drank two more beers and took turns pissing on a tree in the corner of the yard. I was careful to make sure Ashley didn’t notice me doing that. She and Morrigan were still hanging out on the patio, and Morrigan had kept her drinking pace even with me and Tommy. She was definitely swaying by the time I was finishing my third, and had gotten up to stagger around the patio while she continued her speech to Ashley. Ashley was cool, never leaving her chair or drinking a drop.

“Hey, man. You hungry?” Tommy slurred after a while.

“I could eat.” It had been some time since we’d stopped at Super Cuca’s. And the beer was already working on me.

“Let’s order a pizza or something,” Tommy said.

“Sounds like a plan.”

Tommy pulled out his cell and called information for the closest pizza place, and had them connect him. He ordered a couple of something called Monster Meat pizzas for delivery.

Right then, out of nowhere, I heard someone scream
“Fuck you!”
at the top of her lungs.

Everyone, including me and Tommy, looked. Then I laughed. Morrigan was screaming at her hand. I imagined her hand taking on a life of its own like in that
Evil Dead
movie. It hit me she was holding a cell phone, screaming at someone on the other end of the line.

Ashley got out of her chair and held out her hand as if to take the phone, but Morrigan wasn’t having any of it. She moved away from Ashley, stomping into the yard, coming closer to me and Tommy, but clearly not having any idea we were there.

“You din even notice!” she screamed as she got nearer to us, kicking up bits of grass. She had a bottle of beer in her other hand, and was swaying quite a bit. Morrigan’s a pretty small girl, so those beers she’d chugged had her a little drunk.