6. six

Chapter six

“Fireflies” by Owl City

“ Y ou look thirsty,” I said, twisting the cap off the Smirnoff and handing it to Beth. But as I bent over to pick up my own drink from the flimsy plastic chair where I’d put it, she frowned.

“Thank you, but I’m still working on the drink Xander made for me. I’m sorry.” She nodded toward the red cup on the hay bale behind her. “But I’ll drink this next.”

“Oh, okay.” I stood near the growing fire and gulped down my beer, hoping it could loosen me up and make it easier for me to talk to Beth. Because at the moment, I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to her. Why was this so hard for me, when it came easily to guys like Xander?

As more and more people arrived, it started getting a little crowded around the fire, and soon I was surrounded by people I’d never seen beyond the walls of Woodvale High School. A couple of people questioned Xander on how he thought he was going to get away with throwing a party half a mile from his own house.

“Won’t your parents notice?” Davin Reedy asked.

“They don’t give a fuck,” Xander answered, stoking the fire with one hand, a red cup in the other. “I’m almost eighteen, anyway. Pretty soon they’ll have no control over me at all.”

He rattled on about how independent he was, stealing glances at Beth with every other sentence. It couldn’t be more obvious he was trying to impress her. I glanced Abigail’s direction to see how she was responding to all of this, but she was distracting herself by making a dandelion crown in the grass nearby. I sighed and turned back to Xander. He tilted his cup back before tossing it onto the fire, causing the flames to briefly shoot up higher. And, like clockwork, he turned to Beth to gauge her reaction.

He was supposed to be helping me lose my virginity that night, but his presence was more of a hindrance than anything.

The crowd around the fire had grown even more, with people seeking warmth as the night became increasingly chilly. “I can barely hear the music from my speaker,” Abigail complained, wiping the dirt off the back of her shorts. “I should just turn it off.” She threw her dandelion crown to the ground, having given up on that, too.

From the other side of the fire, someone said my name. “Owen.” I looked up to see Lena sitting on a hay bale beside Bailey, who was facing away from her, talking to some guy. “Isn’t this the song on your MySpace profile?”

I held my breath, as though that would somehow help me hear better. Sure enough, “Fireflies” by Owl City was playing up on the deck. “Yeah,” I said with a chuckle, meeting her gaze through the billowing smoke. “It is.”

“Noooo!” Beth protested, stomping her foot. With a smile, she rolled her eyes at me and said, “This song is so overplayed, and it doesn’t even make any sense! Have you listened to the lyrics?”

“I put it on my profile to be ironic,” I lied, but her smile told me she could see right through me. I maneuvered closer to her, pleased to see she was finally drinking the Smirnoff I’d brought her. “I should probably change it.”

“Definitely. Your MySpace profile song should give people a little taste of who you are, you know?” She took a sip. “And unless you’ve got a sock hop underneath your bed, I don’t think that’s the right song for you.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay. You’ve spent the day getting to know me. If you had to pick a song for me, what would it be?” I turned to look into her eyes, and she met my gaze, blinking as she considered her answer. The noise of the party faded away, and it felt like we were the only two people there. The glow from the fire illuminated the side of her face as she lifted her hand to tuck her hair behind her ear.

“Okay. So, you know John Mayer?”

My smile involuntarily vanished–I already didn’t like where this was going. She never got the opportunity to name the song, though, because somebody tossed a cup full of liquor on the fire, which caused the flames to shoot up a few feet. The sudden roar of the fire was so loud, everyone jumped back, and a few people screamed. Startled, Beth grabbed my elbow, and I gently placed my hand on her back. “Are you okay?”

She giggled to cover her fear. “I’m fine.”

I silently thanked the person who threw their drink on the fire for bringing Beth and me closer together. But just as I was getting comfortable with my hand on her back, Xander swooped in on her other side and bent over to pick something up from the ground. “This yours?”

The unfinished dandelion crown Abigail had been working on dangled from his pointer finger. He must not have seen her sitting on the ground making it earlier, and neither had Beth, who said, “No, but that’s adorable.”

Xander stepped forward, draping the dandelion chain over Beth’s head like a headband. The two of them made eye contact the entire time, and Beth breathed out a soft giggle. “It’s yours now,” Xander said, not taking his eyes off of her.

I removed my hand from Beth’s back and shot a glare in Xander’s direction, but he was too entranced by Beth to notice. He didn’t see Abigail approach him from the other side, either. I watched her eyes travel from Beth’s flower headband to Xander’s face, a crease forming between her brows. “Hey, Xan, do you have a longer extension cord somewhere?”

He turned to her, narrowing his eyes. “What for?”

“We can barely hear the music out here. I want to move my speaker closer.”

“There’s probably a decent one in my grandpa’s work shed.”

Abigail looked over her shoulder in the direction of the little shed, which was beyond the chicken coop and past all the cars lining the drive, barely visible in the dark. “Oh. It’s pretty dark out there.” She turned to Xander with wide, sparkling eyes. “I’m a little scared.”

A second passed. And then another. And another. I was practically screaming at Xander in my mind to take Abigail by the hand and walk her down there, but instead, that idiot smiled and said, “Scared of what, the chickens?”

Frustrated, I tipped my cup back and drank the last of my beer before saying. “I’ll go with you.” I put my cup down and nodded for her to follow me. And, making sure Xander could see, I put my hand on Abigail’s back just as I had with Beth, ushering her into the darkness.

I pulled my hand away once we made it out of everyone’s line of sight. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re totally fine, Owen. I understand exactly why you did that.”

“He’s really pissing me off.”

“I can tell.”

“I don’t get it.” I pulled out my phone and used the screen to illuminate the gravel in front of us as we walked, which wasn’t as effective as I’d hoped. You’d think Apple would have thought to add a built-in flashlight by now. “Why is he acting like this when he likes you?”

“But he doesn’t.”

“Like hell he doesn’t. He’s obsessed with you, Abigail. For some reason he wants to act like he’s not, but he is, and he always has been. He wanted to be the guy you lost your virginity to. He’d kill me for telling you that, but right now, I don’t care.”

We had reached the metal shed, but Abigail paused and turned to me before lifting the latch. “When did he say that?”

“Today. At Boomer’s.”

“Well, he’s got a really weird way of showing it,” she said, turning the latch and pulling the heavy metal door of the shed open.

I pulled down on the chain above to turn on the light. A single bulb flickered on, illuminating Xander’s grandpa's workspace. The area was cluttered with piles of wood and half-finished projects, and a sturdy workbench held an assortment of saws and blueprints.

I’d talked to Xander’s grandpa a couple of times. He was a gentle, quiet man, and it was near impossible to understand his mumblings sometimes. Ever since Xander was little, he’d been walking from his house down the hill to his grandparents’ to hang out here in this shed.

In one corner, there was a large army cot covered in a red flannel blanket. Abigail was staring at it with a grin, likely remembering one of her many childhood make-out sessions with Xander. But her smile gradually faded, and she sucked in a deep breath.

“I hate how much I like Xander.”

“I just hate Xander.”

“No you don’t,” she said, spinning around to scan the room for an extension cord. “Neither of us can ever quit him.”

“I just can’t believe he’s trying to steal Beth out from under me.”

“We can’t let that happen,” she said. “How do you think it’s going between you and her, by the way?”

“I don’t know. I have no idea what to talk about with her.” I turned on the lamp on the workbench so we could see better. “I’m the worst at talking to girls.”

“You were doing just fine with Lena,” she said, meeting my gaze.

“That’s different. Lena’s…” I couldn’t think of a word. Actually, I was thinking about the way her thighs looked peeking out from her skirt. “It’s just easy with her.”

“Uh huh,” Abigail said, staring upward. “Look, do you think that cord is long enough?”

I glanced up at an orange extension cord dangling from the rafters above us. “Yeah. Did you see the way Beth pulled her underwear down to show Xander her tattoo?”

“Yes. Yes I did. Not to change the subject, but you’re like a foot taller than me. Can you reach up there?”

I didn’t even have to stretch to reach the thick cord hanging above our heads. “I’m just so–ugh.” I pulled some of the cobwebs off the heavy extension cord before tucking it under my arm. “I’m almost regretting this entire night.”

“Don’t give up just yet. I think Beth is into you,” Abigail said as we made our way back out of the shed. I looped the extension cord around my shoulder as she latched the door behind us. “You can’t let Xander distract her. And neither can I.”

“Then we have to keep them apart,” I suggested.

“Exactly.”

On our way back up to the cabin, Abigail and I devised a plan: she would work on keeping Xander preoccupied, and I needed to step up my game with Beth.

“Should I ask her who her favorite hobbit is?”

“No. Should I play some Coldplay to start a flirty pseudo-argument with Xan?”

I scrunched up my face. “I feel like he and Beth will just tease you about your music taste and it’ll be another thing for them to bond over.”

She stopped in her tracks and turned to me, shaking her head. “This is hopeless, isn’t it?”

I wanted to believe it wasn’t.

But the longer the night went on, the more complicated this got. At what point would I decide tonight’s not the night and throw in the towel?