I looked around the fire at the people I had known for years, but really didn’t know at all. Each time I made eye contact with a new person it was met with sneers and whispers.
I held my empty cup out to Owen. “Maybe, I’m just not a group person,” I offered. Or maybe I had nothing in common with these people besides a zip code—although considering I’d just become homeless, I was without a zip code, too. Technically, we didn’t share shit anymore.
I needed more beer.
Being drunk was the only way I wasn’t going to scratch the skin off my face from being so damned uncomfortable, surrounded by all of them. Owen happily obliged and kept the beer flowing all night.
A few hours later and too many beers to count, couples started pairing off and disappearing into the woods. Trucks, which just hours ago brought in fresh-faced kids ready to party, now left with the disheveled remnants of those same kids. Limp, passed-out bodies tangled together in the cabs and beds.
There were only a few handfuls of party-goers left. I sat on a log swaying to the music being played on a guitar by a younger kid named Will. I’d spent the last couple hours listening to him play while trying to stump him with my requests. Whether I asked him to play Garth Brooks or Offspring, he just laughed and started playing. I think he was as amused as I was.
Owen came over to me frequently, keeping my beer cup full. But, he spent most of his time chatting with his friends on the other side of the fire. None of them had bothered to say a word to me, but every so often, I would catch Owen staring at me through the flames.
When I felt the space on the log next to me shift, I assumed Owen had come back and brought me round number…I lost count. “Thanks,” I said, reaching out to take my cup from him without taking my eyes off Will. He was on the second chorus of “Criminal” by Fiona Apple. The kid should’ve tried out for one of those TV talent shows.
“You’re welcome.” The voice wasn’t Owen’s. A shiver of recognition crept up my spine. When I turned around, I came face to face with the beautiful blue-eyed psychopath from the junkyard.
Had I just thought of him as being beautiful?
Yep.
Jake was still dressed in head-to-toe black, in a tight t-shirt and jeans. He wasn’t wearing his leather jacket. His tattoos seemed to glisten under the light of the moon. As opposed to the moment when he was threatening my life, he looked much more relaxed this time around. Maybe, it was an illusion resulting from the firelight casting shadows on his face. No, it wasn’t the fire, I realized.
He really was beautiful.
He pushed his hair behind his ears and ran a hand down his goatee. “Hi, Abby,” he said, like we were old friends.
What was I supposed to say to this guy? He’d caught me sleeping in his dad’s junkyard. He’d held a gun to my head. Hey how ‘bout dem Jets, didn’t exactly feel like the way to start the conversation either.
My stomach flip-flopped as if I were falling.
I straightened my shoulders and pushed away the thoughts I was having about his looks and the circumstances under which we met. “You packing tonight?” I asked him. I turned back around and pretended to focus my attentions back on Will, who was just starting on the first notes of Colt Ford’s, “Riding Through The Country”.
Then, I hiccupped.
I felt the redness of my embarrassment creeping up my cheeks. I couldn’t look back at him. I could hear him laughing, and not just a giggle, but very full, very deep laughter. He slid in closer, his lips a breath away from my ear when he whispered, “I’m always packing, Bee.” His tone turned very serious. The way he’d said my name caused the hairs on my neck to stand at attention.
Did he just call me Bee?
“Jake! You made it!” A girl wearing tight jeans and a scrap of a tank top ran up to Jake and threw herself into his lap.
“Alissa,” he said sternly, “I’m talking with Abby. Go wait with Jessica ‘til I’m done.” He wasn’t angry, but his tone was firm. He made it clear that he was having a conversation with me, and the bimbo wasn’t invited.
Alissa looked me up and down and with disapproving eyes. She scrunched up her nose. “Why are you wasting your time with her, Jake? She ain’t nothin’ but a freak ‘round here. Did you know that no one has ever seen her wear nothin’ but sweatshirts and long sleeves—even on them hotter than hell days?” She glared at me, and I glared back. “Yeah, she’s hiding something under there all right. It might be a hump or something. Stacey says she hides pregnancies and sells the babies on eBay. Personally, I think maybe she’s got scales or something under there. Or something even more hideous.”