Slow Twitch - Реинхардт Лиз. Страница 78

“Jake! What’s up with you?” I laughed.

“This is just a great day. Just a really great day, and I’m happy. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this happy.” He leaned his head back out the window and yelled again, and everything in me felt fever warm. I switched to the middle lap belt and snuggled against Jake’s shoulder, contented and sleepy after a long day of happy goodness.

I started the day different, and had changed in ways that were too new and raw and wonderful to process. I wondered if Jake would come back to my house tonight and say over. Or maybe we’d go to his. Would we have sex again? My whole world was suddenly full of intimate possibilities that just weren’t there before.

My thoughts wandered back to this time when I was a little kid. Mom and Fa bought me a fish tank. We agonized over rocks for the bottom and the background pictures, made the poor guy at the store net practically every fish in the place until he got the three specific ones I wanted. There was a little treasure chest that opened with a geyser of bubbles and a mermaid statue, which I thought was the sexiest, most amazing thing in existence. We took our time setting everything up, and then Fa plugged it in, and I snapped the power on. The whole thing lit up in a crazy dance of sinuous fish, buzzing too-bright lights, and streams of bubbles. I stayed awake way too late looking at that tank full of beauty, the tank that had been so many dull pieces in the store, but, all put together, turned into this underwater paradise.

That was today. So many little pieces, all placed just right, now something more than normal. Something with a tiny bit of magic that I would be able to tuck away and look back at forever.

My eyes were just about to close when Jake pulled down a long, bumpy road I’d never seen before and stopped at a squat ranch house with falling-down siding and dozens of people in the yard. Over to the side was a huge, roaring bonfire, fueled by everything from old branches to chairs, boxes, and even what looked like an entertainment center.

Jake’s arm snaked around my shoulders in a possessive slide. His muscles loosened, but he walked with a wary confidence, like he was sure everyone was watching him. I would have thought it was just his nerves. Then I noticed people were watching him. We walked through the crowds, and Jake kept his arm around my waist.

Jake held his hand up whenever someone called to him, but he never stopped, and he turned down beers from at least half-a-dozen people, mostly heavyset older guys with neck tattoos and multiple facial piercings who seemed very happy to see Jake around. It was like the entire party was crushing in, nervously excited to embrace Jake back into the fold.

He looked down at me and smiled. “Kind of my old group. They’re nice, you know.” At that minute a guy wearing a skull hoodie threw a dresser with no drawers into the fire, then followed it with an entire can of lighter fluid. The flames shot high and exploded so hot my cheecks glowed hot from the fire that was thirty feet away. “Crazy, but nice,” Jake amended.

I looked around with wonder. So this was the kind of gathering where Jake had spent so many summer nights? It was still comfortable and familiar to him. It was also obviously a place he’d grown away from, like a favorite jacket one size too tight that still fit, but strangled your shoulders and clung too hard around the zipper.

“Kelly! Blix! Come forth and revel!” Saxon’s voice rang out, loud and slurry, but not completely drunk. He sat near a smaller fire, a beer bottle in his hand, Cadence on his knee. She looked slightly confused, and not very comfortable as she ran her fingers through her shiny black hair and looked at us with a helplessly nervous smile hello.

Jake and I walked up to the roaring, belching fire, kindled partially on things that probably weren’t meant to be burned. It loosed a chemically, thick smoke and, every once in a while, sputtered or gave off a loud, crackling pop. Jake’s arm tightened with possessive constraint around my waist, and I was happy to lean into the comfort of his overzealous embrace.

“Hey Saxon. Cadence.” I waved at her, and she gave me a shy smile in return.

Jake glanced around and rocked back and forth on his heels. “There’s a shit-ton of people here.” People were spilling out of the dilapidated house, burying their hands in coolers filled with cans of beer, throwing things into multiple fires, and gathering around a huge roasted pig. “Shambles’s dad slaughtered a pig?”

“Would it be a bonfire without a hog?” Saxon raised his beer and laughed before he took a long, eager pull from the bottle. Cadence touched his wrist and shook her head, and he nodded, then laid a long, dramatic kiss on her lips before he turned his attention back to us. “So, what have you two fine, upstanding youths been up to?”

“Just hanging out,” Jake said vaguely, shaking his head at yet another beer offered by yet another hulking, tattooed man with a huge smile. He pulled me closer when the man licked his lips openly in my direction.

“Jake took me to see this waterfall.” The words flipped out because of a nervous need to fill the uncomfortable feeling of not belonging that dredged up in me. Jake kissed my temple and avoided looking at Saxon, who was staring right at him.

“A waterfall, huh?” Saxon nodded slowly and took another long sip. “Hell of a way to celebrate that second place win, eh, Jake?”

Jake’s arm tightened into anaconda territory, and he and Saxon locked eyes in a long, nasty standoff of unspoken, raging tempers. I pulled at Jake’s hand and squeezed it until his stance relaxed.

Cadence said something sharp and quiet in Saxon’s ear, and he locked his jaw tight.

Just when I was getting nervous about how everything would iron itself out, the man who’d ogled me a second before came back to the fire. “Saxon, could you pull your car around? Davey parked like a fuckwad and can’t get his truck out.”

Saxon stood on unsteady legs, and Cadence reached into his pocket for his keys and pressed him back.

“I’ll move it.” She started across the field at a brisk jog before he had a chance to argue or follow. About twenty half-drunk male heads swiveled in her direction. Saxon stood back up, weaving from side to side as he attempted to chase her, but he swayed so badly Jake had to catch him before he careened into the fire.

Jake looked at me, and I nodded. I knew exactly what he was thinking, and we didn’t need to say a single word. I felt a warm swell of pride that my boyfriend was the kind of guy you could depend on to pick up the pieces when things fell apart.

“I’ll help her out, Saxon,” Jake said, his voice cool and smooth around the electric air between them. To me, in a lower voice, he asked, “Bren, you wanna sit with him while I go?”

“No problem.” I kissed him softly and he smiled his relief and thanks.

Saxon shook his head with a bleary jerk and thudded down heavily.

I sat down next to him, careful to maintain a few necessary centimeters. “How’s the bonfire?”

“I’m ruining it for Cadence.” Saxon stretched his lips up in an attempt to grin, but there was a scowl of self-hatred right underneath his expression.

“On purpose?” I leaned forward, pressed my hands between my knees, and squeezed them together. The fire roared when it caught a bunch of pine branches thrown on top ablaze, and I closed my eyes against the explosion of heat.

“Not…exactly.” He twirled the brown beer bottle between his fingertips and looked up at me, his face so full of hurt and worry, it singed more than the fire. “What did it feel like when you fucked it all up with Jake?” He slid closer, so our legs were brushing against each other, and I could smell the yeasty, bitter-sweet stink of beer thick on his breath.

“It was awful, but you know that. So why are you asking me this?” My voice shook all over the words I had to rip from my throat, and a little of the glimmer of the day rubbed off under Saxon’s questioning.