Cassie graced me with a pitying frown. “You’ll find someone.” There was a moment of silence, and then Cassie kissed me on the cheek and walked back to Eli.
I sat on the steps until Sia grabbed me by my wet collar and wordlessly dragged me out of the pool. Despite the fact that she’d lost most of her audience, she was determined that the show would go on. I admired her dedication. Aja waved at me from the sidelines and I waved back before going inside.
The house was stained with the evidence of the night’s festivities. There was no way that Cassie was going to be able to scrub it clean before her parents returned home. Which might have been a good thing. Maybe seeing what Cassie had done would make them realize how much their decisions affected her. That’s what I told myself anyway. Sure, I could have stayed to help clean up, but this was more than a two- or even a twenty-man job, and I just wanted to crawl into bed and let tonight become the past.
I wandered through the house, looking for Ben and Coop, hoping that maybe I’d find Stella, but the rooms were occupied by people who had passed out or fallen asleep or who were otherwise engaged in the sort of activities that don’t usually require an audience. All in all, I thought Cassie’s party had been a success. It was certainly not the night I’d envisioned when I’d left Gobbler’s with Natalie, but I doubted that anyone who’d attended would soon forget Cassandra Castillo’s barter party.
When I reached the front of the house and hadn’t found anyone to give me a ride, I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to call my parents after all. If I’d called them when Natalie had dumped my ass on the side of the road, I probably could have avoided the events of the entire night, but I realized that, even in my current predicament, I wouldn’t have wanted to.
“Simon!”
I turned to the spiral staircase and saw Ewan McCoy running down it, carrying something white and furry under one arm. “Ewan?” When I realized he had Falcor, I about jumped out of my skin with excitement.
“What’s up?” Ewan asked when he got to the bottom step.
“Nothing.” I was about to explode with curiosity. Why did Ewan have Falcor, and where was Stella? I listened for her singular voice in case she was lagging behind but heard nothing resembling Stella Nash.
Ewan pointed at my nose. “That’s gotta hurt. You should hear what people are saying. Apparently you took out Eli and half the football team to get with Cassie.”
I laughed at the way the events by the pool were already morphing into the stuff of legend. By Monday morning people would be telling each other I’d swooped out of the sky on a helicopter made of beer cans and rescued Cassie from Eli’s clutches. Or not.
“Awesome,” I said. Ewan fist-bumped me and we shared a chuckle over the whole thing. “How are you and Stella getting along?” I asked, no longer able to contain myself.
Ewan looked down at Falcor, who was acting squirmy. Neither seemed comfortable with the other. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Did you guys . . .”
“She’s a cool girl, but she wasn’t into me.” A choir of angels sang in the background and it took me a moment to realize it was part of an actual song and not a gang of divine beings celebrating on my behalf.
I did my best to look nonchalant despite the fact that I was dancing on the inside. “That sucks. Where is she?”
Ewan glanced toward the front door. “She took off.” He held up Falcor like he was plague infected. “Left me with this.”
Falcor now hung limply in Ewan’s hands. “No,” I said. “She’s got to be here somewhere. She’d never leave Falcor.”
“I’m telling you, man. She split while you were doing your thing with Cassie.”
I wasn’t sure if Stella had stuck around to see me kiss Cassie, but whether she’d seen it or not, though, she very likely assumed I’d achieved my goal. It was too bad she hadn’t waited around for the finale. Maybe not the part where Eli decked me, but definitely the part where I realized that Cassie wasn’t the girl for me.
“What’re you going to do?” I asked.
Ewan shoved Falcor into my arms. “I’m not really an animal person. Can you take him home?” Falcor bathed my face, his tongue snaking up my right nostril, licking away some of the dried blood. “Yeah,” Ewan said. “That’s just gross.”
I wanted nothing more than to be Stella’s white knight, the guy who saved her dog and returned him to her unscathed. There was only one problem. “I don’t know where Stella lives.”
Ewan arched his eyebrow. “I thought you were friends. She talked about you all night.” Ewan shrugged. “It’s tough making a play for a girl when she won’t shut up about another guy. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” I said. The fact that Stella had spent the entire night talking about me made me feel both amazing and totally douchey. Amazing because it meant that maybe she liked me. Douchey because I might have ruined my chance to find out.
“So,” Ewan said. “Can you?”
“Yeah.”
Ewan broke out in a grin, looking relieved. “Sweet. I totally owe you one.” He rubbed his hands together. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lady friend waiting for me.” Ewan dashed back up the stairs and left me standing in the foyer.
Falcor licked my chin and I realized that I wasn’t just stranded at Cassie’s party, I was stranded at Cassie’s with Stella’s dog. I decided to go outside and see if I could find someone with a cell phone I could borrow.
The night air soothed my nose. I still felt like Eli had hammered railroad spikes into my skull—the guy had one hell of a right hook—but the throbbing was beginning to settle into a dull ache. I looked for the huddle of smokers you could usually find outside at parties—outcasts even among outcasts—but they’d either gone home or migrated to another location.
I thought I was going to have to go back inside to beg a phone off of Cassie when I heard a familiar voice say, “Looking for a ride, hot stuff?” Ben cackled, his voice carrying across the lawn.
“You couldn’t afford me,” I said.
Ben and Coop were sitting on the hood of Coop’s Kia, holding hands. It was fitting that my night was ending the way it had begun: with my best friends.
Coop looked me up and down when I approached, and chuckled. “Cold?” I nodded. I was still damp from the pool and my clothes stuck to my skin. Coop got up and went around to the trunk, returning with a bright yellow T-shirt that had MY OTHER RIDE IS YOUR DAD written across the front.
“Thanks,” I said as I traded it for my own. “I thought you’d left.”
“Probably should have,” Coop said. “But Ben’s hungry and I’m broke and you sort of owe me for saving your sorry ass.”
I’d always taken it for granted that Coop would be around. He’d been there for so long that I didn’t know how I was going to survive life without him when he and Ben went to college. Friendships are like that though. You rarely recognize how much you need someone until they’re gone. I didn’t know how to tell Coop all that though, so I just said, “Sorry.” And that was that.
Ben pointed at Falcor. “What’s with the mutt?”
Falcor was sleeping in my arms. I’d almost forgotten about him. “Stella left him. Ewan asked me to take him home, but I don’t know Stella’s address.”
“Ugh,” Ben said. “I’m pretty sure you ate lead paint as a child.” He slid off the hood and grabbed the small metal tag hanging off Falcor’s blue collar.
On the front, it said: MY NAME IS FALCOR. On the other side were Stella’s number and address.
I said, “Mind taking a detour?”
Coop let out a disgruntled sigh, but he was smiling. Ben tapped his chin and said, “My brain says sure, but my stomach says I’ll cut a bitch if I don’t get some stuffed French toast.”
“Didn’t you already get stuffed once tonight?” I asked.
Ben said, “It’s on now, boy,” and put up his fists, dancing around me like a champion boxer.
“Get
in the car before I change my mind and leave both of you here.” Coop grabbed Ben around the neck and kissed the top of his head.
I hopped in the backseat with Falcor, unable to hide my shameless optimism.
Coop looked in the rearview mirror. “You got everything?”
Falcor licked my hand and I nodded. I watched as we drove away from Cassie’s house, leaving the party behind. Everything I needed was right here.
Well, almost everything.
Living the Dream
Coop, Ben, and I sat in a booth at Howley’s, staring at the gluttonous amount of food on the table. Our waitress, Trish, wore her frown like a badge of honor. Despite the fact that we always tipped generously and were mostly well behaved, Trish saw it as her sacred duty to disapprove of the way we stumbled in: bruised and reeking of liquor and looking like hooligans.
Other than Trish and us, there were only four other customers. A red-haired girl who appeared to be having a conversation with herself; an elderly couple arguing the merits of the Alien movies; and a homeless guy at the counter who’d been nursing the same cup of coffee since we’d arrived.
Howley’s was our favorite late-night hangout. The seats were hard, the music was stuck in the eighties, the cook was surly, but it was like a second home. Trish even yelled at us to eat our veggies.
It had taken a lot of convincing to keep Coop from driving me directly to the emergency room, but I’d promised to buy breakfast, which had instantly brought Ben over to my side. I was definitely in a lot of pain, but nothing that would leave permanent scars. Plus, God hadn’t invented an injury that a waffle sandwich couldn’t cure.
“I’m not sure what was funnier,” Ben said. “You getting your ass handed to you at beer pong or you making out with Eli.”
I savored every bite of Howley’s famous waffle sandwich. It consisted of two crispy Belgian waffles surrounding two eggs, three slices of bacon, one slice of ham, and enough cheese to stop my heart. The whole mess was covered in syrup and whipped cream.
“First of all, I didn’t make out with Eli, he gave me mouth-to-mouth, and it wasn’t all that funny from my perspective.” I pointed with my waffle-loaded fork, swinging syrup all over the table. “And you weren’t even there for the beer pong.” I shoved the whole bite in my mouth, relishing it a little too much.
Ben chuckled. “Is it true that Cassie got you to admit that you masturbated to Mrs. Tanaka’s yearbook pictures?”
“The librarian?” Sticky drool leaked down the front of my shirt. Coop handed me a napkin. “She’s a hundred and uses a walker.”
Ben held up his hands. “I don’t make up the rumors, I just spread them.”
Coop playfully backhanded Ben’s arm. “Ben!”
“Fine, fine,” Ben said. “I might have been the one to start that particular rumor. Either way, if Tanaka gives you the eye on Monday, I say go for it.”
I laughed in spite of the fact that my night had been little more than a string of poorly planned disasters. It was strange imagining life without Cassie. But it was freeing, too. A whole world of possibilities was open to me now.
While Coop and Ben bickered, I stole one of Ben’s bacon-wrapped bacon bites. It was comforting to know that even if I was doomed to be forever alone, Coop and Ben would be together for a long time. I was getting used to the idea of a future without Cassie, but I couldn’t imagine one where Coop and Ben weren’t disgusting and happy and so fucking in love.
“Hey, so what happened to you guys tonight?” I asked.
Coop glanced at Ben and then blushed so furiously that I thought he might stroke out. “It’s complicated,” Coop said.
I leaned back against the booth, put my arms behind my head, and smiled in spite of the pain. “Either you did the deed or you didn’t,” I said, watching them squirm. “Did you even find a condom?”
“Yes,” Ben said. “And you have no idea what I had to go through to get it.”
“We,” Coop said.
“What we had to go through.”
“Do tell,” I said.
Ben looked at Coop, who sighed and nodded. “It started with Claudia Wisneski . . .”
Over the next ten minutes, I ate my waffle sandwich while Ben related the convoluted story of how he and Coop managed to secure a condom. I laughed, I cried, I blew root beer out of my nose, which hurt, by the way.
“After I finished Photoshopping Carl’s face onto all the pictures in Harmony’s Facebook, Cole finally gave me the lighter that got me the notebook that I traded for the keys to the teachers’ break room so that I could get the stupid condom.” Ben popped a fry into his mouth and tried to play like that was the end of the story, but I refused to let the boys off that easily.
“So you got the condom,” I said. “Did you . . . you know?” I made an obscene hand gesture right as Trish walked up to clear some of our dishes.
“Do I even wanna know?” Trish asked. She had a light New England accent that tickled my ears.
“No,” Coop said, but I jumped in with “I’m trying to find out if Coop and Ben got busy at Cassie’s party.”
Coop covered his face with his hands while Ben took a sudden interest in the wall. For all their bravado, both boys were kind of prudish. Trish left without saying a word.
“The answer’s no,” Coop said when he was sure Trish was out of earshot. He said it low like anyone in the diner cared. Ben shot him a dirty look, but Coop said, “He’s going to hound us until he gets the truth.”
Ben sighed and said, “Fine, but I don’t see how it’s any of his business.” Which was funny since Ben thought everything was his business. “We got the condom. And I’d paid a freshman to set up a guest room with candles and shit.”
“What happened?”
It was what I’d been thinking, but I wasn’t the one who said it. Neither had Coop. We all turned around and saw the red-haired girl in the booth behind us, kneeling backward in her seat, resting her chin on her arms. She was cute in an awkward way. Her red dreads dangled like vines and her yellow tank had been clean once upon a time. But it was her eyes that wrecked me. They were big and the color of bacon and . . . wow.
“Who’s the Nosy McSnooperson?” Ben asked.
The girl rolled her eyes. “Is that the best you’ve got? You have so much to learn.” Then she rotated 180 degrees and disappeared in her booth.
Coop and Ben and I exchanged puzzled looks. “Do we know her?” Coop asked.
“Maybe she goes to our school,” I said.
“I don’t think so,” Coop said. “But she looks familiar.”
Ben snapped his fingers. “We almost ran her down near the beach.”
“Yes!” I said. She’d been the girl in the road we’d nearly hit on our way back from my house. That drive was sort of a blur, but it was definitely her. I glanced back at her booth. She was facing forward but definitely still eavesdropping.
“Finish the story before I grow too old to care,” I said, but the truth was that I’d already lost interest in the Amazing Adventures of Coop and Ben.
“It’s stupid,” Coop said.
“To be fair,” Ben interjected, “I told you not to open it that way.”
“I was trying to be sexy.”
Coop and Ben looked at each other and then at me. “Coop bit through the condom trying to open it with his teeth.”
“It was hot!”
“It was dumb.”
“Fine,” Coop said. He crossed his arms over his chest. “If I’m so dumb, then I’ll take my raging case of herpes and find someone who really loves me.”
Ben frowned and then wrapped his arms around Coop. “Now why would you want to do that when you know that I really love you?”
Coop melted and kissed Ben.
“Seriously, guys. I just ate.” But they didn’t hear me. Knowing they could be at it for a while, I stood up and walked over to the red-haired girl’s booth. It hurt when I smiled, but I gave her my best.
“I’m Simon,” I said. “Did we almost
run you over tonight?”
The girl shook my hand. “Stella,” she said. “You’ll have to be more specific. It’s a fairly common occurrence.”
This whole talking-to-girls thing was weird. Before, it had always been easy because in the back of my mind, they’d been not-Cassie. Placeholders. But now that I’d come to terms with my feelings, everything felt new, scary. There were real consequences. I was walking a tightrope without a net and it felt fucking amazing.
“What were you doing in the road anyway?”
Stella put her finger to her lips and looked around. Coop and Ben were still sucking face, and Trish was chatting up the homeless guy. Stella pointed at her purse as a white dog popped up, its tongue lolling from its mouth. It barked and Stella gave it a stern look, causing the dog to retreat.
Trish glared at us and I said, “That was me. Something in my throat.” I barked loudly, trying to imitate the dog. If Trish could have given me the finger, I’m sure she would have.
“Thanks,” Stella said. She tore off a piece of toast and fed it to her purse. “Falcor thanks you too.”
“His name is Falcor?”
Stella nodded. “He’s also blind. And a little dumb.”
“He’s cute,” I said. “So are you.”
“I know,” Stella said with an easy smile, like strangers complimented her every day. Who knows, maybe they did. “Are you going to ask me to come sit with you guys? My psychic said I’d meet a nice boy tonight and I’m kind of hoping one of your friends might be the one.”
Coop and Ben were doing their best not to be obvious snoops, but their keen interest in an empty milk shake glass gave them away. “I’m not sure you’re properly equipped.”
Stella sighed. “Pity. I do so love a challenge.”
The girl was crazy. Brilliant and mad and so unlike Cassie in every way. “So listen,” I said. “How about a trade?”
“I’m all ears.”
“Come sit with me—pretend you maybe like me a little—and I’ll share my cheesy fries with you.”
“Don’t listen to him!” Ben shouted. “He never shares his cheesy fries with anyone!” Ben laughed while Coop mouthed, “Sorry,” and shrugged.