Song of the Fireflies

  I smiled, and she smiled in return. Really, I just wanted her to walk away from the stall faster so I could jump in there and pee before it was too late.

  Afterward, we hung around the beach for a while longer. I saw that same girl from the restroom sitting several feet away from us next to a tall, brown-haired shirtless guy with a huge tattoo down his side. When the girl stood up once, I saw that she had one, too. I was instantly intrigued. I had always liked tattoos, the way they looked on other people, but I never got around to getting one of my own. The tats these two had looked like masterpieces even from this far away.

  “Damn,” I heard Johanna say. “Do you see that guy over there?” I was more curious about Johanna saying anything at all, much less openly gawking at some random guy on the beach while Caleb was standing just feet away from us talking to Tate.

  I shrugged it off, accepting that Caleb, Johanna, and Grace’s relationship was weird enough to me as it was. I didn’t care to delve deeper into it. If Johanna wasn’t worried about what Caleb might think, then I wasn’t worried for her.

  “Which guy?” I asked, pretending not to have noticed.

  I didn’t want Elias to think I had zoned in on him like Johanna had. I mean sure, the guy was smokin’ hot, but he had nothing on my man. No one did.

  Tate and Caleb walked back up then.

  “Hey,” Tate said from behind, “we’re going to head out soon.”

  “Why don’t we invite some more people this time?” Johanna suggested. She stood up and dusted sand from her bikini.

  Tate looked at Caleb, who shrugged. “Yeah, sure, that’s a good idea, actually,” Tate agreed.

  Elias and I stood up. All of us started scanning the beach and since it still technically wasn’t summer, there weren’t many people to choose from. A middle-aged couple sat to our right, the woman wearing a purple one-piece with large flowers printed all over it and a huge floppy hat on her head. An old man jogged past, very tanned and in better physical shape than most forty-year-olds I had seen, and glistening with sweat and suntan lotion. A young married couple with two children sat close to the water in beach chairs. It was safe to say that the cute blonde in the red bikini and her tattooed boyfriend were the only candidates.

  “I saw that girl in the restroom down at the restaurant earlier,” I said, nodding in her direction. “Why don’t we invite them?”

  I noticed Tate eyeing her a little too obviously. Jen slapped him on the arm, and he pretended to be wounded. Thankfully, Jen forgave him quickly, because I really wasn’t in the mood to hear them arguing, and I doubted anyone who came along with us to party would be, either.

  We went over to the couple.

  “From around here?” Tate asked.

  I sat down on the sand next to the girl and brought Elias down with me. I hoped they wouldn’t take offense to us invading their space like that.

  They didn’t seem to mind. “No, we’re from Galveston,” the guy answered.

  “And Raleigh,” the girl added.

  “We’re from Indiana,” I said, smiling at her.

  Tate wrapped Jen in his arms from behind, probably his way of making her feel better about his straying eyes from before. “I’m Tate, this is Jen,” he said, then introduced everyone else. “Johanna. Grace. And that’s my brother, Caleb.”

  “I’m Bray,” I said. “This is my fiancé, Elias.”

  We had long ago given up using false names.

  The girl sat up and brushed the sand away from her hands. “Cool to meet you,” she said. “I’m Camryn and this is my fiancé, Andrew.” She had a pretty smile and an air of kindness to her. Andrew had bright green eyes and two distinct dimples that set evenly in his cheeks when he smiled.

  Elias reached out to shake their hands.

  Tate said, “We’re heading to a private spot on a beach about thirty minutes from here.” I knew that was a serious bit of misinformation, but if he told them it was a longer drive than that they probably wouldn’t have come. “It’s a great secluded party spot. You’re both welcome to come along.”

  Camryn turned to Andrew. They seemed to be having some kind of inner conversation.

  Andrew then said to Tate, “Sure. We can follow you out.”

  “Kick ass,” Tate said.

  The two of them grabbed their belongings and followed us off the beach and to the parking lot.

  “They seem pretty cool,” Elias said. I was sitting on his lap in the backseat, my head hitting the roof every time the Jeep would drive over even the slightest bump. “Did you see those tats they had?”

  “Yeah, that was some sick ink,” Tate said from the driver’s seat. He glanced over at Jen in the passenger’s seat. “Makes me want to get another one.”

  Jen rolled her eyes and went back to painting her toenails, her feet propped on the dashboard. I wondered how she could paint in the moving Jeep without getting turquoise nail polish all over her feet.

  It was dark by the time we got there.

  “You probably shouldn’t have told them it was only a thirty-minute drive,” Grace said beside me. She was sitting halfway on Caleb’s lap and her hip kept bumping into mine, making the ride that much more uncomfortable.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” Tate said.

  We turned onto a partially paved road and the last couple of minutes of the drive were the worst as the Jeep shook and jolted over the broken road littered with potholes and debris. My head felt like a battering ram. The headlights bounced through the darkness until finally the road opened up into a wide space of sand and rocks.

  Camryn and Andrew pulled up next to us in their black vintage car and shut off the engine.

  “Hopefully they won’t be too pissed,” Tate added and hopped out of the Jeep.

  Without hesitation, the rest of us got out quickly. I stretched my legs and rubbed my calves and the lower part of my back with my fingertips. Elias came around behind me and massaged the back of my neck. I let out a soft moan. “I don’t know how much more piling up in that Jeep I can handle.” In response, he kissed my bare shoulder.

  Tate lifted the ice chest from the back of the Jeep and dropped it in the sand.

  “We’ve got plenty of beer,” he said, raising the lid and reaching inside. He tossed a bottle of Corona to Andrew.

  Elias and I stepped up beside Camryn. Tate popped the cap on another bottle of Corona and offered it to her.

  “Thanks,” she said and took it.

  “If you’ve got any blankets, might want to bring one,” Tate said. Jen joined him then, prancing over in her skimpy white bikini. I think she may have felt a little threatened by Camryn, but not so much that she treated her badly. “And I’ve got a kick-ass system in this baby,” Tate added, patting the back of the Jeep. “So I’ve also got the music covered.”

  Andrew popped the trunk on his car and grabbed a blanket.

  “Where are my shorts?” Camryn asked, rummaging around in their backseat.

  “Right here,” Andrew said. He tossed them over the car toward her, and she caught them.

  “I don’t plan on swimming in that abyss at night,” I heard her say as she slipped the shorts on over her red bikini bottoms.

  “I’m glad I’m not the only one!” I said. I was always afraid of swimming in the ocean at night.

  She smiled at me over the roof of their car and then shut the door. “Have you been out here before?”

  Tate and everyone else were walking toward the beach carrying all of our stuff. As usual, Tate left the doors open on the Jeep. The speakers blasted rock music; Tate and Caleb’s mutual playlist, which consisted mostly of some singer named Dax and several different bands he had been in. Last night it was Pantera. The night before, old-school Snoop Dogg. All of our musical tastes had no boundaries, really.

  “We were out here last night,” I answered, “but Elias got drunk way too early and started puking up his insides, so I drove us back to our hotel.”

  Elias shook his head at me, disappointed. I thi
nk I embarrassed him.

  Camryn and Andrew followed us down to the beach, where Tate was already setting up camp. Tate tossed a match onto a pile of tree branches and ignited the lighter fluid he had squirted all over the pile. Fire curled up and over the top of the branches and illuminated the darkness. Elias and I sat down with two beach towels next to Camryn and Andrew. Tate and the others were on a giant blanket.

  I noticed Johanna was seriously checking Andrew out. I was put off by it, but I never said anything. It was rude the way she kept eyeing Andrew with his fiancée sitting right there. I had never really had much reason to dislike her until I witnessed this. She sat next to Caleb, the guy she had been screwing for no telling how long, making sure her pose was natural but at the same time sensual, as if she hoped Andrew would notice her barely tanned skin underneath her hot pink bikini, which barely held her boobs in place. At one point, I saw her twist her long, blonde hair and drape it over her shoulder on one side, as if to mimic the way that Camryn wore hers. I thought I had issues. No, Johanna had me beat in the issues department. And I may have been promiscuous, but I had standards. Johanna didn’t know the concept.

  “Those are some wicked fuckin’ tattoos,” Tate pointed out.

  Camryn pulled away from Andrew’s chest to give us all a better look. She raised her arm above her head and exposed her side, as well.

  “Yeah, no doubt,” I said, totally fascinated by the ink and wanting some of my own more and more. I crawled across the sand toward them to get a better look. “I’ve been curious about yours.”

  “Turn around here, babe, and show them how it fits,” Andrew said and lifted Camryn around on his lap. He lay down on the sand and brought her body down on top of his.

  They lined up their tattoos to form a seamless picture, and my eyes grew wide with fascination and envy. I didn’t even know the story behind it yet, but my heart ached just seeing the two of them lying together like that, like two pieces forming one whole person right in front of my eyes. Momentarily, I thought of me and Elias. I pictured the two of us in their place. Andrew’s half of the tattoo was of a woman wearing a long, graceful see-through white gown that was pressed against the sensual curves of her body by the wind. Tendrils of flowing fabric blew behind her as she reached out her arms to the male figure inked on Camryn’s ribs. I gaped down at the detail, mesmerized by the beautiful complexity of every perfect line. The tattoos were enormous, stretching from the tops of their ribs down almost to their hips.

  I glanced back at Elias with an idea rampant on my face. He looked nervous. And he should’ve been, because he knew what I was thinking: that I was ready to drag him to the closest tattoo shop.

  “That. Is. Awesome,” I said, looking back at Camryn and Andrew. “Who are they?”

  “Orpheus and Eurydice,” Andrew answered. “From the Greek legend.”

  “A tragic tale of true love,” Camryn added.

  Andrew squeezed his arms around her.

  “Well, nothing seems tragic about the two of you,” Tate said and lit up a cigarette.

  I finally managed to pry myself away. “I think it’s beautiful,” I said as I made my way back to sit between Elias’s legs. “And I guess it better be, because I know that had to hurt like hell.”

  “Yeah, it definitely hurt,” Camryn said. “But it was worth every hour of pain.”

  We all sat around the blazing bonfire and talked mostly about benign things for a long time, but it didn’t take long for Camryn and me to hit it off. Even before she started getting buzzed and overly talkative, we talked more than anyone. Normally it would be me and Grace, but she was too wrapped up in Caleb this time to be my sidekick. At one point, I was so into my conversation with Camryn, and I felt so comfortable with her, that I almost slipped up and mentioned we lived in Georgia. Elias noticed how close I was getting to saying things I shouldn’t, and that was when he entered the conversation and started talking about concerts we had all been to.

  “Maroon 5 are great live,” I said.

  “I know!” Camryn said with excitement in her eyes. “I saw them in concert with my best friend, Nat, and they were amazing! Not too many bands who sound almost just like they do on their album.”

  “Yeah, that’s the truth,” I said and took the last drink of my beer. “Did you say you’re from North Carolina?”

  Camryn sat Indian style on the sand.

  “Yeah, but Andrew and I don’t really live there now.”

  “Where do you live?” Tate asked. He took a long pull from his cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs. “Texas?”

  “No, we sort of… travel,” Camryn said. She had pretty bright blue eyes; I’d noticed them when the light from the fire hit her face at just the right angle. And a cute, oval-shaped face.

  “Travel?” I asked. “What, like driving around in an RV?”

  “Not exactly,” Camryn said. “We just have the car.”

  “Why do you travel?” Johanna asked.

  I saw the way Andrew looked at her upon hearing her voice, and he wasn’t pleased, to say the least. It was pretty obvious he had noticed the way she had been eyeballing him all night. He ignored her and looked back over at us. “We play music together.”

  “What, you’re like in a band?” Johanna asked with a valley-girl accent.

  I rolled my eyes. Her desperation was getting ridiculous.

  Andrew looked right at her this time, which kind of surprised me. “Sort of,” he said, but that’s all the answer he gave her. I realized it was intentional.

  “What kind of music do you play?” Caleb asked. He sat, as usual, between Grace and Johanna, not caring in the slightest what anyone thought of him being with two girls.

  Andrew took a drink of his beer and answered, “Classic rock, blues and folk rock, stuff like that.”

  “You’ll have to play for us!” I said excitedly. I was buzzed myself by this time.

  Camryn turned around to look at Andrew, and she was animated by the idea. “You could. You’ve got the acoustic in the backseat.”

  “Nah, I’m not up to it right now,” Andrew said.

  “Oh come on, baby, why not?”

  “Yeah, man, if you’ve got a guitar with you and know how to play, that’d be awesome,” Tate jumped in.

  Caving to the peer pressure, and probably more so to not wanting to say no to his fiancée, Andrew got up and walked to his car. He came back carrying a guitar.

  “You’re going to sing with me,” he said to Camryn as he sat back down beside her.

  “Nooo! I’m too buzzed!” She kissed him on the mouth and sat next to me and Elias, probably to get out of it.

  “All right, what do you want me to sing?” Andrew asked.

  “Hey, whatever you feel like, man,” Tate said.

  Andrew sat there in thought for a moment as though shuffling through a hundred different songs in his mind and decided on “Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers. My mom used to listen to that song all the time, so I was no stranger to it. And damn, Andrew could sing. As if he wasn’t already tattooed and gorgeous and could play the guitar like a pro, his voice was something to be reckoned with. I sat up between Elias’s legs, my body swaying side to side with the music, letting it run through me.

  All of us were getting into it, even Elias, who wasn’t at all threatened by Andrew, because he knew he had no reason to be. I’d made sure of that early on.

  Andrew belted out the last chorus and the song ended.

  “That was great!” I said excitedly.

  “Man, you weren’t fuckin’ playing’ around,” Tate said and lit up a joint.

  “Play another one,” I said, laying back against Elias. He wrapped me in his arms, and I felt his chin press softly against the top of my head.

  Tate passed the joint to Camryn first but she just looked at it for a moment. She shook her head at Tate and said, “No thanks—I think I’ll just stick to liquor tonight.”

  Andrew played a few more songs by the bonfire and Camryn finally
did sing one with him. They were both very talented. I thought they should be playing shows somewhere.

  Tate came back from the Jeep carrying a stack of Solo cups, a bottle of Seagram’s 7, and a bottle of Sprite. Jen went to work mixing drinks and passing them around.

  “Have at it, man,” Tate urged Andrew. “Don’t worry about driving anywhere tonight. Cops don’t even know about this place.”

  “Yeah, sure, I’ll have a cup,” Andrew said.

  When it came Camryn’s turn, the two of them went back and forth about whether or not it was a good idea, but ultimately she decided that it was. She had already turned down the joint.

  Maybe it was the weed and the alcohol, but before too long I was talking to Camryn about, of all things, tampon brands and eventually the best kind of shampoo. She asked me about my bracelets, to which I made sure not to let her get as close as Grace had the other night at the beach house, worried it would be a similar scene all over again. I could open up to Elias about what I did, but no one else out here had any business knowing. The music continuously funneled from the Jeep.

  “Andrew, I need to pee,” Camryn said.

  He took her cup from her hand and set it on the sand. “I need to take a piss too,” he said.

  Tate pointed behind them with another cigarette between his fingers and said, “Go around that way. There’s no glass and shit to step on over there.”

  Andrew set his cup next to Camryn’s and helped her up. Once they slipped into the darkness, Elias thought it was a good idea, too, and stood up. “I’ll be back in a few,” he said. He looked down at me. “You need to use the bathroom?”

  “Nah, I’m good,” I said.

  He smiled and walked in the opposite direction of Andrew and Camryn, past the vehicles, to relieve himself.

  Grace left Caleb’s lap and came over to me, laying her head on my shoulder.

  “Have you been watching Johanna?” she whispered.

  I looked over at Johanna trailing her fingers down Caleb’s bicep muscle, a vacant look on her face. She always appeared high or just not all there in general. I wondered what went on inside her head, other than thoughts of Caleb, and now this new guy, Andrew. Eventually, I had to believe that nothing else went on inside there.