This choice: Hang out with Eric's friends • Go Back...Chapter #40Party Guy by: Seuzz   There's something ironic about what you wind up doing, and why. Eric would ditch his friends in a heartbeat to hang out with some sexy cheerleaders, but you're in command of things, and your instincts tell you that it would be much better if Eric Murphy went out to see his friends. Besides, after the way you had to fight your way free of his influence in the coffee shop, you're pretty sure you can act in character as him.
Cindy. Memory of her creamy limbs and golden hair causes you to miss the keys when reaching for the ignition, and you cuss as you bash your knuckles. But it still doesn't change your mind. You pop the motor on and pop backward into the street. With practiced muscle memory you tap Tim Ryan's number into the cell while keeping your eyes on the road.
* * * * *
" -- so I beat him off with the spatula!"
That's Tim, shouting over the rushing wind as you rocket down Harrison Boulevard. He's telling you how he got the last peach of the season away from his little brother. You chortle. "If I had a kid brother like yours -- "
You do have a kid brother. But Eric Murphy's an only child.
" -- I'd drown him in the fucking bathtub!"
"I've thought about it," Tim yells back. "But my mom wouldn't go for it." He grabs onto the frame of the Jeep as you take a hard right onto Hoover at nearly forty miles an hour. "Why haven't you flipped this thing yet?"
"Still trying!" You're flying along at just under fifty, but you half stand up to look sharply over your shoulder at the northbound lane. "Was that Lori just passed us going the other way?"
"Don't know!"
"I think it was!"
"Sit down!" Tim pulls you into the seat. "When you have a wreck -- !"
"I'm not!"
" -- I don't want to be there!"
"But we're here already!" You jerk the wheel hard to the left and skid into a parking lot on two wheels. You flip the engine off, and your face almost meets the windshield as you jam to a stop. "Oh don't be such a pussy!" you grin at your best friend.
He's very white, even whiter than he normally is. Tim Ryan has that Irish thing where the skin is either an ivory white or an angry, sunburned red. In fact, he burns so easily that this is the first day since the end of March that you've seen him in shorts and sandals, and he's the color most people are in February. His lips are like strawberries set on snow as he turns on you with a frown. You don't have to see his eyes -- which are hidden behind sunglasses -- to know he's glaring at you.
"Whatever," he says. "Why are we here?" He looks around.
"It's the park, man." Hochstetter Park, to be precise. You lean back and hook your left leg over the steering column. "So what you wanna do?"
"I don't know, you're the one who decided to come here." He looks over his shoulder. "We should go hang out by the dog park, they got those Frisbee baskets -- "
"I don't ever see any girls at the dog park."
"I don't see any girls here," he retorts. "Do you?"
You jump up and look around. Hochstetter is a small park, near the bad part of town, and not a place that teenage girls would be hanging out. You drop back heavily into your seat and grab the key. "Okay, let's go to South Creek, that's where they -- "
"There's nothing to do at South Creek."
"Nothing but girls!"
"You just gonna walk around and hit on them?
"Maybe!"
"At least we should take a ball or Frisbee or -- "
"But I don't got -- Hang on." You jump out and run around to the back of the Jeep, to look inside the little cargo hold. "Hey! I got my hibachi back here still!"
"You wanna do a cookout?" Tim's tone is disbelieving.
"Why not? We'll go down to the river -- "
"There any girls by the river?"
"There could be! Sure!" You slap your hands together. "We'll call around, get a party going! Get Denise and Rachel and Connor and -- "
"You got charcoal back there?"
"We'll get people to bring stuff." You run back around to leap behind the wheel. "You know, BYOS." Tim at least looks intrigued as you grin at him. "Mid-week party, man. Who's gonna beat that?"
* * * * *
If Eric hadn't pulled this kind of thing off before, you'd never have dared try. But somewhere inside this quicksilver scatterbrain is a master of logistics. You first call Cody Wooten, who's up for a cookout and agrees to bring charcoal. Christian Padilla and Eric Harlen agree to bring a couple of pounds of hamburger meat, and Andrew Harding agrees to bring a couple of packages of buns. Once those guys have been nailed down, it's easy to talk other people into each bringing a single large staple: either a bag of potato chips or a six-pack of something cold. And after you've got a dozen of those guys lined up, you make a few more strategic calls to ensure there's enough actual food for everyone.
"So is that one mine?" Brianna Gould asks as she kneels beside you. You're squatting in front of the hibachi and dividing your attention between the sizzling patties and some guys loudly arguing over the merits of a new videogame shooter. The wind has calmed to an evening breeze and the sun is almost down. The country club -- directly across the river from where you and twenty other kids are eating, drinking and smoking a little weed -- stands out blackly against the burning horizon.
"It is if you give me a swallow of that." You reach out, and she hands you the can of watery beer. You gulp back half of it, and your hand brushes hers as you give it back. She lurches a little toward you, and her shoulder touches yours.
It's a good thing you're folded up and she can't see your cock rising between your thighs.
"This was a great idea," she says. "I didn't know you could cook."
"I'm a great cook!"
"Really?" She smiles. "What's your specialty?"
"Lasagna. I make a great lasagna."
"Can you make some for me, bring it in to school?"
"Bring it to you on Friday."
Eric Murphy has never in his life assembled anything more complicated than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But how hard can lasagna be? There's recipes online and you just have to follow them, right?
"Hey, are those things almost done?" Christian Padilla yells from down by the river bank. He and Cody are throwing a baseball back and forth.
"Two minutes!"
"Is that the last of the beef?"
"Unless you get some more!"
You turn back to Brianna. She's smiling at the ground. "It's a good thing Roy brought those burgers from McDonalds," she says.
"I knew we were gonna run low, I asked him to. Thanks for bringing those Ruffles."
She keeps staring at the ground, and even in the dusk you can tell there's trouble behind her eyes. You lightly, on accident but on purpose, jostle her a couple of times, just to let her know that you're paying attention but don't want to press it. A smile creeps onto her face, and she finally breaks out in something halfway between a gasp and a laugh. She looks up and over your head with a look of desperation crawling over her features. "So," she says, "I never heard what exactly happened between you and Melanie."
Mm. You fall back on your ass and cross your legs Indian style. "Nothing happened," you reply. "We never actually said we were dating, you know."
* * * * *
"You son of a bitch!" Melanie Saxon had snarled when Eric told her that. She went at him, too, and he had a brief, vivid vision of her grabbing his genitals at the base and ripping them out by the root. He leaped back. "Don't go psycho on me, Mel!" he yelled.
"You fucker!" She wheeled and stalked off, elbowing her way through the school crowd. But she didn't turn so fast he didn't see the tears springing up in her eyes. He turned stiffly back into Mr. Hartford's classroom and almost bumped into Tim, who was frowning in alarm. "What'd you do to Melanie?" he asked.
"Nothing! Just told her, you know, I wasn't gonna be hanging out with her so much anymore."
Tim gasped. "You broke up with her?"
"We were never dating, man! Like I told her."
"You told her that?"
"It's the truth!"
Tim glared with open-mouthed astonishment at his friend. "So why did it suddenly seem like such a good idea to break up with her?"
"I didn't! That's the freaking point!"
"She thinks you did!"
"I can't help what she thinks! And I didn't, because -- "
Eric had spent a lot of the summer with Melanie. She had a hammock in her back yard, and one day in May, when he was over there bragging about how he was totally going to make it onto the basketball squad, she invited him to test it out. Then she crawled into it with him and they fell face to face in it and made out for a long time. After that he was at her place at least three times a week, when her mother was gone. They got a lot of use out of the hammock over the break.
In fact, he's still got selfies he took of them lying there.
But no, they never said anything about going steady.
So when Emma Witkin got blasted on wine coolers at a party right after school started, Eric saw nothing wrong with taking her into a back bedroom for a game of Pervy Gynecologist.
But Melanie heard about it, and then --
* * * * *
He's since wondered if he made the right choice, and you wonder too.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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