Crushed (5 page)

Brady tosses the bag of chips at me and I dart my hand out to catch them before they spill all over the floor.

“That Calista looooves him.”

I wince and my cheeks growing hot. “No, she doesn’t. Trust me.” 

Reid stops playing and shifts forward, like he’s waiting for more details. I pretend not to notice and step onto the balcony. The crisp autumn air cools my face. Beneath me, a few dozen girls hang out in small groups while the guys mostly goof around. 

With the water gun in hand, Brady leans over the railing and surveys the girls. Reid, however, keeps his back toward them and his focus on me. “She likes you. Like
likes
you likes you.”

I shuffle my feet. “She’s just my friend. Ask her.” 

Reid rolls his eyes. “You aren’t friends with girls.” 

“I can be friends with a girl. Look at Paige and me. I’ve never messed around with her.” I cross my arms. “And she’s my friend.”

Brady pulls himself way from ogling the girls below us. “Doesn’t count. Paige is your friend because of Reid. He acts like your cock block.” He aims another stream of water toward a group of girls on The Beach and narrowly misses them. He waves as they shriek and giggle.

I think back through the past three years, picturing all the girls I’ve been with, spoken to, hooked-up with. I can’t think of one who’s only been my friend. Not one. 

Yet, I insist. “I can be friends with a girl.”

Without looking at me, Reid says, “Prove it.”

“What?”

“Prove you can be friends with a girl.”

I snort. “And how do I do that? Just walk up to a girl and say, ‘Hey, wanna be friends?’”

Wisps of fog drift over the dorm roof and around the corner of the building, but the kids on the Beach don’t seem to mind. Living here, tucked away in the redwoods nine months of the year, you get used to it. A sunny day for us is when the sun makes an appearance between 1:30 and 1:45 on the third Friday of every other month.

Brady sets the water gun against the railing. “What you need is a girl who is completely available. And hot. Someone who tempts you.”

 He points across The Beach. Sarah Diaz, and her two friends, Ellie Jacobs and Libby Hausman, float across the lawn. At least it appears that way with the fog rushing in around them. “You have Physics with Sarah.”

At lunch, Brady and I compared our prospects and agreed getting Sarah’s number was the win of the day. 

“Yeah.” I draw the word out. I know where he’s going with this. Sarah and I hooked up freshman year. Libby isn’t my type, so I’d have no problem not touching her. But Ellie…

She’s hot. Nice fit body, long brown hair. Cute face. I run my hand through my hair, willing her to look up, but she doesn’t. Instead, she tosses her head back, not overly dramatic or anything, and laughs. 

“Ellie Jacobs. You’ve never hooked up with her. And she totally gets you hard. If you can be friends with her, you can be friends with any girl.”

On the sad, little grass oval of The Beach, Sarah and Ellie spread a blanket. The three girls arrange themselves in a lopsided triangle. Sarah and Libby touch knees while Ellie stretches out along the edge. Unlike the clueless freshmen, Ellie wears tight jeans and a sweater that hangs off her shoulder, exposing the soft skin of her neck. Her bare shoulder indicates a lack of bra, and my mind fixates on that small fact for a moment.

“What’s the bet?” I ask.

Brady rubs his chin, like he’s thinking, but I can tell he already knows what he wants. “Your car. You have to last until we get back from spring break. If not, I get your car.”

“And if I do?”

Reid pipes up. “If Fletch can do it, you give up girls until after graduation.”

Brady begins protesting, saying his punishment is way harsher than me giving him my car. 

“But you don’t think I can do it, so why worry?” I say.

He scowls. I’ve totally got him, and he knows it. “Fine. Deal.”

As we shake on it, Reid grabs the Super Soaker and points it at me. “Okay. Here’s the thing: I’m going to soak your ass if you don’t go talk to Ellie Jacobs right now.”

“Are you fucking serious?”

His finger twitches on the trigger as he aims at my crotch. “Totally.”

I stare at Brady. “You too?”

“Don’t look at me. I want you to fail miserably.”

“Fine.” I push past Reid into the hallway. He presses the water gun into my back, and trying to be a good sport about how shitty this is going down, I throw my hands over my head and march, like a hostage, to the stairs. 

As we walk across the grass, I try to figure out what to say that won’t sound too much like I’m hitting on her. We stop next to their blanket, and the girls look up at us. Reid lowers the gun and leans on it.

Brady, however, sinks down next to Sarah and helps himself to some of the crackers the girls are eating.

“Hey, guys,” I say. How lame. 

Sarah smiles at me. “Hey, Fletch.” Confusion seeps into her voice. “What are you guys doing?”

Brady, who isn’t trying to be friends with girls, answers, “Just wanted to see what you were doing.” He pops another cracker into his mouth and drapes his arm around Sarah, who doesn’t seem bothered by it. “How were your summers?”

The girls share glances and all babble about their vacations. In the meantime, Reid sits down with them too, and I’m left looming over the group. What should I do? Sit? Is that what a friend would do?

“Where did you guys get water guns?” Ellie asks. There’s a certain force to her voice – it’s a little husky, like she’s been smoking her whole life. Gravely, maybe? Whatever, it sounds sexy.

Brady plays with the Super Soaker and points it at me. “Town.”

Town is a twenty-minute drive from Harker. And neither of these guys have cars, which means…

“You took my car?” 

Reid shrugs. “Don’t leave your keys laying around if you don’t want us to use it.”

“Or how about you guys stay out of my fucking room?”

A stream of water shoots past me and splatters all over Reid’s sweater and face. He eyes Brady lazily, flicks the water off his chin and says, “I’ve been hit.”

The girls giggle. I turn to leave. I don’t need this. Why do I have to prove myself to them? Because of Calista? Ridiculous.

“Fletch?” Sarah says. 

I pivot. “Yeah?”

“Do you want to study on Friday? For Physics?”

Brady leans his head toward her, his arm still around her shoulder. I know that look. It means, he’s staking his claim.

“Brady might be a better study partner,” I say. 

He nods. “Yeah. Science is my thing. Fletch is more of an English guy.” He laughs. “If you ever need a book read, ask him. He loves that crap.”

“I thought Fletch was the best at everything,” little inconspicuous Libby says. 

Brady presses his lips into a thin line and catches my eye “Not everything.”

There’s an edge to Brady’s normally laid-back voice. I lie. “Yeah. I suck at Government.”

Sarah kicks Ellie. “Ellie could help you. Couldn’t you?” She’s talking fast, tripping over her words.

That’s when I realize what’s happening. Sarah likes Brady. And she’s looking for ways to keep him around, even if that means sending her friend off with me. Maybe getting to know Ellie won’t be so hard after all.

I pounce on the opportunity, but try to look disinterested – like I’m not at all still thinking about the fact she’s braless. “That would be great. I could use all the help I can get.”

Ellie pushes Sarah’s foot away from her knee. “I’m busy with my own classes. Lots of AP this year.” 

The tiny bit of hope shatters. She’s turning me down. What’s with this girl? My mind races. There is no way I’m walking away from here without having plans with Ellie. Brady and Reid would never let me forget it. 

“I could pay you.”

 “I’m not a prostitute,” she snaps. A hush falls over the group. 

One of my idiot friends coughs, and I study my shoe for a moment.
Way to go, Fletch. You can’t be friends with a girl if you insult her.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”

Silence.

“Yeah, but hey, don’t worry about it. If you don’t want to, that’s fine.” Time to back peddle or abort mission. 

Another long pause. Finally, she says, “No. Of course I’ll tutor you. And you don’t need to pay me.”

“Cool. So Thursday after dinner? Can you come to my room?” 

She hesitates. “Not during visiting hours?” 

“Naw. Come around seven-thirty.”

As I recite my room number, I notice Brady whispering to Sarah. She grins.

He reluctantly tears himself away from the girls, but only after Reid threatens him with the water gun. I turn around, to say good-bye, and am greeted by a blast of cold water to the face. 

“You fucker. You’re dead.” I launch myself at Brady, who has wrenched control of the gun from Reid. He runs across The Beach, laughing like a hyena on crack.

6

We roll down the two-lane road with the windows cracked despite the fifty-degree weather. Pounding bass shakes the car, and Brady bangs the beat on the steering wheel like some sort of musical Morse code. Behind me, Reid and Alex try to out rap each other. 

I still despise Alex. 

More or less. 

But he has the contact. So for now, I’m playing nice. 

“Listen to this part,” Reid yells over the music. “The hook and the beats are tight.” Other than Paige, the only thing Reid takes seriously is music. Over the summer, he cut a demo in a sound room he set up at home, and Paige is going to give it to her music producer dad. 

Sometimes, Brady and Alex joke that Reid stays with Paige because of her dad, but I don’t think so. He’s seriously into her.

Brady slows down as we near town. Unlike Harker, with its shiny buildings and carefully groomed grounds, downtown Mills Station has been frozen somewhere in the 1950s. A series of shops — several boarded up — flank each side of the narrow road. The only thing good about Mills Station is the Target on the far side of town and its abundance of pot dealers.

At the closed-for-the-season Dairy Swirl, we hang a left. 

Ahead of us, a group of three girls, wearing jeans and flannel, walk along the shoulder. Brady slows, I guess so we can get a better look, and Alex hangs out the window like a dog getting fresh air. I lower the music.

“Hey, ladies,” Alex calls. 

They turn, all together. One of them is kinda cute, but they all have the same hardened look most locals wear. Like life’s already crushed them.

Brady speeds up, leaving the girls behind. “Not worth the effort.”

I crank the music, and we climb the hill, cutting back and forth across the steep face. Halfway up, a mailbox appears on the side of the road and Alex says, “That’s it.”

Brady slams on the breaks. The car shimmies, which is impressive considering it has anti-lock brakes.

“What the fuck? You trying to kill us?” I yell, my eyes locked on the edge of the cliff and the ridiculously low barrier that separates us from flying off the side.

“Dude, scream at Alex, he’s the dick that didn’t warn me until we were on top of it.”

Brady kicks the SUV into reverse and backs down the hill until he’s lined up with the mailbox. He turns in and nudges the car up the weedy driveway. Used cars and rusty crap litter the lawn. I’m fairly sure it’s a meth house.

“Fuck me.” Reid leans forward to get a better look. “Where the hell did you find this guy?”

“Constantine recommended him.” Alex’s normal hook-up is stuck in Russia with visa issues or something.

Brady cuts the engine and Alex jumps out. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I don’t know why, but my heart pounds. I watch Alex disappear into the house and wonder if we’re going to be on the news tonight, having been murdered by a deranged meth-head.

None of us talk. Brady keeps drumming his fingers against the steering wheel and Reid leans into the corner of his seat. I swing my gaze back to the house just as Alex walks out holding a fucking huge bag of weed. 

He yanks the car door open, climbs in, and tosses it to Reid. “Drive carefully. If we get caught with this much mar-i-juana, we’re looking at about six months.”

“Shit.” Reid throws the bag back to Alex, like a game of hot potato. “I don’t want it near me. If we get pulled over, it’s all you.”

I turn around and glare at him. “If you didn’t blow through it so fast, we wouldn’t need to buy that much at once.”

Even though I’m trying to look calm, sweat beads on my forehead, and I wipe it away. Alex hands me a bag of oval-shaped peach pills. “Xanax. You can thank me later.”

I shove the baggie in the glove box. Unlike Alex, I don’t like messing around with that stuff too often. Every once in awhile. It caps off the weed when I can’t make my mind stop racing. But I drag ass the next day and can’t focus. The trade-off isn’t worth it on a regular basis.

Brady does a three-point turn through the waist-high weeds. At the road, he pauses, checking for traffic and swings out onto the road. We creep down the hill, going maybe twenty-five.

“You’re driving like a grandma,” Reid says.

Brady grits his teeth. “Do you want to get pulled over and booked on possession? Besides, I’m technically not allowed to drive you dumb asses around.”

Only Reid is eighteen and therefore allowed to drive with a car full of minors. 

Reid doesn’t respond. I flick through the music, changing to something more upbeat. At the main road, Brady turns right.

“Maybe you should pop a Xanax before Ellie comes over, that way you can’t molest her,” Brady teases.

I roll my eyes. “I can keep my hands to myself. And enjoy your drive today, because it’s the last time.”

Reid sticks his head in between Brady and my seats. “I give you half-an-hour before you’re all over her.”

“You have no faith.”

Alex snorts. “I give him a day. I think Fletch will try to not hook-up with her, but if she seems even the least bit interested, he’ll do the horizontal limbo.”

My ears burn. They talk about me like I’m some sort of predator. “Shut up. I have self-control.”

This sends my friends into a fit of laughter. Brady cackles while keeping his focus on the road. “Well, just because Ellie’s off limits, doesn’t mean all girls are prohibited.”