The Boys Are Back in Town (9 page)

He took a long breath and let it out, shaking his head. “What're you doing?” he muttered under his breath.

As if in answer he got up and started down the steps that led toward the field, reaching into his jacket pocket for a pack of smokes, then rustling around in his other pockets until he found his lighter, a crappy orange plastic Bic. He paused at the bottom of the stairs, just beside the second set of steps, the ones that led down to the field. As he lit the cigarette that jutted from his lips, Kyle turned to face the crowd in the stands, eyes searching for some sign of Will James, but the man had disappeared into the sea of Cougars fans.

He put the lighter and the smokes away and took a long drag on the cigarette he'd lit. Kyle held the smoke in his lungs and glanced out at the field, where the Cougars were losing by two points. That was all right, though. The game was just getting going.

I'm such an asshole,
he thought. He turned and spat over the railing and then left the bleachers, tromping down the steps to the pavement around the field.

Kyle had felt as though he had discovered a genuine mystery. There had been something truly odd about the note he'd found in the storage space under his house. The oddness hadn't disappeared, but now he regretted having followed through on it. The truth was, he hadn't planned on attending the Homecoming game, even though a lot of his friends were here. But that note had changed his mind.

The note. Jesus.

It made his head hurt even worse just thinking about it, and he was glad to have it out of his possession. As he strode across the stadium grounds he took a long drag on his cigarette. His eyelids flickered, and when they did, for just a moment he was back again in the claustrophobic, dusty little space under the house. He had reached his fingers up into that hole in the insulation and pulled out a copy of
Hustler
that Neal Padgett had stolen from his father. When he had drawn the mag out of that hole, the envelope had fallen to the floor in a cascade of dust.

The thing had been coated with dust, like it had been up there forever. Which was impossible, of course. He would have discovered it a long time ago. On the other hand, he really doubted anyone had bothered to pick the lock, sneak in, and plant the thing, to weather it so it looked old and cover it in dust.

So what, then?
Kyle asked himself.
Where'd the fucking thing come from?
The whole weirdness of it all was what had made him come down here and give the note to Will James, but the guy seemed clueless, like he was in a daze. Kyle had wanted answers to the odd little mystery from under his house, and he was profoundly dissatisfied that he had come away with nothing but a headache and a queasy feeling in his stomach.

He paused, dropped the cigarette to the ground, and crushed it under his boot.

Forget it. It's out of your hands. Waste of time.

It's over.

W
ILL
'
S MIND WAS TANGLED UP
with thoughts and doubts and suspicions. How could any of this be? Someone was fucking with him, the note and envelope in his pocket seemed proof enough of that. But that could not explain the gymnastics his memory had been doing the past twenty-four hours. Yet the note—
Don't forget
—seemed a direct reference to the shifting images in his mind.

“Jesus,” he whispered as he started up in the bleachers toward where his friends were seated.
I should've worked this weekend.

He laughed softly, took a deep breath, and tried to let the tension out of his body as he exhaled. No way did he feel like talking about this with anyone. And he had already blown one opportunity to enjoy this rare gathering of old comrades. He shook his head in the very same way he did when he began to feel drowsy behind the wheel of the car, and he vowed not to think about it until the game was over.

When a bit of hot dog roll pelted him in the forehead, Will looked up to see Pix and Lolly howling with laughter, Ashleigh rolling her eyes, and Danny, Eric, and Nick all studiously analyzing the action on the football field, the picture of innocence. A wan smile eased its way onto Will's face and he was surprised to find it was only half forced.

Then Will blinked and he felt his smile dissolve. Stacy was gone. As he walked up the last few steps to where the group was sitting he glanced up farther into the bleachers, then back down the way he had come. By then he had come up beside Ashleigh and she reached up to take hold of his hand. Will glanced down at her and upon her face was an expression of both amusement and sympathy.

“She spotted Trey Morel going by, did a little giddy freakout thing, and then took off with him.”

Will sighed and shook his head.
This fucking weekend,
he thought. Nothing seemed to be right, and yet the sky was blue and the sun shone warm upon him, pads and helmets clacked together on the football field, and fans cheered wildly and spilled popcorn and drinks on one another. Someone had churned up dark thoughts and shot his life full of chaos, and the world just went right on spinning as if nothing were amiss.

He took one last glance around, but there was no sign of her. Stacy was gone.

Danny jumped up from his seat, shouting like a madman. The Cougar quarterback had just thrown for a first down. When his gaze swept to the right and found Will, however, his excitement diminished.

“Have a seat and enjoy the game, shithead. Enough with that mopey crap. Dude, I am getting you
so
drunk tonight.”

Will gave him a lopsided grin. “You promise?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Then Keisha was asking him a question and in the moment when Danny was distracted, Ashleigh tugged on Will's hand again.

“Sit with us. Come on. Just chill. You'll see her tonight.”

He nodded and slid onto the seat next to her, wishing that Stacy's abrupt departure were the only thing on his mind.

“Unless you're trying to scare her off?” Ashleigh suggested.

“Why would I do that?”

She shrugged. “You know how you are. The second you think you like a girl a little too much, you send her packing.”

Will rolled his eyes. “Why does everyone think I'm afraid of getting close to a woman?”

Ashleigh stared at him, just a hint of amusement on her face.

Will laughed. “All right, besides that. And it isn't true, anyway. I send them packing when I think I don't like them
enough.
” He paused, glanced around again as though he might catch sight of Stacy. “Did she say anything?”

Ashleigh linked an arm through her husband's on one side and through Will's on the other. He sensed her relaxing then, settling into the safety of this contact. She had always liked to sit or walk like this, arm in arm with the two of them. Her lover and her best friend. Eric had been forced to get used to it but had not done so without frequently teasing Ashleigh about her penchant for ménages à trois. Inevitably, she would end up rapping her knuckles on Eric's head, and Will wondered if that accounted for his unusual silence this time.

“Ash?” he prodded.

A sly smile touched her lips.

“Did she say anything?”

Ashleigh shot him a sidelong glance. “She said she'd see you tonight and to save her a dance.” Her smirk was devastating. “Then she kind of laughed and said on second thought, she hoped you'd save her all your dances.”

Will's mouth hung open a moment and then he laughed hesitantly. “Fuck you. She did not say that.”

Ash held up her hand as though she were in court. “Swear to God.”

All Will could summon up was “hunh.” He grunted softly and nodded ever so slightly to himself. Ashleigh nudged him in that universal good-going-champ sort of way, and this time when he smiled there came with it an immense sense of relief.

It was possible that the
entire
world wasn't turning to shit.

“Sort of interesting, the way things change, isn't it?” Ashleigh asked.

“You can say that again.”

“Are you feeling all right, Will? Seriously. Between last night and today—”

“I wasn't feeling all that well. But I'm OK now.” Will glanced at her. “Just a little stressed, I guess.”

Her husband was within earshot and now he leaned forward so he could speak directly to Will, with Ashleigh in between them. “Come on, my friend, relax. You've got nothing to be stressed about until Monday morning rolls around again. You're among friends. Let your hair down. From the looks of things, this weekend's already going better than you could've hoped.”

With the last sentence, Eric wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and Will laughed.

“Agreed. I'll take it under advisement.”

But Eric's attention had already been diverted away from him. The entire crew—in fact, the entire coterie of assembled Cougars fans—were on their feet booing dramatically.

“Pass interference!” Danny shouted.

“You suck, Ref!” Lolly and Pix cried in harmony.

It was anarchy, but it was familiar and comforting. Just the idea of these two beautiful women, each the exotic opposite of the other, screaming at the ref in unison, was enough to bring him back to another time in his life, a time when he had never been as confused about anything as he had felt in the past twenty-four hours. Teenage boys were all arrogance and swagger—almost laughably so—but there were times when he longed for the kind of clarity of purpose and conscience that he had had in those days.

Anarchy,
he mused as he glanced around at people throwing popcorn tubs and drink cups down at the field.
Maybe there's something to be said for chaos after all.

Nick Acosta slid over behind him, his grin tugging at the scar over his eye, his curly hair even wilder than usual. “Willy!” he said. “What you need is a beer.”

Will gaped at him. “Don't even tell me you snuck a cooler in here.”

All through high school they had done that for night games, passing the cooler over the fence behind the bleachers. Now Nick just shrugged.

“Okay. I won't tell you. Want a beer?”

On the field the whistle blew for halftime. Will shrugged. “Why not?”

Nick made his way back to his spot in the stands and fished a can of Budweiser out of the cooler. He leaned over to pass it to Keisha, and the beer was smuggled along to Danny, Eric, Ashleigh, and finally Will. There were chips of ice still sliding down the aluminum. He didn't really like beer very much, and Budweiser in particular, but when it was this cold . . . He glanced around and spotted the tray he and Stacy had gotten from the concession. He had completely forgotten it, and Ashleigh obviously had neglected to remind him, so now the remains of the food were cold. But one of the cups was half empty, so he dumped the rest of the soda on the stairs and poured the Bud into the cup.

Will tipped the cup back and took a gulp.

“I thought you didn't like beer these days,” Ashleigh said, a bemused expression on her face.

His upper lip curled as though he'd just tasted something sour. “I don't.” Will glanced at Ashleigh, and they both laughed. As he watched her, a warmth seemed to spread through him. How he had missed that laugh. Ashleigh was a professional woman, an attorney, a mother, and a wife, but in his heart she would always be that girl with whom he had shared everything. He loved her, certainly, but it saddened him to realize that the passage of time could make him forget how much. When she laughed her chestnut hair fell across her face and she squinted her eyes just a bit. Will reached out and touched her hand and she squeezed his fingers.

“It's so good to see you,” she said.

Much of the tension in him seemed to drain away. Whatever was happening, whoever was fucking with him, it had already stolen some of the time he should have been spending with her. Will didn't want to lose any more of that time. He wanted to forget all about the bizarre stuff, at least until Monday.

“You, too, Ash,” he said. “You, too.”

This time when she smiled he had an image in his mind, of this woman all the way back in junior high school, when she had been skinny Ashleigh Wheeler with the braces.

“I don't know if you'd be up for it,” she said, “but I was thinking maybe you could come down and spend Halloween with us this year. Take the twins out trick-or-treating.”

Will nodded. “I'd love that. We had a good time on Halloween, didn't we?”

“Always. Remember that time you went as Spider-Man and split your pants?”

He rolled his eyes. “You won't let me forget, no matter how much I try.”

Ashleigh turned sideways in her seat to face him. “It's when I think about you the most. At Halloween. We really should try to see each other more. Eric tells me all the time that we just have to make the effort. It's weird the turns life takes. I mean, I saw you almost every day for eighteen years. I never thought I'd live anywhere else.”

“Yeah, this growing-up thing sucks!” Will said in mock protest. Then he softened. “Actually, it's not so bad. I wish I could see you all more. What's that saying? ‘Life's what happens when you're busy making other plans.' That's true, isn't it?”

Ashleigh frowned. “Not if I can help it.”

Will took another sip of beer and grimaced. He had thought he wanted it, that the alcohol content alone would be worth the rusty taste, but now he set it down between his legs and forgot it. “I'd love to come down for Halloween.”

“It's settled, then,” Ashleigh replied.

Will heard the ghost of her mother in the phrase and could picture Mrs. Wheeler at the kitchen table speaking those same words. She had been a gruff but kindhearted woman, always ready with brownies or candy, but also more than willing to correct a child, whether the kid was her own offspring or not. Mrs. Wheeler had died when they were sophomores in college.

“So, who else have you run into so far?” he asked.

“Oh, my God!” Ashleigh said, the spark of her high school self flashing in her eyes. “Did you see Nyla Leonitis?”

Will grinned at her excitement. “No.”

“You heard she was gay, though, right?”

He pictured high school Nyla in his mind. Stereotypes were bullshit, there was no question about that. But with her mannish features, absolute ignorance of anything feminine, and the cut of her hair, people willing to jump to conclusions would certainly have presumed she was a lesbian.