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~*~What happened to the Booze? ~*~
Mari’s older cousin Jenna lived in one of those split-level houses that always smelled faintly damp no matter the season, tucked into a winding suburban street where every mailbox leaned a little differently and every backyard had the same sagging chain-link fence. By nine o'clock the place already felt overheated from too many bodies packed into it, all trapped cigarette smoke and beer breath and the sweet chemical fog of somebody’s peach body spray hanging thick in the air.
Music rattled the windows hard enough to buzz the cheap framed prints on the walls. Somebody had spilled something sticky across half the kitchen floor, and every step made shoes peel faintly against the linoleum. The sink overflowed with red plastic cups and melting ice. One of the dining room lamps wore a feather boa for reasons nobody could explain anymore.
Nat leaned against the back hallway wall with a warm beer and watched Van lose an argument with Akilah over whether raccoons could theoretically survive a nuclear apocalypse.
The wall pressed cool through her flannel despite the heat trapped inside the house. Somewhere behind her, somebody opened the back door and a brief gust of cold air cut through the smell of beer and sweat before the noise swallowed it again.
“They can open coolers,” Van said, deeply serious from where she sat cross-legged on the carpet. “That’s basically evolution.”
Akilah laughed from the arm of the couch. “That’s not evolution.”
“It absolutely is.”
Tai stood nearby with her arms folded, trying not to smile and failing around the edges. Every so often Van would glance over mid-rant like she needed visual confirmation Tai was still listening. Tai always was.
Across the room, Mari was yelling at her cousin Jenna, who looked about twenty-three and already exhausted by her own existence. Jenna kept disappearing every few minutes like she imagined new disasters elsewhere in the house.
“You said you bought enough,” Mari snapped over the music.
Jenna turned from the refrigerator with both hands full of soda cans. “I did buy enough.”
“For twelve people, maybe.”
“There were supposed to be twelve people!”
Mari gestured wildly toward the living room where half the team had taken over every available surface. “There are forty-seven girls in this house, Jenna.”
“Okay, well, nobody told me soccer players travel in packs.”
“They’re not wolves.”
“They kind of are.”
Nat snorted into her beer.
Lottie appeared beside her like she always did somehow, quiet enough that Nat never heard her coming until she was already there. She smelled faintly like cold air and the vanilla lotion she always used, softer than the rest of the room, which mostly smelled like spilled beer and overheated teenagers.
“You’re hiding,” Lottie said.
Nat took another sip of her beer. “I’m observing.”
Lottie leaned one shoulder against the wall beside her. “You’ve been observing from the same hallway for twenty minutes.”
“Maybe I like this hallway.”
Lottie smiled a little.
Somebody squeezed between them carrying a bowl of chips and immediately got shoved sideways by somebody else trying to reach the kitchen. Lottie barely moved. Nat did, and she was suddenly far too aware of how close they were standing.
Lottie had on a dark green sweater that kept catching the yellow kitchen light every time somebody moved past them, making the wool look softer than it probably was. Nat had spent most of the night trying not to stare at it. Or her. She was failing at both.
From the living room came a loud chorus of shouting.
Van again.
“Jackie absolutely would not survive a horror movie,” Van declared from the floor by the coffee table.
Jackie, sprawled upside down in an armchair with one sock missing, looked offended. “Excuse me?”
Van pointed at her beer like she was making a legal argument. “You would investigate the noise.”
Jackie sat up slightly. “I would not.”
“You absolutely would. You’d hear creepy basement sounds and go hello like a white woman in a commercial.”
Shauna nearly choked laughing into her drink.
Jackie pointed across the room. “Nat would survive.”
Nat lifted her beer in acknowledgement. “Damn right.”
“Misty would survive too,” Van continued.
Everybody turned toward Misty at once.
Misty lit up immediately. “Really?”
Van considered her for a second. “Actually, yeah. But in a deeply concerning way.”
“That’s honestly fair,” Tai muttered.
The room dissolved into overlapping laughter again.
Nat smiled despite herself and took another sip of beer. Very warm now. Flat. Tasted vaguely metallic.
Beside her, Lottie noticed immediately.
“That’s awful,” she said, eyeing the beer.
“It’s beer. It’s all awful.”
“You’re drinking it like medicine.”
“Maybe it is medicine.”
Lottie’s expression changed slightly at that, something quieter slipping underneath the amusement. Nat knew that look. It meant Lottie was trying to decide whether to ask if she was okay in front of people.
Nat nudged her shoulder lightly before she could.
“Don’t,” she murmured.
Lottie studied her for half a second, then nodded once.
Across the kitchen, Mari suddenly swore loud enough to cut through the music.
“Oh my God. Jenna.”
Jenna looked up. “What.”
Mari stared into the fridge.
“Tell me there's more somewhere.”
Jenna didn't answer.
Mari closed her eyes.
“We're not making it through the night on what's left in here.”
The room reacted in waves.
First disbelief.
Then outrage.
Then a dozen girls all talking at once.
“You’re kidding.”
“No fucking way.”
“Already?”
“We just got here.”
Jenna threw both hands up defensively. “You said buy enough for a party. I didn’t know half the soccer team drinks like divorced dads.”
“That’s not the point,” Mari snapped.
Jenna pointed accusingly toward the living room. “I saw Laura Lee shotgun a beer.”
Laura Lee looked horrified. “It was one time.”
“And you cried immediately after,” Van called.
Laura Lee tucked her cup closer to her chest. “I felt guilty.”
“You felt competitive,” Tai corrected.
Even Laura Lee laughed at that.
Van appeared instantly at the centre of the crisis like she’d been summoned by distress itself.
“Okay,” she announced, clapping once. “Nobody panic.”
Tai groaned quietly into her hands from the couch arm. “That sentence has never once led to anything good.”
Van ignored her completely. “We regroup. We adapt. We survive.”
“You sound like a motivational speaker at summer camp,” Nat called from the hallway.
Van pointed at her immediately. “Exactly the attitude I need. You’re with me.”
Nat straightened slightly. “Why the fuck am I with you?”
“Because you can drive.”
Van swept an arm dramatically toward the kitchen. “Ladies, we are holding together the emotional stability of this entire house.”
Lottie leaned closer to Nat. “That’s definitely not true.”
“Not even a little,” Nat muttered back.
Mari pushed through the crowd toward them, already digging crumpled bills from her pocket. “Seriously, can one of you go? Jenna apparently planned this party like prohibition never ended.”
“I said I was sorry,” Jenna yelled from inside the fridge.
“You bought two cases for forty people.”
“I thought people would pace themselves.”
Every girl in the kitchen burst out laughing.
Van took the money from Mari and looked around the room.
“We accept your quest,” she declared, grinning like she'd just been handed a sword instead of a fistful of crumpled bills.
Nat groaned.
Tai immediately looked suspicious. “Why are you smiling like that.”
Van ignored her completely. “Ladies,” she said solemnly, “help is here.”
Van reached into her jacket pocket with the flourish of a magician about to embarrass herself publicly and produced a fake ID.
Nat stared at it.
Then stared harder.
The laminate peeled upward in one corner. The picture looked like Van after surviving a small electrical fire. Somehow the colours were both too bright and faded at the same time.
Nat blinked slowly. “Van.”
“What.”
“This looks fake from across the room.”
“It’s called confidence.”
“It’s called a felony.”
Akilah leaned over the back of the couch for a better look and barked out a laugh. “Oh my God, it says you’re from Delaware.”
Van snatched it back protectively. “People from Delaware drink.”
Tai folded her arms. “Not with that haircut they don’t.”
Van looked genuinely wounded. “You said this haircut made me look mature.”
Tai didn’t even blink. “I said it made you look like you knew a guy who sold fireworks.”
“That’s mature in some circles.”
Nat rubbed a hand over her face. “We are absolutely getting arrested.”
Beside her, Lottie was trying not to laugh now, badly enough that Nat could see it pulling at the corners of her mouth.
Her chest tightened unexpectedly, like she'd missed a step she hadn't realised was there.
Nat took another sip of beer mostly to give herself something else to focus on. It didn't help.
“You don’t have to go,” Lottie said quietly.
Nat looked over.
The noise of the party folded strangely around moments with Lottie sometimes, turning muffled and distant at the edges. Music thumped through the floorboards. Somebody shrieked laughing upstairs. The kitchen smelled like beer foam and burned fries. But Lottie looked at her like the room had narrowed down to one person.
Nat shrugged one shoulder. “Yeah, I kinda do.”
Lottie stepped closer and fixed the collar of Nat’s flannel where it had folded under her jacket. Her fingers brushed briefly against the side of Nat’s throat, cool from holding a drink with actual ice in it.
“Drive safe,” she said softly.
Nat forgot, for one catastrophic second, how language worked.
She could still feel the brief brush of Lottie's fingers against the side of her throat. The spot seemed absurdly aware of itself.
Then Van ruined it immediately.
“Oh my God,” she groaned loudly from the kitchen doorway. “You two are disgusting.”
Nat flipped her off without looking away from Lottie. “Fuck off.”
Van grabbed Nat by the sleeve and started dragging her toward the front door.
“Come on, cowboy, Field trip.”
“We’re going to a liquor store, not the Moon.”
“Same emotional stakes.”
Behind them, Tai called from the couch, “If you get arrested, I’m leaving you there.”
Van pointed finger guns over her shoulder. “Love you too, babe.”
The cold outside hit all at once.
Sharp November air hit the sweat and heat trapped under Nat's jacket. Damp leaves smelled stronger out here, mixed with somebody's distant woodsmoke and the faint tang of wet pavement. Nat sucked in a breath that tasted cleaner than the inside of the house and felt some of the noise finally loosen its grip on her head as she followed Van down the driveway, headlights silvering the wet street in the distance.
Behind them, the music still shook the windows. Ahead of them, Wiskayok stretched dark and quiet and full of very bad ideas.
~*~ Confidence Is Not a Strategy ~*~
Nat’s car smelled faintly like old cigarettes and damp leather even before they got in. The passenger door stuck in cold weather and Van had to tug twice before it opened properly.
“Does your car still sound asthmatic,” she said, climbing in.
“It was built during the Carter administration. Show some respect.”
Van slammed the door shut with her hip. “I’m just saying if this thing explodes, I want it on record I died doing community service.”
Nat started the engine. It coughed hard before finally catching.
“There,” Van said immediately. “That noise. That’s the exact noise smokers make before they die in movies.”
Nat pulled out of the curb. “You’re such a fucking optimist.”
The steering wheel felt cold beneath her hands despite the heater rattling somewhere under the dashboard. The car always took forever to warm up.
The neighbourhood slid past in strips of silver and orange under the streetlights, the wet roads catching the light and throwing it back in broken ribbons. Most of Wiskayok had gone quiet already. Dark windows. Wet sidewalks. The occasional television flickering blue behind curtains. Somebody’s dog barked as they rolled past too fast.
The tyres hissed softly over damp pavement. Every now and then the headlights caught piles of leaves gathered against a curb before they vanished behind them again.
Van kicked her boots up onto the dashboard.
“Absolutely not,” Nat said.
“What.”
“Get your swamp feet off my dash.”
“These shoes cost sixty dollars.”
“They look like they lost a knife fight.”
Van grinned and left them there anyway.
The farther they got from Jenna’s neighbourhood, the more the roads opened up. Long stretches of dark trees. Empty intersections blinking yellow. The radio crackled between stations before settling on something fuzzy and loud with too much guitar.
Van drummed both hands against her knees for a few seconds before glancing sideways at Nat.
“You’ve been weird lately.”
Nat kept her eyes on the road. “Thank you, fucking Oprah.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Van watched her for another second.
The thing about Van was that she noticed more than people thought she did. Everybody treated her like she was all noise and jokes and movement, but she watched people carefully when they stopped paying attention. Nat had learned that early.
“You skipped practice twice last month,” Van said. “And you keep disappearing at parties.”
“I’d literally still be at a party right now if you hadn’t dragged me off.”
“You know what I mean.”
Nat tightened both hands on the wheel. The heater rattled weakly against the windshield, blowing air that smelled vaguely dusty.
Outside, somebody’s Halloween decorations still sagged across a front lawn halfway through November. One plastic ghost twisted slowly in the wind.
“I’ve just been tired,” Nat muttered.
Van snorted softly. “Bullshit.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, seriously.” Van turned a little in her seat now. “You get this look sometimes lately like you’re already halfway out the door before anything’s even happened.”
Nat stared ahead.
The road gleamed wet under the headlights.
A gas station slid by on their right, fluorescent lights buzzing pale against the dark. Two older girls stood outside smoking beside a Jeep with the doors off despite the cold.
Nat shrugged one shoulder finally. “Sometimes people get tired of hearing themselves think.”
The admission sat between them for a second. Nat immediately wished she'd said something less honest.
Van didn't answer straight away.
She just looked out through the windshield for a second, listening.
Then, because she was Van and couldn’t tolerate sincerity too long without scratching at it:
“Well lucky for you, I’m here now.”
Nat barked a laugh before she could stop herself.
“It’s true. Your thoughts don’t stand a chance against me.”
“That might be the dumbest thing you’ve ever said.”
“Impossible. I say incredible amounts of dumb shit daily.”
Nat shook her head, smiling despite herself.
Van spotted it immediately. “There. That. That’s the face. More of that.”
“Shut up.”
“No seriously, you’ve been acting like a divorced forty-year-old lately.”
“I’m seventeen.”
“You’re spiritually forty.”
Nat laughed again, fuller this time.
The liquor store appeared ahead of them tucked beside a shuttered dry cleaner and a Chinese takeout place with fogged windows glowing gold against the street. A neon BEER sign buzzed weakly in the window.
Van sat up straighter immediately.
“Okay,” she said, reaching into her jacket. “Game face.”
Nat pulled into the parking lot and killed the engine.
Van produced the fake ID again.
Under the harsh parking lot lights it somehow looked worse. The laminate curled upward in one corner and the Delaware thing remained completely insane.
Nat stared at it.
Then at Van.
Then back at the ID.
“How,” Nat asked finally, “did you even get this?”
Van looked offended. “I have connections.”
“You got this from a guy named Snake outside a bowling alley, didn’t you.”
“It was near a bowling alley.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
Van checked her reflection in the passenger mirror and pushed both hands through her hair.
“Do I look twenty-one?”
Nat snorted. “You look like you’re trying way too hard.”
Van looked at herself again. “That’s because I am.”
Nat shoved her door open.
Cold air rushed in immediately, sharp with rain and gasoline and damp pavement. Somewhere nearby a truck engine idled. The smell of fryer grease drifted across from the takeout place next door every time the wind shifted.
The fluorescent lights inside the liquor store hummed against the dark.
Van climbed out beside her and held up the fake ID one more time.
“Trust the process.”
Nat slammed the car door shut.
“The process is getting denied in under thirty seconds.”
~*~ Administrative Error ~*~
Inside, the liquor store was too bright.
Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. The tile floor had gone yellow-grey with age. A cardboard display of cheap beer leaned crooked near the coolers. Somewhere toward the back, a tiny radio played classic rock low enough to sound underwater.
Nat headed straight for the beer fridge.
“Act normal,” she muttered.
“I am normal.”
“You’re walking weird.”
Van immediately adjusted how she was walking.
“That better?”
“No. You’re making it worse.”
Van rolled her eyes.
Cold air rolled out when Nat pulled the glass door open. They grabbed two cases each without really looking at brands.
The clerk finally looked up when they reached the counter.
Mid-fifties maybe. Thick moustache. Glasses low on his nose. The kind of guy who looked permanently annoyed by teenagers before they even spoke.
Nat felt him clock them immediately.
Not dramatically.
Just the quick once-over adults did when they already thought they knew exactly who you were.
Van set the beer down first.
The clerk looked at the cases.
Then at Van.
Then at Nat.
“ID.”
Van handed it over immediately.
Too fast.
Nat looked away.
The clerk took the card between two fingers and studied it.
Behind them, the beer cooler compressors rattled softly. Somebody laughed outside near the parking lot. The radio changed songs somewhere in the back room.
The guy looked back up.
“You from Delaware?”
Van nodded once.
“Moved here.”
“Why.”
Van blinked.
Nat closed her eyes briefly.
“What?”
“Why’d you move here?”
“Oh.”
Van shifted her weight.
“My mom.”
The clerk waited.
“She got remarried.”
Still waiting.
Nat could physically feel this going off the rails.
“To who?” the clerk asked.
Van froze.
The silence stretched.
Then:
“Gary.”
Nat pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Gary,” the clerk repeated.
“Yeah.”
Another pause.
“Gary what?”
Van looked like she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her.
Nat stepped in.
“Look, man, either sell us the beer or don’t.”
The clerk looked at her.
“You her sister?”
“Nah.”
Van looked offended immediately.
“Wow.”
The clerk glanced back down at the ID.
Then slid it across the counter.
“This is fake.”
Van grabbed it.
“No it isn’t.”
“It says you’re six foot one.”
Nat snapped her head around.
Van looked down at the card.
Then looked again.
“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me.”
The clerk actually laughed once at that.
Not warmly. More exhausted than anything.
“You girls got about thirty seconds before I ask you to leave.”
Van still looked personally offended by the height.
“Six one?”
“Van,” Nat said.
“I’m five six.”
“Van.”
“Who made me six one?”
The clerk pointed toward the door.
Nat sighed.
“Come on.”
Van picked up a case automatically before realizing they weren’t buying anything.
“Fuck.”
“Language,” the clerk said.
Nat stared at him.
“Seriously?”
Something twitched at the corner of his mouth.
Van shoved the beer back onto the counter.
The bell over the door jingled as they left.
Cold air hit them immediately.
The door swung shut behind them.
For a second neither of them spoke.
Then Van pulled the fake ID out again.
“Six one.”
Nat laughed despite herself and leaned back against the hood.
“Oh my God.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You didn’t even know your own fake height.”
“I assumed they’d get that part right.”
The neon beer sign buzzed overhead.
Across the street, headlights swept through the intersection and vanished.
Van shoved the card back into her jacket.
“Well.”
Nat already hated that tone.
“No.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re about to.”
Van grinned.
“Maybe.”
Nat rubbed both hands over her face.
“For fuck's sake, Van.”
“You remember those girls at the gas station earlier, where we stopped on the way to the party?”
“The ones smoking cloves and you thought it was weed?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
“I know enough.”
Van leaned against the car beside her.
“They mentioned another party.”
Nat groaned immediately.
“Absolutely Not.”
“They’d definitely have booze.”
Nat looked up at the dark sky.
Heavy clouds.
No stars.
The kind of cold Jersey night that smelled like wet pavement and chimney smoke.
They should go back.
Tell everybody the liquor store said no.
Let the party burn itself out naturally.
That was the sensible thing to do.
Van was already smiling.
Not because she had a plan.
Because she had an idea.
Which was usually worse.
“Sparta,” she said.
Nat looked at her.
“Sparta?”
“About fifteen minutes.”
“You know where this party is?”
“Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
Van shrugged.
“They were talking about a bonfire.”
“A bonfire.”
“Yeah.”
Nat laughed once.
Short. Disbelieving.
“You are going to get us murdered.”
Van grinned.
“You’re still standing here.”
And that was the problem.
Nat weighed her options for all of half a second.
“Fuck.”
Van’s smile widened.
“Is that a yes?”
“No.”
“Nat.”
“Get in the car.”
Van practically skipped around to the passenger side.
“That's definitely a yes.”
“Shut up.”
“Road trip phase two.”
Nat started the engine.
“Keep talking and I’m leaving you here.”
Van buckled her seatbelt, still smiling.
The heater rattled weakly to life.
Ahead of them, the road stretched out into the dark.
~*~ The First Haul ~*~
The roads got quieter the farther they drove from the liquor store.
The darkness beyond the headlights felt thicker out here. Once they left the main roads behind, there were long stretches where the only light came from the dashboard and whatever the headlights managed to catch before it disappeared again.
Most of the storefronts had disappeared now, replaced by stretches of dark trees and small houses sitting back from the road. Every so often headlights passed in the opposite direction, bright for a second before vanishing into the dark behind them.
Van had her feet up on the dashboard again.
Nat had already told her to move them twice.
She'd stopped trying.
The toe of one boot tapped absently against the glove compartment every time the song on the radio changed.
The heater rattled weakly through the vents, blowing air that felt only slightly warmer than outside. The radio drifted in and out of static between songs.
Nat glanced over.
"Other than to a bonfire, do you actually know where we're going?"
"Sort of."
"That's not an answer."
"It's near Sparta, off the main road in."
"That's still not a good answer."
Van pointed through the windshield.
"See?"
Nat looked.
There was nothing there.
Just road.
"See what?"
"The confidence."
Nat looked back at the road.
"You're such a dick."
Van grinned and turned the radio up before Nat could reach it.
A few minutes later they rounded a bend and saw firelight flickering through the trees.
Not a bonfire.
Just a backyard fire pit.
Music drifted faintly through the cold air. Somebody was laughing.
Van sat up immediately.
"There."
Nat slowed.
The house sat at the end of a gravel driveway. Cars lined both sides of the road. Pickups. Sedans. A couple of rusted Jeeps. The yard was crowded with people standing around a fire built inside an old metal drum.
The fire threw moving shadows across the parked cars. Every so often somebody crossed in front of it and vanished briefly into darkness before stepping back into the orange glow.
The second Nat saw the soccer jackets, she groaned.
"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me."
Van looked.
Then started laughing.
"Oh, this is incredible."
"It’s not."
"It absolutely is."
Nat recognized the school colours immediately.
Dark blue and silver.
Sparta.
Half their soccer team hated Sparta.
The feeling was mutual.
"You didn't guess?" Van asked.
"No."
"That makes this way funnier."
Nat parked anyway.
The engine ticked softly as it cooled.
Wood smoke from the fire pit drifted through the cracked window. Somebody nearby was grilling something. Charcoal, cold air and damp leaves mixed together.
For a second neither of them moved.
Then Van opened her door.
"What are you doing?"
"We need beer."
"From Sparta."
"Beer doesn't know what school you go to."
Nat stared at her.
Van stared back.
Unfortunately, she had a point.
"Fine," Nat muttered.
The gravel crunched under their boots as they crossed the driveway.
The smell of wood smoke clung to everything. Jackets. Hair. The cold air itself.
Nobody paid much attention at first.
Most people were gathered around the fire. Others crowded the porch steps. Music leaked through open windows.
The whole thing felt looser than Jenna's party.
Less crowded.
More spread out.
Somebody had dragged lawn chairs into the yard. Somebody else sat on the roof of a pickup truck.
A girl standing by a cooler looked up.
The girl squinted for half a second before her expression changed.
"Well, shit."
Nat closed her eyes briefly.
Van looked delighted.
The girl laughed and pointed.
"Wiskayok."
"Sparta," Nat replied.
The girl took a sip from her beer.
"You lost?"
"Frequently," Van said.
Nat elbowed her.
The girl laughed again.
Around them, a few more heads turned.
Recognition spreading.
Not hostile.
Just curious.
The soccer thing.
Everybody knew everybody.
You spent enough years playing against the same schools and eventually faces became familiar whether you liked it or not.
The girl glanced between them.
"What are you doing here?"
Van answered before Nat could.
"Our party’s running out of beer. "
The girl stared.
Then barked out a laugh.
"No way."
"Way."
"That's embarrassing."
"We know."
By now a couple more girls had wandered over.
One of them recognized Nat.
"Scatorccio?"
"Unfortunately."
The girl grinned.
"You knocked my cousin on her ass last season."
"Your cousin shouldn't stand where I'm running."
That got another laugh.
The tension loosened a little.
Van immediately sensed it.
Dangerous.
Nat could practically see the gears turning.
The cooler sat three feet away.
Condensation gleamed on aluminium cans under the yard lights.
Van looked at it.
Then at the girls.
Then back at the cooler.
The tallest one caught her looking.
"You trying to steal our beer?"
Van looked genuinely offended.
"No."
A beat.
"Can we have some?"
The girls burst out laughing.
Nat buried her face in one hand.
"Jesus fucking Christ."
"What?" Van asked.
"You can't just ask."
"I literally can."
Apparently, she could.
Because five minutes later Nat found herself sitting in a lawn chair she didn't remember agreeing to occupy while one of the Sparta girls handed her a beer.
The can was ice cold.
The first cold drink she'd had all night.
Condensation dampened her fingers immediately. The metal felt almost painful against her skin.
Van sat nearby talking to three people at once.
Like she'd known them for years.
Nat shook her head.
Across the fire, somebody strummed badly at an acoustic guitar.
The smoke drifted sideways with the wind.
The beer tasted better than the warm garbage from Jenna's house.
A girl dropped an unopened case beside the chair.
"For your tragic beer shortage."
Nat blinked.
"What?"
The girl shrugged.
"We've got plenty."
Across the yard Van saw the case and lit up.
Her grin was visible even through the firelight.
Nat could practically hear the idea forming.
One case.
A little more than they had before.
Still nowhere near enough.
And somehow that realization made her laugh.
Because she could already feel where the night was going.
And because, despite every sensible instinct she possessed, she wasn't ready to go back yet.
~*~ The Good Part ~*~
The case from Sparta rattled around in the back seat every time Nat hit a pothole.
Not just a full case anymore, either.
One of the girls had stuffed a couple extra bottles in with it before they left. Nat had not even caught who. Somebody had yelled something about soccer solidarity. Somebody else had called them idiots.
The whole thing felt vaguely unreal now.
Wood smoke still clung faintly to their jackets from Sparta. Every time the heater kicked a little harder, Nat caught a trace of it underneath the smell of old upholstery and dust.
The heater clicked and groaned. Van had stolen somebody’s lighter and sweater. The radio had found a station that came in clearly for almost three minutes before dissolving back into static.
Nat drove.
Van talked.
The arrangement had existed for years.
“You know what the problem is?” Van said.
Nat didn’t even look over. “There are so many problems.”
“The amount.”
“The amount of what?”
“The booze.”
Nat groaned. “We have booze.”
“We have some booze.”
“We have more than we had.”
Van considered this. “That’s technically true.”
“Good. Glad we solved that.”
Outside, the road curved around a dark stretch of woods. The headlights caught the wet branches one moment and lost them the next, silver flashing briefly between the trees before the dark swallowed it again.
Rain earlier in the evening had left the shoulders slick with leaves. Every now and then the tyres crackled over a branch that had blown into the road.
For maybe ten whole seconds, Van was quiet.
Then, “We should probably get more.”
Nat laughed, not because it was funny, but because of course.
“Absolutely not.”
“Think about it.”
“No.”
“Just a little.”
“No.”
Van shifted in her seat. “Okay, but.”
“There is no but.”
“There is a but.”
“There isn’t.”
“There is.”
Nat kept her eyes on the road.
“I know that tone.”
“What tone?”
“The one that ends with me regretting something.”
Van ignored her.
Naturally.
For a while the only sounds were the heater rattling and the occasional clink from the bottles in the back.
The road had settled into that late-night rhythm where there were more shadows than cars and every set of headlights felt like an event.
Then Nat glanced over.
“You and Tai ever fight?”
Van looked offended. “Of course we fight.”
“About what?”
“Important stuff.”
Nat waited.
Van thought for a second. “The X-Files.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“I’m serious.”
“You absolutely aren’t.”
“We had a two-day argument about Mulder not being good enough for Scully.”
Nat laughed. “That’s not a real problem.”
“It became one.”
The road curved through another stretch of trees. Headlights washed across bare branches before disappearing again.
Van fiddled with the radio.
Nat drummed her fingers against the steering wheel.
Then she said, “You make it look easy.”
Van looked over. “What?”
“You and Tai.”
Van was quiet for a second.
“It isn’t.”
“Looks like it.”
“That’s because you’re only around for the good bits.”
Nat considered that.
Fair.
Van shifted in her seat. “You and Lottie okay?”
“Yeah.”
The answer came immediately.
Too immediately.
Van noticed.
Of course she did.
“What?”
Van smiled slightly. “Nothing.”
“Van.”
“I’m serious. Nothing.”
“You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you say nothing and then make a face.”
Van laughed. “You know, for somebody who’s supposed to be all mysterious and enlightened, Lottie has terrible taste.”
Nat nearly missed the next turn.
The tyres bumped briefly onto the shoulder before she corrected. Van looked far too pleased with herself.
“What?”
Van shrugged, like the evidence was sitting right there in the driver’s seat. “Look at you.”
“Fuck off.”
“I’m serious,” Van said, settling deeper into the passenger seat. “You’re grumpy all the time.”
“I’m not grumpy.”
“You yelled at a vending machine last week.”
“It ate my dollar.”
“You swear at inanimate objects.”
“They deserve it.”
Van barked out a laugh.
“Okay, fuck you,” Nat said, still laughing.
“But she still looks at you like you hung the moon.”
The laughter faded, not completely, just enough.
The road hummed beneath the tires.
A pickup passed in the opposite direction, headlights sweeping through the car before vanishing into the dark behind them.
Van looked out the passenger window. “You know what I mean.”
Nat did.
Lottie always looked at her differently than she looked at everybody else. Like she was listening more closely. Like Nat was saying something worth hearing. Like she genuinely wanted to be wherever Nat happened to be.
That was harder to understand than the kissing.
Van kept talking before Nat could say anything.
“I'm not talking about the girlfriend part.”
Nat glanced over.
“There's a different part?”
“Yeah.”
Van fiddled with the stolen lighter.
“You can just be yourself around her.”
Nat frowned.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
Van laughed.
“You know exactly what it means.”
“Apparently I don't.”
Van looked out the window for a second.
“You don't perform for her.”
Nat didn't answer.
Because that one landed.
Van shrugged.
“You don't have to be funny. Or tough. Or pretend you're fine when you're not.”
The bottles rattled softly in the back as the car hit a bump.
“You just show up.”
Nat stared at the road.
Van rolled the lighter between her fingers.
“And she does the same thing.”
For a moment the only sound was the heater.
“That's rare.”
Nat thought about that.
Thought about Lottie sitting beside her in silence and never making it feel awkward.
Thought about Lottie seeing right through her half the time and sticking around anyway.
Thought about how easy it was to be around her.
Van leaned her head against the window.
“That's the good part.”
Van stretched her legs out and let the silence sit for about two seconds before she ruined it.
“Anyway.”
Nat groaned immediately. “There it is.”
Van looked over grinning. “What?”
“You’re about to ruin the moment.”
“Probably.”
“Definitely.”
Van pointed a thumb toward the back seat. “I still think we need more beer.”
Nat laughed. “Of course you do.”
The payphone outside a closed gas station appeared ahead, glowing under a yellow light.
Van sat up. “Oh.”
“No.”
“Come on.”
“No.”
“We’ve been gone forever.”
Nat glanced at the clock.
Shit.
Van saw it immediately. “See?”
“Don’t.”
“Tai’s gonna kill me.”
“Tai was gonna kill you before we left.”
“Fair.”
Nat pulled into the gas station anyway.
Mostly because she wanted a cigarette.
Her shoulders felt stiff from driving, and the now warm air inside the car had started to make her restless.
Partly because Van was not wrong.
~*~ Somebody Knows Somebody ~*~
The air outside smelled like old gasoline.
Van was already halfway to the payphone by the time Nat got out of the car. The case from Sparta sat visible through the back window, looking pathetic under the station lights.
Van glanced at the dark convenience store.
"This is where people buy cursed maps."
Nat sighed.
"This isn’t a movie. Go call Tai."
"I'm just saying."
Nat leaned against the hood and lit a cigarette while Van fed quarters into the phone. The ice machine beside the payphone hummed loudly in the quiet. Somewhere behind the station, water dripped steadily from a gutter onto concrete.
A minute later, Nat could hear Tai yelling through the receiver from twenty feet away.
Even through the crackle of the line, there was no mistaking her voice.
Van held the phone away from her ear.
“She’s upset.”
Nat exhaled smoke. “Really?”
“I know. Surprising.”
Van put the receiver back to her ear. “Okay, but in our defence, nobody got arrested.”
A pause.
“No, we didn’t get the beer from the store.”
Another pause.
“No, the fake ID wasn’t the problem.”
Nat laughed into her cigarette.
The smoke caught in her throat and she had to turn away to cough.
Van waved at her to stop without turning around.
The headlights came first.
A pickup rolled into the gas station lot, tyres hissing over wet gravel. There were three women in the cab, older than them, probably early twenties. The driver slowed by the pumps, looked at the payphone, then at Van, then at Nat leaning against the car.
The window rolled down.
“Everything okay?”
Nat opened her mouth to say yes.
Van beat her to it.
“Not really.”
Nat closed her eyes.
The cigarette stayed pinched between her fingers while she counted silently to three.
The driver laughed. She had short blonde hair tucked behind one ear and a sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up. One of the women beside her leaned forward, cigarette between her fingers.
The woman in the passenger seat leaned closer to the open window. “You two lost?”
“No,” Nat said at once.
“Maybe,” Van said, at exactly the same time.
The driver laughed again. “That clears that up.”
Van hung up the phone before Tai could finish yelling.
Nat blinked at her. “Did you just hang up on Tai?”
“She was repeating herself.”
“You’re dead.”
“I know.”
The driver looked between them, then at the single case of beer in the back of Nat’s car. “You coming from Sparta?”
Nat glanced down at Van’s borrowed sweatshirt and swore under her breath.
Van followed her gaze. “Oh.”
The woman in the passenger seat grinned. “Soccer girls.”
“Unfortunately,” Nat said.
Five minutes later, Van had somehow explained most of the night to them.
Badly.
“So there was beer,” Van said.
The blonde woman nodded. “Okay.”
“And then there wasn’t.”
“Still with you.”
“And then there was a fake ID issue.”
The woman in the passenger seat laughed. “Whose fake ID?”
Van pointed at herself.
Nat sighed. “It said she was six-one.”
All three women lost it.
Van looked personally attacked. “That wasn’t my fault.”
“You bought it,” Nat said.
“I didn’t print it.”
The driver wiped at her eyes. “Six-one?”
“I’m five-six,” Van said, still offended.
“Barely,” Nat muttered.
Van turned on her. “Excuse me?”
The blonde woman looked toward Nat’s car again. “So now you’re going back with one case?”
“And some bottles,” Van said.
“How many bottles?”
Van thought about it. “A couple.”
The three women looked at each other.
Then at the car.
Then back at Van.
“That’s not enough.”
Nat groaned. “Thank you.”
“How many people?”
“Forty-ish,” Van said.
The driver laughed. “Yeah, no.”
Nat flicked ash toward the ground.
The cigarette had burned almost to the filter without her noticing.
The blonde woman rested her arm along the open window. “There’s a bonfire about fifteen minutes from here. Mostly softball girls, some friends from county college. They’ve got beer.”
Nat immediately shook her head. “Absolutely Not.”
Van turned slowly toward her.
“No,” Nat repeated.
The woman shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Van looked at the single case in the back seat.
Then at Nat.
Then back at the case.
Nat already hated where this was going.
“Don’t,” Nat said.
Van smiled.
“Don’t smile at me.”
“We can just look.”
“You have never just looked at anything in your life.”
The blonde woman laughed and put the truck into gear. “Follow us or don’t.”
The pickup rolled back toward the road.
Nat stood there in the yellow gas station light, cigarette burning between her fingers, watching the taillights pull away.
The station felt quiet again all of a sudden. Just the hum of the lights, the ice machine, and Van standing beside her looking entirely too pleased with herself.
“You suck,” Nat said.
Van grinned immediately. “Get in the car.”
~*~ Local Wildlife ~*~
Fifteen minutes later they were parked in a muddy field.
Nat still was not entirely sure how that had happened.
Cars sat everywhere. Along a tree line. Around the edge of the field. Half on the grass, half in the mud. Headlights illuminated drifting smoke. Somewhere ahead, music carried through the cold air, not loud, just enough.
The smell hit first.
Woodsmoke. Beer. Wet leaves. Something cooking over a fire.
The cold felt different out here than it had in town. Cleaner somehow. Less exhaust, more damp earth and smoke.
Van got out immediately. “This is better.”
Nat climbed out more slowly. The field squelched beneath her boots.
The bonfire sat farther up the hill, big enough that sparks drifted into the dark every few seconds. Groups of people stood around it in loose circles, most of them older than Nat and Van, bundled in jackets and flannels against the cold.
Nobody seemed particularly interested in who had arrived.
Which was somehow relaxing.
The women from the gas station waved when they spotted them. The blonde one lifted her beer.
“You made it.”
Van pointed at Nat. “She folded.”
“I drove.”
“Same thing.”
The woman laughed and disappeared back toward the fire.
Nat looked around. “We get beer. Then we leave.”
“That’s what we said at Sparta.”
“And look how that turned out.”
“Pretty good, honestly.”
Nat grabbed the back of Van’s sweater before she could wander off. “I’m serious.”
Van looked over her shoulder. “So am I.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not.”
Nat released her.
Van immediately vanished into the crowd.
“Goddammit.”
The fire crackled loudly enough to feel in Nat’s chest. Every time the wind shifted, the heat rolled across her face before disappearing again. People drifted around it in loose groups. The ground near the tree line had turned muddy from people walking over it all night. Empty cans glittered occasionally in the grass when the firelight caught them.
Nat shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and started after Van.
A minute later she lost sight of her completely.
Of course.
She stepped around a cooler.
Then stopped.
Something moved near her boot.
She looked down.
A raccoon looked up.
For a second they simply stared at each other.
The animal sat beside an overturned case of beer near the edge of the woods. One crushed can lay nearby. Another had somehow been dragged halfway into a bush.
The raccoon blinked slowly.
The woods behind it had disappeared into darkness beyond the reach of the firelight.
Nat blinked back.
The raccoon looked exactly as confused as she felt. It swayed, just slightly, like it was having trouble remembering why it had stood up.
Nat narrowed her eyes. “No fucking way.”
The raccoon looked totally unconcerned about the situation.
Somewhere behind her, Van’s voice rang out.
“Oh my God.”
Nat closed her eyes. “No.”
Van appeared at her shoulder.
The raccoon looked at both of them.
Still swaying slightly.
Van made a strangled noise. “Nat.”
“No.”
“Nat.”
“I swear to God.”
“Have you finally found your spirit animal?”
The raccoon chose that exact moment to stumble sideways and sit down heavily.
Van made a noise so loud people turned around.
Nat felt her face heat.
Not from the fire this time.
“You little shit.”
Van was already backing away, still laughing. “It probably even has your attitude when it’s not drunk.”
“Get back here.”
“I’m sure it looks mad all the time.”
“Van.”
“It definitely swears.”
“Van.”
Van took off running.
Nat went after her immediately.
The laughter started before she had taken five steps. Because Van was fast enough to think she could get away, which was different from actually being fast.
Years of soccer settled the argument quickly.
Van made it maybe thirty yards before Nat caught up.
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
Nat bumped her shoulder hard enough to send her stumbling sideways.
Van yelped. “Assault.”
“You deserve worse.”
“I was making an observation.”
“You compared me to a drunk raccoon.”
Van pointed back toward the woods. “You were having a moment.”
Nat laughed despite herself.
Van immediately seized on that. “A very intimate moment.”
“You know I’m gonna make you pay for that.”
“You won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you like me.”
“Debatable.”
Van grinned and started jogging backward.
Nat pointed at her. “You know why you’re in goal, right?”
Van stopped. “Don’t.”
“Because you can’t run for shit.”
“I have excellent reaction time.”
“You have excellent standing still abilities.”
Van laughed.
The sound carried easily through the cold air.
For a moment neither of them said anything. The fire crackled somewhere behind them. Music drifted through the trees. Somebody cheered about something neither of them understood.
Nat scanned the clearing.
People everywhere.
Beer everywhere.
A cooler large enough to hide a body in.
Nat was almost afraid to ask how much beer was actually in it.
Van followed her gaze.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“We’re getting booze here.”
“We are absolutely getting booze here.”
Van smiled.
Nat looked toward the fire, toward the coolers, toward whatever fresh nonsense this was about to become.
Then she looked at Van.
Still grinning.
Still impossible.
Still somehow her favourite person to be stuck with on a night like this.
“Let’s go find out how we’re screwing this one up.”
Van punched the air.
And together they headed toward the fire.
~*~ Apple Pie ~*~
The bonfire got louder the closer they got.
Not the music.
The people.
Voices layered over one another. Laughter carried through the cold air. Somebody argued about the Devils. Somebody else tried to explain why that argument was stupid. The fire itself crackled loud enough to drown half of it out.
Smoke drifted low across the field whenever the wind shifted, carrying sparks with it. They floated for a second like tiny orange stars before the dark took them back.
Van stopped beside a cooler.
“No.”
“What?”
“We are not stealing.”
“I wasn’t stealing.”
“You were absolutely about to steal.”
“I was checking.”
“With your hands?”
Van looked at the cooler. “That’s usually how checking works.”
Nat released her.
Unfortunately.
The moment she did, Van spotted somebody waving.
“Hi!”
Nat sighed. “You don’t know her.”
“I know she’s waving.”
The woman near the cooler looked about twenty-one or twenty-two, tall, blonde, wearing a Rutgers sweatshirt and holding a red cup. She pointed at Van.
“You’re the fake ID girl.”
Van lit up. “Oh my God.”
Nat groaned. “You’re famous.”
“I’ve always said it would happen.”
The blonde woman laughed. “My friend is spreading the word. Said two soccer players were running around North Jersey trying to save a party.”
Nat buried her face in one hand. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
The woman nodded toward the smaller fire nearby. “Come on. You look cold.”
Nat wanted to leave.
Instead she found herself following Van toward a smaller fire with a few lawn chairs, a folding table, several coolers, and three women playing cards.
One of them looked up. “Those the beer girls?”
“The beer girls?” Van sounded delighted.
Nat sounded horrified. “We have names.”
The blonde woman pointed at the coolers. “You need beer or not?”
Nat stopped arguing.
The chairs were warm from whoever had occupied them before. The fire smelled like cedar. Somebody handed Nat a beer, cold enough that condensation gathered instantly on her fingers.
A mason jar appeared next.
The liquid inside looked harmless.
Nat knew better.
“What’s that?”
The blonde woman grinned. “Apple pie.”
Nat looked at the jar. “That’s not apple pie.”
“Apple pie moonshine.”
“That’s worse.”
Van took it anyway. The smell hit first. Apples. Cinnamon. Then something strong enough to clean a carburettor.
Van took a sip.
Coughed immediately.
Everybody laughed.
“It’s awful,” Van said.
The blonde woman nodded. “Yeah.”
Van took another sip. “Okay, it’s kind of good.”
“You’re an idiot,” Nat said.
Van handed her the jar. “Try it.”
“No.”
“Try it.”
“No.”
“You’re scared.”
Nat stared at her.
Van smiled.
Nat took a decent gulp.
The warmth hit immediately. Sweet first. Then heat. Then more heat. Then the distinct feeling that her throat had made a terrible mistake.
Her eyes watered before she'd even swallowed.
She coughed hard.
The entire circle erupted.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
The blonde woman laughed into her cup. “Every time.”
Nat wiped her mouth. Her eyes were watering. Her chest felt warm.
“You people drink this on purpose?”
“Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“Winter.”
That got another round of laughter.
Somehow Nat was laughing too.
The night had become ridiculous enough that fighting it seemed pointless.
The card game continued. Stories got told. People drifted in and out. Somebody produced another cooler. Then another. Van looked at the growing collection in a way Nat didn’t like.
“No,” Nat said.
Van looked over, too innocent.
“Don’t give me that face.”
“What face?”
“That face.”
The blonde woman looked between them, amused. “How much do you actually need?”
Van and Nat looked at each other.
Then at the coolers.
Then back at the woman.
Nat thought of Jenna’s kitchen. The almost empty fridge. Mari yelling over the music. Lottie waiting somewhere inside that house, probably calm in the middle of everyone else losing their minds.
“Enough for forty people,” Nat said.
The blonde woman let out a low whistle.
Van spread her hands. “See?”
Nat turned on her. “Do not ‘see’ me. This is still your fault.”
“My fault?”
“You’re the one who said their ID was good.”
“You drove.”
“I’m an idiot.”
Van smiled. “Little bit.”
Nat shoved her knee with her boot.
The blonde woman stood and looked around at the coolers, then toward the edge of the field where several trucks were parked.
“We can probably help.”
Nat stared. “Why?”
The woman shrugged. “Because it’s funny.”
Van looked delighted.
Nat caught Van's expression.
She was smiling again.
~*~ Logistics ~*~
The problem became obvious very quickly.
A few cases of beer fit in Nat’s car.
The bottles fit too.
Even the mason jars, if they were careful.
What didn’t fit was the growing pile of alcohol that had somehow appeared around them while Van talked to everybody within a hundred-foot radius.
Another woman dropped a case beside the fire.
“Take this one too.”
Nat looked down at it. “Why does everyone keep giving us beer?”
“Because we like you,” the blonde woman said.
Nat frowned. “That feels like a mistake.”
Van leaned over. “Just say thank you.”
“Fuck off.”
“See? Likeable.”
The card game continued behind them. Another hand got played. Another beer appeared. Somewhere near the big fire, somebody started singing badly to a Springsteen song.
The entire night smelled like smoke and cold grass and cheap beer.
Van checked her watch.
Then quickly hid the result.
Nat saw that.
“How long?”
Van looked away.
“Van.”
“Maybe an hour and a half.”
Nat groaned. “Oh, Lottie’s gonna kill me.”
Van barked out a laugh. “That’s your concern?”
“Yes.”
“Not Tai?”
“No.”
“Interesting.”
Nat threw a beer cap at her.
Van dodged it.
Barely.
The blonde woman glanced toward the cars. “You could borrow a truck.”
Nat immediately shook her head. “No.”
Van sat up straighter.
Nat cut her off before she could open her mouth. "No."
Van held up both hands. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was thinking.”
“Worse.”
The blonde woman nodded toward a battered red pickup parked near the field entrance. “That one belongs to my sister. She won’t care if we take it over there and bring it back.”
Nat stared at the truck, then at the coolers, then at Van.
“No.”
Van lifted her hands higher, innocent in a way Nat didn’t trust. “Okay.”
Nat narrowed her eyes. “You said that weird.”
“I said it normal.”
“You never say anything normal.”
The blonde woman laughed. “You two always like this?”
“Yes,” Nat said.
“No,” Van said.
They looked at each other.
Van grinned.
Nat looked back at the truck. It had one working taillight, a dented tailgate, and a dog asleep in the passenger seat. Rust had eaten through the bottom edge of the driver's door.
The dog didn’t move.
Not when someone opened the driver’s side door.
Not when another case of beer landed in the truck bed with a heavy thud.
Not when Van leaned in through the open window and whispered, “Hi.”
The dog opened one eye, looked at her, and went back to sleep.
“I respect that,” Van said.
“Of course you do.”
The blonde woman checked the cab, then tossed the keys once in her hand. “So where’s this party?”
“Wiskayok,” Van said.
The woman looked at Nat. “You good to drive?”
Nat looked at the truck, then at her own car, then at the pile of booze.
Somewhere behind them, another cooler appeared.
Nat closed her eyes.
“Jesus Christ.”
Van tried very hard not to smile.
Nat narrowed her eyes. "Don’t."
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m being respectful.”
“You’re about to start vibrating.”
Van pressed her lips together.
The blonde woman laughed again.
Nat took the keys.
“Fine. We load it. We go back. That’s it.”
Van nodded solemnly. “That’s it.”
Nat gave her a look.
Van lasted about two seconds.
“What if a few people come with us?”
“No.”
“Just to help unload.”
“No.”
“And maybe play cards.”
“No.”
The blonde woman looked toward the folding table. “We do have cards.”
Van turned to Nat.
Nat looked at the sky.
Cold. Dark. No help anywhere.
“Absolutely not,” she said.
~*~ Enough ~*~
The loading took twenty minutes.
Not because it was complicated.
Because everybody had opinions.
“This one goes upright.”
“They all go upright.”
“Not that one.”
“Why?”
“Because it leaks.”
“Why are we taking the leaking one?”
“It’s the good one.”
Nobody even tried arguing after that.
The fire burned lower as the night wore on. People drifted away in twos and threes. The air got colder, and the smell of damp leaves sharpened under the smoke.
The grass around the fire had turned black and slick where people had trampled ash into the ground.
Nat carried the last case toward the truck and stopped.
The pile by the fire was gone.
She looked at the truck bed.
Cases. Coolers. Bottles. A milk crate full of mason jars. The original case from Sparta wedged between two larger coolers like it had somehow survived a war.
The tailgate sagged slightly under the weight of it all.
“Van.”
Van looked up from tying something down badly. “What?”
Nat pointed. “We have enough.”
Van stared.
Then looked at the truck.
Then at the empty patch of grass where the pile had been.
Then back at Nat.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.”
Nat laughed. “We actually did it.”
“We kind of did.”
“No. We absolutely did.”
For once, Van looked genuinely surprised and stared at the pile.
“We've accidentally assembled an offering.”
Nat laughed and shook her head.
The fire popped behind them. Music drifted through the darkness. People were saying their goodbyes now, the night finally folding itself up.
Car doors slammed somewhere beyond the trees. Engines started one by one.
For the first time since leaving Jenna’s house, Nat felt the shape of the road back.
Not another stop.
Not another lead.
Back.
To the party.
To Lottie.
To a house full of girls who had sent them out for beer and were about to receive something much stranger.
Van seemed to arrive at the same thought.
A slow grin spread across her face.
Nat saw it and groaned. “No.”
“What?”
“Whatever you’re thinking.”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“Yes, I do.”
Van looked toward the truck.
Then toward the few women standing around the dying fire.
Then back at Nat.
Nat closed her eyes. “Goddammit.”
“What if.”
Nat shook her head. “No.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“I know exactly what you were going to say.”
Van spoke quickly anyway. “What if a few of them came to help unload as I said?”
Nat didn't even bother pretending to believe her.
“That’s not why you want them to come.”
“It’s one reason.”
The blonde woman lifted a deck of cards from the folding table. “I was promised poker.”
“You were not promised anything,” Nat said.
Van looked sheepishly at Nat.
Nat looked at the truck.
Then at the women with the cards.
Then at the dog still sleeping in the passenger seat like none of this was worth waking up for.
Its breath fogged faintly against the glass.
She should have said no.
Instead she laughed, long and helpless and completely defeated.
Van pointed at her. “That’s a yes.”
“No.”
“That’s absolutely a yes.”
“Get in the truck before I change my mind.”
Van moved fast.
For once.
Twenty minutes later, with the truck loaded, Nat’s car following behind, and entirely too many people interested in seeing how this story ended, they finally arrived back in Wiskayok.
~*~ Poker in the front, liquor in the rear! ~*~
The first thing Nat noticed was that Jenna’s house was still standing.
Which honestly felt like a victory.
The second thing she noticed was that the party was dying.
Not dead.
Just winding down.
The kind of late-night lull where people sat wherever they happened to land and conversations drifted lazily from one subject to another. The music was quieter than when they had left. A few girls were already pulling on jackets. Somebody had fallen asleep in an armchair.
Then headlights rolled across the front windows.
One set.
Then another.
Then another.
The house seemed to pause.
People looked toward the driveway.
Nat parked first.
Another pickup rolled in behind her.
Then her car.
For one perfect second nobody moved.
Then Van climbed out of the truck and lifted both arms.
“We fixed it.”
The entire house came alive.
Girls poured onto the porch, onto the lawn, into the driveway.
Mari stared at the truck.
Then at the coolers.
Then at the cases.
Then at the women climbing out behind them with a deck of cards and a crate of jars.
“What the fuck happened?”
Van pointed at the truck. “Beer.”
Mari blinked. “You fixed it by bringing half the county?”
Van shrugged. “They had cards.”
Jenna appeared in the doorway. She looked at the truck, then at Nat, then at Van, then back at the truck.
“Why are there more people?”
Nat pointed at Van. “Her.”
Jenna nodded slowly. “Yeah. That feels right.”
The unloading started immediately.
Coolers appeared from the truck bed. Cases vanished through the front door. People Nat had not known existed an hour ago were suddenly hauling supplies into Jenna’s house like they lived there.
The whole thing took on a momentum of its own.
Music got louder.
People who had been halfway out the door changed their minds and stayed.
The kitchen filled again.
The backyard filled again.
The party inhaled and came back to life.
Van was suddenly everywhere at once. On the porch. In the driveway. Halfway through the front door.
Van pointed toward the house like she had been put in charge by accident and had decided to keep the job.
“Beer goes to the kitchen. Coolers out back.”
She caught sight of one heading toward the wrong door and waved it back the other way.
“No, not that one. That’s the apple pie stuff and it will put somebody on the floor.”
The blonde woman held up the deck of cards from the bottom of the porch steps. “Where do you want us?”
Van jerked her thumb toward the front room. “In there.”
“We playing now?”
“We absolutely are.”
Another case disappeared through the back gate.
From the yard, someone shouted, “What do we do with the liquor?”
Van spread both arms like she had been waiting all night for this exact moment.
“As the saying goes… Poker in the front, liquor in the rear!”
For one perfect second there was silence.
Then half the porch groaned.
Tai covered her face.
Mari nearly dropped a case laughing.
Nat stared at Van. “That’s not a saying.”
“It is now.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not.”
The blonde woman pointed from the front door. “Too late.”
Somebody in the yard repeated it louder.
Van looked unbearably pleased with herself.
Nat laughed despite every effort not to.
The house behind them was alive again. Beer bottles clinked. Music spilled through the open windows. Cigarette smoke drifted out from somewhere in the backyard.
Light pooled across the lawn from the open front door, turning the damp grass silver at the edges where the dew still clung.
The whole thing was ridiculous.
Nat wouldn't have changed a second of it.
For a while Nat stood near the tailgate of the truck, watching the chaos she had helped create.
Watching strangers become guests.
Watching coolers disappear.
Watching Van somehow get adopted by yet another group of people.
The November air bit at her cheeks. Woodsmoke drifted across the lawn in thin pale ribbons, softening the edges of everything it touched. Her jacket still smelled faintly of the bonfire every time she moved. The night felt softer now. Finished.
Van appeared beside her carrying two beers.
Nat took one automatically.
“See?” Van said.
Nat groaned. “No.”
“We did it.”
“We spent half the night getting beer.”
“And we got beer. Our quest is complete.”
Nat looked at the driveway. At the coolers. At the strangers laughing with girls they had only met ten minutes ago. At the poker game already starting in the front room. At the liquor heading through the back gate.
Then back at Van.
“Maybe.”
Van grinned. “Maybe.”
For a moment they stood shoulder to shoulder watching the party recover around them.
The beer was cold.
The air was colder.
Nat couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed this much.
Van nudged her shoulder. “You seem happier.”
Nat glanced over. “What?”
“You do.”
The joke had softened in Van’s voice.
Nat looked back toward the house. Toward the lights. Toward the people. Toward the ridiculous trail of decisions that had somehow led them back here.
She had spent the first part of the night waiting to leave.
She looked back toward the house. The music. The lights. The people spilling across the lawn.
It felt different now than it had when she'd left.
Somewhere between the bad fake ID, the bonfires, and following Van into one terrible idea after another, she'd stopped standing at the edge of the night and become part of it.
Van saw the realization happen.
Because of course she did.
A slow smile spread across her face.
“Told you.”
“Don’t start.”
“I told you.”
“Van.”
“Just saying.”
Nat shoved her shoulder.
Van barked out a laugh. “There she is.”
“Van.”
Tai’s voice cut across the lawn.
Both of them turned.
Tai stood halfway across the grass with her arms folded, trying very hard not to smile and failing.
Van immediately lit up. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Nat said. “Go.”
Van hesitated.
Just for a second.
Then she looked back at Nat.
Something warm settled in her expression. Pride, maybe. Affection, definitely. The kind of look people got when they were happy you’d come with them.
Happy you’d stayed.
“See you around, cowboy.”
Nat snorted. “Fuck off.”
Van grinned, then took off across the lawn.
Tai caught her automatically around the waist. Van immediately started talking, probably explaining every terrible decision in chronological order. Tai looked exhausted before the story had even started.
Nat laughed and watched them disappear into the house.
“Hey.”
Lottie’s voice.
Softer.
Closer.
Nat turned.
Lottie stood beside the truck, dark sweater, loose hair, hands tucked into her sleeves against the cold.
The porch light caught in the loose strands the wind had pulled free.
Looking at Nat like she'd been waiting for her.
“You made it back.”
Nat laughed. “Barely.”
Lottie’s gaze drifted toward the driveway. Toward the truck. Toward the coolers. Toward the people.
A smile spread slowly across her face.
“You did all this?”
Nat followed her gaze.
The truck.
The poker players.
The moonshine.
The chaos.
Van yelling something incomprehensible from inside the house.
“It got out of hand.”
“I can see that.”
The smile stayed.
Not teasing.
Not amused.
Proud.
And somehow that hit hard, because Lottie was not really looking at the party.
She was looking at Nat.
Like she had expected something good from her and wasn't surprised to find it.
Something from the drive came back.
Van’s voice.
She likes you. Just you.
That’s the good part.
Lottie stepped closer. “You look happy.”
The words caught Nat off guard, not because they were complicated, but because they were true.
Nat looked around.
At the house.
At the people.
At the music.
At the ridiculous night they had somehow survived without getting arrested.
Then back at Lottie.
“Yeah.”
The answer felt easier than she expected.
Lottie’s smile widened slightly. Warm. Certain. The way it always was when she looked at Nat.
And suddenly Nat understood something she had spent a long time fighting.
Not that people loved her.
She knew that, somewhere deep down.
The harder thing was believing she did not have to earn it every second. That she could just show up, tired and covered in smoke, smelling like beer and bonfires and bad decisions, and still be wanted.
Still be chosen.
Lottie reached for her hand.
Nat let her.
Without hesitation.
Without thinking.
Without pulling away.
“I love you, you know,” Lottie said quietly.
Like it was not some huge declaration.
Like it was simply true.
Nat laughed softly, because somehow that was easier than getting emotional in the middle of a driveway.
“Yeah.”
Lottie squeezed her hand. “Yeah?”
Nat looked over toward the porch.
Van had somehow ended up halfway over Tai’s shoulder while still talking. Tai looked one step away from carrying her home.
Van caught Nat’s eye.
Gave her a ridiculous thumbs up.
Then an exaggerated grin.
Nat immediately flipped her off.
Van looked delighted.
Lottie laughed.
And Nat looked back at her.
At the girl who always came looking.
At the life waiting inside.
“I love you too.”
Lottie’s smile was small. Bright. Certain. The kind that made everything else feel a little easier.
Inside, somebody yelled that the poker game was starting.
Outside, Van shouted something about liquor and got booed immediately.
Nat looked at the house, at the people inside it, and at the girl standing beside her.
Then she followed Lottie toward the house before she could overthink it.