by Lahey, Tyler
Liam smiled and shook his head at Jaxton knowingly, and sat down next to him with broad warmth that the entire group could feel. “Good to see you’re back on your feet, you were looking a little fucked up in there.”
“You’re tellin’ me,” Jaxton agreed.
“This is Harley. Harley, this is Jaxton,” Liam said proudly, the words spoken as if he were the group’s protective uncle. The new girl had hazel eyes that skittered deliciously. There was a delightful energy in her mannerisms that seemed to draw the others to her. Jaxton felt his heart beating a little bit faster as he strove to meet her hazel eyes with his own grey ones. She barely gave him the pleasure. Elvis noticed the ruffian Troy sleeping on the cold marble, and nodded in drunken approval, leaning back to copy him with a groan. Harley smiled again, “Two down.”
Bennett was already speaking softly to Adira, and Jaxton wanted to leave. He needed to be sober.
Liam made some awfully corny attempt at comedy for the girl with hazel eyes, and she couldn’t have loved it any more. Jaxton managed to grin, drawing his eyes back to the horizon, divided as it was by a massive pillar of stone stretching into the sky. He was content. In such company, he felt invincible. In the heat of his own intoxicating thoughts he found himself hoping for a test that would bond his little group of friends even tighter. They could do anything. They would never be broken apart. He hoped madly for a challenge, something to test them, together. And as his blood cooled, he was moved to instant mental silence by the gentle swell of growing light that grew opposite their little band. After that, the dawn came swift and strong.
Chapter Three
11 hours before Outbreak. Washington, D.C
Jaxton was staring angrily at the figure getting smaller in front of him, a tight knit group of corded back muscles shifting as he ran. Troy was not a bulky man, but he was strong. As it stood, Troy had outpaced the whole group by a few hundred feet, as he always did. Jaxton knew that was why he liked to run, because he liked to win.
The sun shone fiercely for late May, generating a heat that already had them all slick with sweat. Elvis huffed and puffed beside him, looking rather ridiculous without his hair product and slick outfits. His hefty pompadour of hair bounced atop his head as he ran, already lagging behind. Jaxton glanced to his other side, at Bennett. He knew this game. Both men would allow Troy to outpace them, knowing him to be a superior athlete. But as they silently heaved aside one another, each knew they would not allow the other to beat him. It became a competition of wills. Jaxton hated the game. And he knew Adira was just behind them both, keeping pace. He couldn’t lose in front of her.
He knew neither he nor Bennett would suddenly push harder, driving forward to leave the other in the dust. If one did, it would be an acknowledgement there was a competition. Instead, they waged a silent little war, with neither willing to outright challenge the other.
Jaxton gritted his teeth; he could feel Bennett pushing the pace. They flew past gawking overweight men with fanny packs and pasty women lathered with sunscreen. Jaxton felt the sun beating down on his bare back, and willed his legs to pump a little faster. Mildly aggravated, he glanced at Bennett’s much leaner form, insulted such a specimen could threaten to outpace him. Through the crowds ahead, Jaxton saw a sturdy form moving fast. Troy, shirtless for effect, dodged baby strollers and gawking Oriental tourists taking pictures of the most insignificant things Jaxton might see.
“Do you guys always go this fast?” Adira asked him, her hair bouncing.
With an audible growl Jaxton kicked his run into high gear, nearing a sprint. They raced around the back of the rectangular temple of white marble that contained the tribute to Lincoln, surging past massive golden statues lining the bridges to Virginia. As they crossed the road and began the trek past the titanic State Department complex, Jaxton felt his lungs screaming. It was unacceptable to consider the sole man he would beat was the hung-over Elvis, who was admirably brining up the rear at a lazy pace. Squinting in the bright mid-day sun, Jaxton spotted two figures doubled over in exhausted satisfaction two blocks ahead. Jaxton opened up into a full sprint past startled students, enraged Adira had seen Bennett beat him. Jaxton tore past Bennett and Troy before doubling back. Adira came bounding after him gaily, and moved to marvel at Bennett’s speed. Only Elvis was still struggling, his bouncing pompadour visible above the crowds of tourists.
“Heart of a lion,” Troy muttered, staring. “And where the hell is Liam anyways?”
Jaxton shook his head, exhausted. “I think he fucked Harley last night. Don’t say anything to Elvis. He’s been taking her out on dates right? Yeah Liam beat her to it, in one night.”
Troy shook his head in disbelief, and stepped out into the street and began yelling loudly, for all bystanders to hear. “No shame in last place! That’s it. Last place! There’s too much weight on top of your head, bru.”
Elvis jogged right up to Troy and stumbled. As his shoe caught on the sidewalk his stomach lurched, and a shower of poorly digested eggs covered Troy’s sneakers.
Adira lingered a bit behind, eyeing the group as if they were boisterous rogues.
“I’ll catch up with you guys later. I’m going to hang out with Adira for a bit,” Bennett said quickly, shooting a glance back at her. The others raised their eyebrows and leaned in to offer badly disguised encouragement. Jaxton shook his head; this kind of thing only happened with Bennett, perpetually awkward.
“I’ve been like ten feet away, literally this entire time. Just in case you weren’t aware,” Adira shouted. The others chuckled giddily like a group of 8th graders at lunchtime and kept walking. Jaxton lingered a moment, just enough to make eye contact with Adira, perhaps for too long. Then he too was gone.
Bennett could feel Adira drawing up beside him. He felt immediately nervous, especially since all the guys knew what he was planning. Why was there always pressure? “He really didn’t wanna lose to you,” Bennett heard her say.
“Jaxton? He’s always like that. Lifts and lifts, doesn’t do any cardio, and then throws a hissy fit when I beat him.”
“So he’s a big, ripped baby?”
“You think he’s ripped?” He groaned inwardly; he probably shouldn’t have said that.
Adira rolled her eyes. “Try not to be so insecure. It’s unnecessary. I’m here with you, aren’t I?”
Bennett hesitated, and panicked in the silence. “So, wanna shower and then, uh, just come over and we can do this? My roommate is gone.”
Adira stood to face him, shoulder to shoulder. “You realize typically that kind of question doesn’t work at all, right? You’re supposed to at least pretend we’ll be doing something else, and leave the sex implied.”
Bennett felt his stomach roiling, and stumbled over his words. Adira held up her hand. “I said typically. But you’ve been really sweet these past few weeks, like I’m…I don’t know, some sort of fragile doll and I always need to be protected.” She laughed. “I mean, it isn’t exactly true and we both know it, but it tells me a little about you. Doesn’t it?”
“I didn’t mean to say it like that…” Bennett felt his face turning red. “But I mean, yeah, you don’t need protection. I…I don’t know, I mean I really like you. I wish we had met sooner, honestly. I feel like I don’t have to put up this stupid façade with you. As soon as you take that down with other girls, they’re gone. Most of them generally start running when I can’t answer what fraternity I’m in.”
Adira smiled, her dark eyes glittering. Bennett could see other men staring at her as they passed, and it made his insides scream with jealously. “I could tell that wasn’t the real you within a few minutes of meeting you. And I heard all about you, from Harley. Not too confident with girls, are you?”
Bennett froze.
“You put too much damn emphasis on it, you worry too much. Ok, what I meant to say is…I’m going to help you out.”
“What do you mean, help me out?”
She sighed, and compelled him to listen w
ith her eyes. “We’re going to go back to the dorm, and we’re going to have sex.”
Bennett chuckled nervously, his eyes darting around to make sure no one could hear. “Why are you being like this? I mean, this is kinda weird, isn’t it?”
Adira smiled again. “You like to push your luck, don’t you? I want to help you.”
“Why?”
The corners of her mouth evened out. “Despite myself, I’ve fucked over more than a few guys, guys like you, I guess. And we’re all leaving this place. And I don’t want pain to be the only thing I leave behind.”
Chapter Four
11 hours before Outbreak. Washington, D.C
“Home seems like a sad, little place.”
“It sorta does, doesn’t it, when we’re in a city like this,” Jaxton said quietly. He stood with Liam on the balcony in their two-bedroom apartment, gazing out across the city’s bland low-level buildings. They had both heard that no building in the city was permitted to be as tall as the pillar of white stone in the city’s center.
Jaxton sighed appreciatively, knowing that while he never made friends easily or quickly, those he did befriend stayed with him for years and years. His own circle had been forged long before, before they were men. His own friendship with Liam was one that sustained itself through the never-ending cycle of highs and lows. He spoke his mind. “You know why I think we’ve been good friends for so long? Why I think we can live together for four years without getting sick of each other?”
“Oh do tell. Come on, let’s hear it,” Liam encouraged him.
“Because we’re not that similar.”
Liam raised his bushy eyebrows. “I always make the brothers from another mother joke. Am I supposed to stop making that joke, I mean tell me now-“
“No one likes that joke anyways, Liam.” Jaxton chuckled. “No but what I mean is…we never fall into competition. We like the same stuff, we have similar tastes. But I think when it comes to wiring, we’re totally different. I feel like I would have gotten sick of you and your stupid beard years ago if we had similar personalities. I mean, with Troy, I love the kid, but there’s like a quiet antagonism between him and I occasionally, as if we were, I don’t know, rivals or something.”
Liam scratched his beard and squinted against the sun. “How are you and I different?”
“You love small talk, taking care of people, you like to help, feel compassion…why are you becoming an engineer again?”
Liam brushed him off. “I don’t even know. Probably because it’s too late to do anything else.”
Jaxton felt a silence stretch between them. He sought to fill it with a burning question. “Did you actually not sleep with Harley?”
“Enough, scoundrel. The man has no decency. I didn’t sleep with her. It’s called willpower, and not sleeping with everything that moves. Yes, that includes dogs…goats…”
“Bestiality? Was thinking about giving it a spin in my later years. The eccentric, sexually adventurous Jaxton. That’ll be my calling card. Line up ladies.” His forced humor burned out quickly. “To be honest, I thought I’d feel more nostalgic today,” Jaxton said, still looking down at the people moving slowly in a festive weekend haze.
“I ran out of that last night,” Liam agreed.
“So you felt it too,” Jaxton ventured. He paused, furrowing his brow. “Who do you think will fade away from the group?”
“No one, I’d think,” Liam said, sounding uncertain.
Jaxton grunted a murmur, the sound intentionally catching in the back of his throat when he wanted to disagree. “Troy’s more Neanderthal than any one of us. He’ll fall in with his own kind… in the army, I think. Some day, we’ll be no more than old friends from a totally alien part of his life.”
“We’ve all got a little Neanderthal. You especially. Bennett, sometimes I guess. Elvis, not so much.”
“Bennett’s still stuck in that awkward phase, the one you and I left behind sophomore year. The man just needs some damn confidence. I don’t know; I do hope him and I end up in New York though. And of course a couch for you to visit,” Jaxton exclaimed. He turned to his burly friend. “If you aren’t too busy designing the next generation of skyscraper.”
As he always did, Liam sucked in air skeptically; quick to be seen as one who wasn’t prone to flattery. Jaxton narrowed his eyes, knowing he certainly was. “You always do that, even when I know you like hearing people say shit like that.”
Liam scratched the messy mass of curls atop his head, “We should all make sure we don’t stop dreaming.”
“So you still buy the bullshit stew, I see.”
“I’m the biggest customer, man. Bullshit stew for all three meals. I overdose from it. I’m going to design the world’s tallest building one day, and you are….”
Jaxton sneered. “I have no fucking idea what I’m going to do. What does one do with a History degree exactly?”
Liam grinned and clapped him on the shoulder with his huge hand, far too hard for Jaxton’s liking.
“When are your parents coming down?” Jaxton asked.
“Should be here in a few hours…apparently there’s tons of traffic around the city. What about your mom?”
“I think soon. I actually haven’t heard from her, which of course isn’t surprising because she probably needs to focus all her energies on the open road.”
“Tsk tsk. Kid’s an asshole,” Liam laughed.
“Did I mention she backed into another car recently?”
Liam laughed heartily, “I miss home,” he said. “I miss the woods, the fields, the rivers.”
Jaxton nodded, “It was a great place to grow up, wasn’t it. You, me, Bennett, Elvis. Waiting till you could be in front of a bathroom mirror to pop a festering zit, eating half your lunch cause you knew there was a slight chance Maria Stromae would walk by and wave, shall I go on?”
“What about the first girl you kissed? What did she say? ‘Your tongue feels like a big wet piece of blubber in my mouth when you don’t move it around. You need to move your tongue around Jax!”
Jaxton held his hands up.“ Don’t ruin my nostalgic vision of the place, you jackass. I’m just glad we all get to hang out there for the summer.”
“Back to the valley.”
Jaxton closed his eyes, and in a second he was under the trees again, in a small town to the north.
“Be careful, Jaxton.”
Jaxton opened his eyes, and frowned to see Liam peering at him cautiously. “What do you mean?” Adira came unbidden to his mind, and he felt threatened. Had Liam noticed?
His friend took a deep breath. “I’ve got your back, always. But stay away from that girl.”
…
Bennett was struggling mightily. Adira’s roommate had left immediately, which only made him feel a bit more awkward as they sat next to each other. Bennett felt his hands tinkering with all her little trinkets, muttering casual comments to himself. His palms were slick despite the window-unit that was blasting frigid air into the stuffy room. He found himself wishing he didn’t have a runner’s body.
Adira quietly shut her bedroom door, her long dark hair still damp from the shower. Bennett let his eyes scan the towel that clung to a somewhat boyish frame. She turned a fraction, and he found himself even more nervous as he saw the curve that popped out like a bubble.
“My god. Don’t look so petrified.” Adira was peering sideways at him, with a faint smirk across her thin lips. Her dark, penetrating eyes startled him out his daydream. Those eyes were the first thing Bennett had noticed about her. He suddenly realized he had been grinning like a fool this entire time, and reached up to ruffle his own messy blond hair.
Though he mused about delivering a snappy one liner, Bennett knew he wasn’t the sort for that. “So what happens now?”
She shrugged, her lithe frame shifting under a little black shirt. “You start to relax a bit. How long have you known your friends? It’s quite the group.”
Bennett grinned agai
n, this time without thinking. “I went to high school with Elvis, Liam, and Jaxton. We grew up together, really. In this little valley in the woods. Like 6,000 people in the town. Middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania.”
Adira’s eyes softened. “I can tell you like it. Like thinking about it.”
Bennett rubbed his sweaty palms on his jeans. “When are your parents coming down for graduation?”
“I don’t think they’re coming.”
“Why not?”
“That’s just how it works, I don’t know.”
“Ok…what do you want to do after school?”
“Probably choose something in Boston best suited to my resume and class choices, and then get hired because the boss thinks he might have a chance to fuck me.” Her features were stoic, for a moment. Adira laughed lightly, with all the confidence in the world. She didn’t quite move like a girl who knew how to control men, but Bennett had no doubt she could if she so desired. “I mean, if we’re just being honest.”
“So you’re ok sitting in a cubicle forty hours a week.”
“What else are we guna do?”
“You could dream a little.”
“Dreaming’s overrated.” The girl with the dark eyes paused and moved slightly closer to his own thigh.
“How did you get convinced of that?”
She pursed her lips. “My brother graduated with a liberal arts degree ten years ago. I watched him burn through ten years of his life. Supposedly the best years. Not everyone is meant to change the world, though we’ve obviously been told that.”
Bennett chuckled. “My friend Jaxton told a similar story last night. But some of us are meant to.”
Adira peered at him, and Bennett could smell her perfume. “I can’t tell if you’re hopelessly naïve, or you actually believe that. I may make a cynic out of you yet.”