by BB Easton
“His buddy grabbed him to pull him away, but then the two of them started scrapping, and his buddy’s elbow flew back and caught you right between the eyes.”
I went to touch the tender spot, but Juliet swatted my hand down again.
“Knocked your little ass out cold. And that asshole manager—”
Honk! Honnnnnnk! A car horn blared behind us.
“What’s up, ladies? Y’all wanna party?”
We turned around and glared at Trip, who was hanging out the passenger window of Baker’s van. As soon as Trip and Baker saw our seriously pissed-off, wet, swollen faces, their smiles disappeared.
“Damn. What happened to y’all? Wet T-shirt contest gone bad?”
“Fuck you, Trip,” Juliet spat. Grabbing my arm, she spun us back around and kept marching toward the motel.
Motorcycle engines revved and cars honked as they swerved to go around Baker’s van, which was crawling down Ocean Boulevard next to us.
I heard the side door of the van slide open and knew that Hans must be hopping out. As much as I wanted to turn and run into his arms, Juliet’s anger was contagious. I wanted someone to yell at too, someone to blame, and who better than the man who never seemed to be there when I needed him?
“Baby, are you okay? What happened?”
I huffed and ignored him.
He’s gonna grab my arm in three, two—
Hans’s long, rough fingertips hooked around my tiny bicep, but he didn’t grab. He didn’t pull. His touch was so gentle, it hurt me to shrug it off.
But I did it anyway.
“Hey…talk to me.” Hans jogged ahead of us and turned around, blocking our path. When his eyes landed on mine, he looked as if he were the one who’d been elbowed in the face. “Oh my God! Is that a black eye?”
Is it?
I turned and searched Juliet’s face for confirmation. She just kind of shrugged and nodded.
Awesome. I have a black eye.
Hans rushed to me and took my face in his hands. He placed three gentle kisses just above my left eyebrow, causing tears to blur my vision even worse than the alcohol and swelling already had.
I closed my eyes and turned my head away.
“What the fuck is going on? Why won’t you talk to me?”
Juliet grunted and dropped my arm, stomping off without us.
“We’ll meet you back at the hotel, okay?” Hans called to the guys in the van.
They pulled ahead but continued to crawl along the sidewalk next to Juliet who was power-walking with her arms folded across her chest. Trip was hanging out the passenger window, talking to her. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I knew he was probably trying to make her laugh.
Good luck with that.
“Come here,” Hans said, taking my hand. At the next gap in traffic, he led me across the street and through a parking lot on the other side.
“What are you doing?”
“What I should have done the second we got here. I’m taking you to the beach.”
The parking lot had a trail through the sand dunes that led out to the water. Juliet and I had played in the ocean a little bit that morning, but it was completely different at night. The ocean breeze chilled my damp skin instead of heating it. The roar of the waves seemed louder, drowning out the sound of the motorcycles cruising up and down Ocean Boulevard. The sunbathers had been replaced by drunks passed out in the sand. And the clouds had been dressed in their finest evening wear—midnight-blue velvet with sparkling white diamonds.
My combat boots sank deep into the powdery sand with every step as Hans led me toward a lifeguard stand. Without even looking to see if anyone was watching, Hans climbed to the top of the wooden structure and held out his hand to help me up. I climbed up behind him.
But I didn’t take his hand.
I wasn’t a child.
Okay, legally, I was still a child, but fuck him. I could climb a goddamn lifeguard stand. Black eye or no black eye.
There was only one seat at the top, so Hans claimed it and pulled me into his lap, my back to his front.
Between Hans’s rhythmic heartbeat against my back, his scruffy jaw against my shoulder, his warm arms around my waist, and the steady ebb and flow of the sea spread out before me, my body gave up the fight and allowed itself to be soothed.
“I don’t know what happened, and you don’t have to tell me, but I’m sorry I wasn’t there to stop it.”
That sweet, simple sentence took away any hope I’d had of an argument. I’d wanted to shout those words at him.
You weren’t there! I’d have yelled, making myself feel better by making him feel like shit.
But he’d taken the words right out of my mouth and handed them to me on a silver platter.
“Me too,” I sighed.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Juliet got into a fight with some guys while I was onstage at that karaoke bar.”
“You were onstage? Like, doing karaoke onstage?”
And just like that, my anger roared back to life with a vengeance.
“Uh, yeah. I fucking love karaoke.”
“Sorry. I just didn’t know you could sing.”
Ooh, you think you’re so goddamn special just because you have a talent. Like you’re the only asshole who knows how to work a stage. I have talents too, motherfucker. I have talents you don’t even know about. Like twerking. And making an ass out of myself. People love that shit.
“I can’t sing,” I snapped. “That’s why I rap. Anyway”—I let out an exasperated huff—“I ran over to break up the fight and got elbowed in the fucking face.” I winced just thinking about it.
Hans took my chin in his hand and turned my face toward his. His eyes were hard instead of soft. His jaw clenched and unclenched. Then he kissed me right between the eyes. Right on the place where it hurt the most.
Hans didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. He was trying to appear concerned, but the anger radiating off of him and the disappointment in his eyes said it all.
I’d fucked up again.
He’d probably had fun that day while I wasn’t around. He might have even achieved his dream of being on the radio, for all I knew.
But I wasn’t there for the good parts.
I was only there to bring him down.
I opened my mouth to ask about his day when Hans pulled a Hans and changed the subject completely.
“Did you know that the stars are so far away that it takes years for their light to reach Earth?” he asked in a serious tone, gazing past me at the sky. “I think the closest star is four light-years away.” Hans’s eyes seemed to cloud over as if he were lost in thought, his mouth set in a straight line. “All of those stars could be burned out right now, and we’d never know. We’d just go about our lives, looking at the ghosts of dead stars every night, never knowing that we were already in the dark.”
A lump formed in my throat. “That was…beautiful.” I tried to swallow the uncomfortable bulge, but it didn’t budge. “You should write that down, baby. Here…”
As I dug in my purse for a pen, grateful for an excuse to hide my emotional face, I hoped and prayed that Hans hadn’t been talking about us. Lately, it felt like his light was always too far away, took too long to reach me. And now that it had arrived, I was beginning to wonder how long it would take for me to realize if it ever burned away for good.
June 2000
Party, Party, Party, Party. That’s what we were calling it. It was my eighteenth birthday. It was almost Hans’s twentieth birthday. And Juliet and Goth Girl had both just graduated from high school.
Two Birthdays + Two Graduations = Party, Party, Party, Party.
I wanted to call it Party to the Fourth Degree, but that was kind of a mouthful, so I kept that idea to myself.
Party, Party, Party, Party took place at Steven’s house because the rest of us still lived with our parents. I had hoped that Hans’s parents would take another road trip that summer, but they were
too busy being separated for all that.
Hans’s dad had been living in their RV on a different part of the lake for weeks while his mom still lived in that big-ass house with Hans. Nobody talked about it, and nobody seemed terribly upset about it either. It simply was what it was.
Wait, I take that back. I was upset about it.
All year, I’d been counting the days until Hans and I could finally return to our fairy-tale life, living rent-free in the Oppenheimers’ estate, swimming and laughing and watching the sun set over the lake with a couple of beers. Making love all night and waking up in each other’s arms at noon. Driving around in Helga’s brand-new Z3 and coming home to find sparkling countertops and perfect triangles vacuumed into the carpet. So, when Hans had broken the news to me, I was devastated.
But that loss only made me more determined to save up enough money to cover my half of an apartment. Hans and I were going to live happily ever after, goddamn it, with or without the fairy-tale castle.
I peeked inside my purse for the hundredth time that night to make sure the red envelope with Hans’s name calligraphed on the front was still there.
“What you got in there?” Hans asked, stroking my left thigh, which was draped over his right one.
We were sitting in the exact same spot on Steven’s couch where we’d gotten to know each other the first night we met. That night, I’d felt as though we were floating on our own little leather island built for two; the black lights and strobe lights and goth kids and industrial music swirling around us had seemed as far away as distant continents. Hans’s eyes on my face and his fingertips on my skin had been all I could register. The rhythm. The heat. The tiny jolts of electricity I’d felt with every touch, every dimpled smile.
Eleven months later, and the visceral response Hans elicited from me had only intensified. Sitting that close to him lit me up. My body tingled in anticipation of his touch. My heart leaned in, waiting to soak up every sweet nothing he uttered. And my mouth twisted up into a poorly contained smile, unable to hide the joy I felt whenever his distractible mind was distracted by me.
“Nothing.” I grinned and smooshed my purse shut, shoving it against the armrest next to me.
“Nothing, huh?” Hans gave me a devilish side-eye just before reaching across my body with his long, tattooed arm and snatching my bag.
“No!” I yelled, grabbing my once-fuzzy, now very matted and sad-looking tiger-striped purse. “Let go!”
Hans laughed and poked me in the ribs with his free hand, causing my torso to contort in response.
“Fuck you! Don’t tickle me!” I squealed.
“Whatcha got in there, baby?” Poke, poke.
“Dicks!” I screamed, causing every head in the dark, pulsating room to turn. “Big ole dicks! You want one?”
Hans chuckled and pulled me effortlessly into his lap. Releasing my purse, he wrapped both arms around my waist and grazed my cheek with his stubbled smile.
“No, but I think I got one for your collection.” Hans pressed his growing erection against my pleather-covered ass and nuzzled his face into the crook of my neck.
I let go of my purse with one hand—still keeping a death grip on it with the other—and wove my fingers into Hans’s unruly black hair. He hadn’t performed that night, so instead of smelling like sweat and cigarette smoke, it smelled like floral shampoo and cigarette smoke. I giggled, picturing the bottle of Herbal Essences I’d seen in his shower.
Hans’s lips found a tender spot just below my ear as his hands found their way just under the hem of the Birthday Bitch crop top Juliet had given me. I moaned unexpectedly and felt his cock jerk beneath me in response. I regretted nothing more in that moment than my decision to wear pants instead of a skirt that night. If I could have simply pulled my thong to one side and let him fill me right there on the couch, I would have.
My heavy-lidded eyes swept across the darkened living room. Everyone was paired off. Everyone had their hands on each other. And from the looks of things, if we didn’t claim Maddie’s bedroom right then, we might have to take a number just to reserve it for an hour.
Standing up, I grabbed my purse and adjusted my clothes. Hans followed suit and led me by the hand into the kitchen and straight toward our little pink-and-purple Pony-covered home away from home.
The kitchen was much brighter than the living room, and the party guests in there were much less bumpy and grindy. I squinted and tried to avoid making eye contact with anyone as we passed through.
“Hans!” a voice called from somewhere near the sink.
Goddamn it.
I sighed audibly as we both turned toward Goth Girl, who was waving us over. She and Trip were standing next to the counter, facing one another. Their arms were folded across their chests, and it appeared as though a battle of wills had begun.
“Will you tell this asshole that he has to clean that shit up?” Goth Girl barked, shoving a black fingernail toward the floor where a small yellow puddle of either pilsner or piss was fizzing on the linoleum.
Hans laughed and veered off course, leaving me bereft in the middle of the kitchen. “Yeah. With his tongue.”
I walked over to the keg and poured myself another beer. That shit was going to take a while; I could tell. Goth Girl was wasted. Trip was having way too much fun fucking with her, and Hans, successfully distracted, was laughing at them both as he lit a cigarette.
“Hey, Birthday Bitch,” Juliet said, sidling up next to me by the keg.
“Hey, Regular Bitch.” I smirked and leaned into her arm.
“Excuse me. That’s High School Graduate Bitch, thank you very much.” Juliet raised her drawn-on eyebrows and snapped her fingers in an arc in front of my face.
I smiled and pulled her in for a hug. “I’m so fucking proud of you,” I cooed into her hair as she stood, rigidly tolerating my affection. “I can’t believe you have a two-year-old at home and you still managed to graduate on time. You’re fucking amazing.”
“Yeah, well, he watches a lot of SpongeBob, so”—Juliet wriggled out of my embrace—“don’t be too impressed.”
“Shut up,” I said, nudging her arm with my elbow. I could tell my lovefest was making her uncomfortable, so I changed the subject. “It’s too bad that Mike had to work tonight.”
“Huh.” Juliet was staring at something over my shoulder. Flicking her black-brown eyes back to mine, she said, “Oh, yeah. His job sucks ass.”
I turned and looked behind me. Smiling in recognition, I teased, “Uh-oh…did I just catch you checking out Triiiiiip?” in a singsongy voice.
Juliet’s face fell as she pinned me with a look that most teenage girls reserve solely for their annoying younger siblings. “Uh, no. Look again.”
I turned and gave the clique another once-over, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
“What?”
“Is she always that flirty with your man?”
“Who? Victoria? She hardly even talks to him.” I turned around and peeked again.
Goth Girl, who was usually about as perky as Daria on chloroform, was…smiling. At Hans. I didn’t even know the girl had teeth.
“Whatever. She’s just wasted.” I rolled my eyes and turned to face Juliet, who gave me an unconvinced half-shrug.
“Call it what you want.” Looking over my shoulder again, she said, “Speaking of wasted, guess who just showed up?”
I glanced in the direction of the living room entryway and saw a cute guy with an unfortunately preppy crew cut stroll in…wearing khakis.
“Shit!” I grabbed Juliet and practically dived into the hallway leading to Maddie’s bedroom. It turned left after the bathroom, giving us a place to hide.
“What the hell, B?”
“Shh! Hans doesn’t know we’ve been hanging out!” I whisper-shouted.
Juliet snorted. “Still?”
“No! I didn’t tell him ’cause I didn’t think he’d find out and because it’s totally not a thing, but he’d make it a thin
g ’cause he got all jealous the first time he saw us talking and I don’t want to deal with it when it’s not even a thing.”
Juliet’s eyes lifted over my head. “Well, you’re gonna have to deal with it now.”
“What’s up, BB?”
I spun on my heels, smiling from ear to ear in the darkened hallway. “Hey, Jason! What’s up? You droppin’ off some party favors?” I waggled my eyebrows, indicating that party favors was code for drugs, like a total dork. “I haven’t seen Steven in a while.” I looked around as if he were going to magically appear. “Do you need me to find him for you?”
Jason raised one eyebrow. “Noooo. I’m here ’cause it’s your birthday.”
“Oh! Wow. Really? That’s so sweet! Thanks for coming!”
The only thing I was actually thankful for in that moment was the low level of light in the hallway, preventing Jason from seeing my crimson fucking cheeks.
“You haven’t come over in a while,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.
It was weird to see him sober. I hadn’t seen him not wasted since the first time we met. Of course, he’d just arrived. By the time Hans and I’d left that night, Jason had been shit-faced and walking on hot coals.
I liked sober Jason better.
“Yeah, well, now that The Sopranos is over I figured you guys would be taking a break.”
“Nah. We just switched to Survivor. You should come watch with us.”
“Yeah, okay. Sounds like fun. Hey, I’ll, uh…be right back. I gotta pee,” I stammered before turning and bolting into the hall bathroom.
I locked the door behind me and set my red plastic cup and purse on the counter. Looking up at my reflection in the mirror, I stared at the waifish eighteen-year-old glancing back at me, wearing more black eyeliner and glittery eyeshadow than a go-go dancer at Studio 54, and tried to figure out why I felt so…weird.