Page 51 of On His Schedule
When the beat drops, we dance. Not the kind you do at a bar where you are aware of the strangers around you. The kind you do in your kitchen at twenty-one, three drinks deep, with the two girls you would put your body in front of a bus for. Arms up. Eyes shut. Stupid. Carefree. And so much fun.
Gianna spins me. I almost lose my drink. She catches it and lifts it over her head. Mara gets behind me and bumps me with her hip and mouths something dramatic, and I cannot stop laughing.
The songs keep changing, and I don’t know how long we have been at this. The drink in my hand is getting low, and I’m not refilling it because I feel perfect right now. I grab Gianna and thank her for making me come out tonight. She accepts my gratitude by dropping it low. I fan her while laughing. My head is spinning, so I slow down my rhythm and sway. When I look up, my heart tanks. Across the room, in the doorway between the dining room and the living room, there is a tall person leaning on the frame with a beer in his hand. Benson’s looking directly at me.
I don’t look away. He doesn’t either.
Mara grabs my hand and spins me. The moment ends, and I let it.
Twenty minutes later, I’m so sweaty. I need water and a long minute in a room that isn’t pulsing. I tell Gianna I’ll be right back, but she doesn’t hear me. She’s screaming the chorus with Mara.
I walk to the kitchen where it’s calmer. There are a few people in it, but they’re clustered near the keg and deep in a conversation. I find a clean Solo cup on the counter and run the tap water from the sink. I fill the cup with water and start drinking.
A guy comes up behind me. I don’t turn around at first. He is just a presence at my back, off-center, the way someone announces themselves without saying anything.
“Hey.”
I turn, noticing that he’s in a Camden Wolves shirt. I look at his face and know he’s not on the team. I know everyone on the team by face after three years of Gianna’s roster recitations. Maybe he’s a fan, a frat brother, or a friend of a friend. He’s cute.
“Hi.”
“You’re Lucy, right?”
How in the world would he know my name?
“I saw you dancing.”
I sip my water.
“You’re hot.”
“Very.” I drink more water. “I’m sweating. I could drink a whole gallon of water right now.”
I turn back to the sink to refill my water.
“Can I get your number?”
I look at him and grip my cup. “Oh. No, but thank you.”
“Why not?” he asks nonchalantly. He’s mildly drunk.
“I’m not interested. Sorry.”
“Come on. I’m a nice guy. Give me a chance.”
“I’m sure you are. The answer is still no.”
He puts a hand on the counter next to my hip. Not touching me. I look at the hand, and then his face. I keep my voice at the same level it has been the entire conversation. “Please move your hand.”
He moves his hand. He does it fast. He does it like he has just realized what he was doing. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Have a good night.” I pick up my water and walk past him toward the living room.Creep.
Benson is in the dining room doorway across the hall. He’s staring past me. I look at him as I walk past. Neither of us says anything. I rejoin the girls. He goes back to his beer.
It’s an hour later, maybe more, and I am hot again. I push through the kitchen and out the back door. The porch is warm-cool in the way late August is at night. There is a small fire going in the pit at the bottom of the steps. Three figures are arranged on the porch — one on the top step, one on the second step, one on the bottom step.
They have the easy quiet of people who have been outside long enough that the conversation has stopped having to be a conversation. I stop at the door.
