Tuesday after school, Dad poked his head in my door. "Busy, son?"

  My physics final was the next morning. On my desk, I had the usual study supplies: a mostly finished steeped tea from Tim Hortons; my textbook open to a practice quiz at the end of chapter nine, a particurly tough section on special retivity; my red pocket notebook, lined pages scrawled over with formus, kinematics circled and underlined; my headphone wires draped over everything, instrumental music turned low. (I only listened in one ear when studying, which Talon once said was charming.)

  "Studying," I said, gesturing at the messy desk.

  "Can we speak for a moment?"

  I offered up the most apathetic sure I could muster to avoid engaging him, but he was undeterred. There was no doubt what topic Dad wanted to discuss: Lily. I'd been dreading this since I arrived home st night, since I saw the puckish expression on his face when I handed him back his keys.

  "I really have to study, though," I said.

  "Right, yes, I understand," Dad said, nodding. He cleared his throat and pulled off his readers, tucking them—like a dork—into the front pocket of his striped button-up. "I'm hopeful we can revisit that conversation we began a couple of weeks ago. About physical intimacy."

  I didn't put down my pen and kept my eyes glued to my page. "I think I got it the first time."

  Dad leaned against my doorframe. "Lily's a very sweet girl."

  "She is, yeah."

  "It's an exciting time for you right now," he said, which was phrasing he'd used st time. He put his hands in his pockets. Was he trying to be casual, nonconfrontational? Ugh. "Graduation on the horizon. Celebrating all your hard work with friends. You and Lily are both responsible and cerebral—commendable traits. But hormones can py a trick on you."

  "Dad, really," I said, mortified. "I'm studying all week. I won't even be seeing Lily until the weekend."

  "Hold on," Dad said, straightening. "No girls are allowed over while we're gone. The same holds for Rachel, too: no boys. I'll chat with her."

  "I meant a coffee or a movie or something."

  "I want us to think through God's expectations together, and why it's important to hold tight to certain values. It's about remembering your moral foundation even in the face of temptation. None of this is easy, I know." He tried to catch my eye. "Are you listening, Ryan?"

  I said yes.

  "Good, good. This stuff's tricky. That's why an open dialogue is vital. Between you and I, between you and God."

  "Uh huh."

  "We'll go for lunch before prom," Dad said. "Just the two of us. This won't be a stressful, high-pressure talk. Nothing like that. Okay? Your only homework is to bring questions. I'm happy to answer anything."

  Anything? I thought, remembering kissing Talon in Kip Lamb's closet, tasting the skin on his jaw and neck.

  "Got it," I said.

  "You pick the restaurant," Dad said. "It'll be fun, you'll see."

  Talon: [img_372.jpg]

  My thumb hovered over the picture. It was six minutes after midnight.

  Earlier that day, Talon wrote his biology final. I skipped second period, foregoing English css to help him study outside on a picnic bench. The skin beneath his eyes was soft iris, and he wore shiny Band-Aids on three fingers. Clearly, he'd been up the night before, reviewing and chewing on his nails. He perked up when I handed him the energy drink I'd bought from the vending machine. Although he was nervous, he did well with our fshcards. During lunch, he picked at the peanut butter sandwich I'd made him and managed to get half down. His brows were furrowed, shoulders slumped. When the bell rang to signal the end of lunch, I walked with him to Dr. Santos's cssroom. Kids piled into the room, most looking stressed, others determined. Talon lingered by a row of lockers outside her door, trying to steady himself. I just really need this, he whispered. Covertly, I reached over and grabbed his hand. Don't think about the outcome, I said, only focus on the question that's in front of you, then the next. You know more than you think. You're smart and capable. You can do this.

  Santos was known for her speedy grading. Each year, she holed up in the library after every final, hunched and frizzy-haired like a mad scientist, scarfing down sugary Timbits and mugs of lukewarm coffee while she marked and bounced between her seat and the Scantron in the teacher's lounge. She didn't believe in making students wait days or, God forbid, weeks for their marks. (We specuted she also, fairly, wanted to begin summer vacation as soon as humanly possible.)

  Talon hadn't given anything away in his text, but I knew this was a screenshot of his posted exam mark and, presumably, his final course grade.

  I opened the picture and called him immediately.

  "How does it feel to officially be graduating next week?" I whispered.

  He ughed, nearly a giggle. "I can't believe it," he said, voice simirly hushed but ecstatic.

  I smiled. "I can. Congratutions. Seventy-two's your highest yet!"

  "Did you see? I managed a fifty-three in the course," he said. "Jealous?"

  "Oh, very."

  "I just got off the phone with Berkeley, actually," he said. "They've offered me your spot and said you're out."

  I ughed quietly. "Figures. Can I come visit you?"

  "I'll consider it."

  "Wow," I said. "Hope I make the cut. So, you're in for dinner tomorrow then?"

  When I extended the invitation to Talon to join us for a graduation dinner, his caveat was that he wouldn't come unless he passed the biology final.

  "Can't wait," he said.

  There was palpable relief as he spoke. Passing biology meant he would graduate, yes, but most importantly, I knew this signified for him that he could leave—both Six Mile River and his father.

  "I'm proud of you," I said.

  "It was all you."

  I scoffed. "All I did was mark some mock exams. You put in the work."

  Faintly, I heard a sound in the background—a knock? A footstep? Abruptly, Talon said that he needed to go; he thought maybe he was being too loud.

  "See you tomorrow," he whispered before hanging up.

  "Sorry, what was that?" I said.

  Talon and I sat on his front steps, pleasantly stuffed from dinner. Talon was saying something to me but I found it difficult to focus; rather than listening, I'd been blissfully counting the freckles along his nose. Two on the bridge, four along the side. I couldn't see them from where I sat, but I knew there were two more on his other nostril. Each year, his freckles arrived with the warm weather. I felt embarrassingly attached to them and wanted to run my lips across his skin.

  Talon held up the navy earbud box. "I said I still can't believe your parents got me these."

  "You thanked them approximately eighty-two times at dinner," I said.

  "And I probably should say it another eighty-two!"

  I leaned against him. "Your freckles are cute."

  "That's what you were looking at?" he said, eyes sparkling.

  "Mhm."

  "I barely have any."

  "But I like the ones you do have."

  He bit his lip and then lifted his left arm. He reached for my short-sleeve shirt and ran his fingers up the front, bouncing his fingertips from button to button like rocks skipping across water. "All dinner I was thinking how nice your eyes look." He brushed his fingers along the neckline of my blue cotton shirt; my skin broke out in goosebumps where his fingers grazed. "This color makes them stand out so much."

  Butterflies moved from my chest to my abdomen to my groin.

  Talon's phone vibrated and he pulled it out. "Sorry," he said. "Case must be on his way." He read the text. "Five minutes."

  He and Casey were holing up in Beans until they closed for the evening, cramming for their history final tomorrow. Once the baristas kicked them out, they'd move to Casey's basement. Talon's history mark was bleak, but not as dire as his biology average had been.

  "You guys would die if you saw my transcript," Talon said. "I've got all low fifties and a couple of sixties. Band's usually my lone A-plus, but…" He shrugged softly, picking at the red, infmed skin around his thumbnail, brows furrowed. "When you miss that much school. You know."

  Gently, I pulled his hand away so he wouldn't keep tearing at the skin. I squeezed his hand before letting go.

  "Where were you?" I said. "When you were skipping all the time?"

  "Oh, I…" He sighed. "I went to Craigflower a lot. Our spot."

  We shared a smile, but my chest smarted. I wished I'd been with him.

  "Sometimes I just stayed home," he said. "When Dad was at work, I mean. I worked on songs. And other times, I walked and walked until my lungs burned and my legs were shaking and stiff the next morning. I'd listen to albums all day and just—go, I guess." He paused. "I also thought that… thought maybe I would… leave."

  The way he said leave, staring at his wrist, jaw clenched, told me what he really meant.

  "I'd hang out with Georgia, too. She skipped with me every so often. Georgia and me—we were sort of together for a bit. We weren't… It was mostly a distraction." He closed his eyes for a second. "That sounds mean. She's super cool. I did like her. But not like I like you." His cheeks turned faintly pink at this, and he stared down at his shoes.

  I bit my lip to stop from smiling at this confession. "Sort of like the Lily situation?"

  He didn't speak for a moment. "I think it's a bit different for us, though," he said tentatively, using his hands to gesture between his body and mine.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, I think I'm—" he started. "And you're—? Right?"

  Oh. Oh.

  In my mind, I repyed something Marty said at the baseball game, when he and I were heatedly talking while we stood in the asphalt near the concession stands. How'd Marty put it? I heard he's—like, maybe gay or bisexual or something. Although how would Marty have any idea about Talon's sexuality? Who'd he heard that from, anyway?

  Marty's enigmatic attainment of that knowledge wasn't the point, though. Talon was trying to tell me something about himself, trying to gauge facts about me. Back in Marty's kitchen, Talon implored me to say it, then. Were we going to say it out loud, right now? Talon was watching my face, curious but not judgemental. He seemed excited, in an understated, hopeful way. Maybe he'd wanted us to tell each other this for a long time.

  Talon's retionship with Georgia was different than the one I'd carved out with Lily because, as far as I could discern from his half-started sentences, he was likely bisexual. A momentary fme of jealousy flickered in my gut because what he was saying was that his and Georgia's retionship had been realer than mine and Lily's.

  I wanted us to speak directly and openly. But how could we do that on the front stoop of his father's house? With my parents across the road? My parents' daisy-printed curtains were pulled back from the front window. Afternoon sunlight hit the gss, obscuring the forms inside, but I saw movement. Most likely, Mom and Dad sat in their usual spots at the kitchen table. Dad was probably working his way down his to-do list for tomorrow's flight, excited about spending his weekend with fellow servants of God.

  I couldn't tear my eyes away from the window. I took the easy way out.

  "You're right about us," I said carefully. "That difference between us."

  Talon followed my gaze to the front window and my parents' shadowy shapes. He nodded and looked back to me. "But, also, the simirity," he said, resting his shoe atop mine.

  Casey pulled up in his parents' Audi, absolving me from committing to giving our conversation genuine crity. The white vehicle gleamed. Casey bred music, discernible even with the windows closed. He loved driving that SUV.

  Talon reached for his backpack, but I pced my hand on his arm.

  "Hold on," I said. I gnced at the SUV, but Casey's music was loud—no way he'd hear us. "Listen, Tal. Next time you want to… leave—" (I tried hard not to focus on the double meaning of this word) "—will you tell me first?"

  There's always a solution, I thought, trying to convey this with my eyes. I'll help you through anything.

  He held my gaze, and it seemed like he wanted to say more, too. He nodded towards the arbutus tree curling up to my window. "I did." He stood up, backpack over one shoulder. "Thank your parents again for me."

  Back at home, Mom and Dad were making tea. They asked if I wanted some and I said sure. I reyed Talon's message to them and expressed my excitement for my own grad gift. They'd gotten me a refurbished MacBook, which shocked me. (Rachel, who had been uncharacteristically quiet at dinner, shy around Talon since the prom rejection, paled when I unwrapped it. "I might have to use that sometimes," she choked out, "if mine's going too slow.") Rachel and I both owned ptops, this was true, but they were very old and very clunky—prone to freezing and crashing—gifted to us by elderly members of the church when they upgraded their own electronics. Mom and Dad were both frugal, loyal to their strict budget, which was the only way Mom was able to not work outside our home. But at dinner they told me that it was important for me to have a more reliable computer for my degree.

  Mom and Dad chatted about flights to California; Dad found a good deal and he wanted to discuss dates and luggage sizes. Dutifully, I listened and responded when necessary, but inside I was brimming with pulsing, uncontainable joy, thinking of Talon's foot on mine, his fingers along the neckline of my shirt. Him telling me we were simir in the way that mattered. That he liked me.

  Before studying, I needed to shower. I knew I couldn't focus otherwise. I locked both the bedroom and bathroom doors. Once alone in the privacy of the warm shower, I mentally repeated Talon's touch against my chest over and over. That alone made my heart race, and my chest tighten with desire. Feeling a sliver of shame, I allowed myself to take these images further. I imagined us together in my room. All those small details of his face and body that my eyes lingered on when I thought no one would notice: his eyeshes, the shape of his nose, his jawline, his hands. I pictured Talon opening my shirt, me pulling up his in return. The dark hair on his lower stomach that made my breath catch. I saw both our fingers desperately undoing the others' shorts buttons, and his amazing whimpering moan as my hand trailed from his chest to his abdomen before reaching lower.

  "The Birkensteins have our contact information," Mom said Friday morning. "They're avaible If you need anything. And of course, there's always Stephen across the road."

  "Great," I said, promptly removing Stephen from my list of trusted adults should anything serious happen.

  Besides, nothing bad was going to happen. Every year right before their departure, Mom was teary and fretful, pre-emptively worried for our safety. (Last night, I'd reminded her I was eighteen years old and about to graduate from high school and she and Dad were only gone for a total of four days—she seemed briefly surprised, as though she still saw me as a short, baby-faced sixth grader.)

  Mom and Dad wore light coats, a rge, shared duffel bag near the front door. Their flight wasn't until ten forty-five, but Dad believed in arriving to the airport inordinately early, even Six Mile River's tiny terminal. Over morning coffee, Dad asked me to repeat back my duties for church on Sunday. This is Pastor Andy's first time giving a sermon, he said, referencing an eager guy in his twenties, so ensure you make him feel welcome and help out at the pulpit if he needs anything. I assured him I'd do so, grateful Dad hadn't asked me to prepare my own sermon or something equally horrifying. Mom and Dad id out the general ground rules, same as always: one (same-sex) friend could stay over each night; the house needed to be in the same condition upon their return; keep quiet starting around nine out of respect for our neighbors; and Dad stressed that there was to be no alcohol (he was still haunted by the beer Talon and I shared years ago). Rachel and I promised their rules would be steadfastly followed, careful not to so much as gnce at each other in case we revealed that, in past years, we'd cndestinely invited several friends to stay the night.

  Dad reached into his wallet and id down a red fifty-dolr bill in the center of our kitchen table. He paused and plucked a second bill, a twenty, and pced it atop the fifty.

  "Grab yourself some pizza and pop," Dad said cheerily.

  We thanked them and Mom pulled us each into a teary hug. She let go of me but patted my cheek.

  "Take care of your sister," she said.

  "Always."

  "I don't need to be taken care of," Rachel grumbled.

  Dad asked me to lead us in a group prayer. We bowed our heads. I asked God to protect Mom and Dad on their travels, to watch over them and keep them safe from danger or accidents. Even if they felt empty, the words came to me instinctually. We murmured amen.

  From the front step, Rachel and I waved as they drove off.

  The second they turned the corner, Rachel whirled around.

  "That money's mine," she said, "I'm inviting Hilry and Sasha over for a sleepover and we're getting food!"

  "No way," I said. "The guys are staying over and we're buying pizza."

  "You have a steady income—"

  "—and it's my fault you don't?"

  "You're so stingy!"

  "We eat more than you."

  "Because you're boys?"

  "Because there are five of us and three of you."

  Rachel huffed. "I can eat double what you eat. Triple!"

  We were still arguing about how to split the cash as we walked across the street to grab Talon.

  Before tests, a rush hit me. The flimsy desk disappeared. Time became neat and orderly, perfect segments of possibility. I craved that feeling, whatever you wanted to call it: crity of thought, flow state, deep focus. To me, the adrenaline coursing through me was akin to a struck match held to a log, a fire brought to life and calmy stoked. Of course, having a competitor helped keep the fire alight and in Chemistry, I had a few: Matt, Gio, Aaliyah, Marty. Whenever Aaliyah spoke up in css, I still felt a twinge of jealousy that she'd beat me out to be css valedictorian by so few points. That envy fueled me throughout our final exam. She and I finished at the same time and walked to the front to pce our booklets on our instructor's desk. We nodded respectfully to each other like rival athletes.

  At our lockers afterward, Marty and I discussed the exam—which we both agreed was fair—and any sections we'd stumbled over.

  "Man," Casey said, shaking his head at us. "You two live for this shit."

  Marty and I shared a grin.

  "It's fun," I said.

  "Fun?" Talon repeated incredulously, shutting his locker.

  "Fun is the st word I'd use to describe our history final," Casey said. "Think you passed, man?"

  "Yeah," Talon said. "The essay section at the back saved me."

  "Speaking of fun," Marty said. "Let's go all out tonight, boys!"

  It was Marty's eighteenth birthday. Casey, Rob, and I pooled our money to get him a smartwatch, strategically waiting for it to go on sale; between the sale and Rob's discount, it wasn't too bad. Marty's parents could afford to buy him anything. But for Marty's birthdays and most Christmases, too, they bought expensive but generic gift cards—Amazon, Cineplex, SportChek, clothing stores in our shitty mall—and piled them up on the console table in their entryway. Marty had sent us pictures of the unwrapped gift cards before, joking about it, bragging even, but how could you not feel overlooked with that kind of present?

  The guys and I didn't consistently give gifts, only when we had a particurly good idea or enough in our bank accounts. Rachel said this was one more reason why she wished she was a boy ("culturally," she specified, "I like being a girl otherwise!"); she and her friends went all out for each other, hours spent handmaking and writing in cards and detailed wrapping jobs. But I think the guys and I shared a collective understanding, too, that next year we wouldn't all be together for any of our birthdays. Marty was stoked with the gift and kept turning his wrist to look at it.

  Marty had his phone open to a group chat. "Is it cool if I tell Matt and Gio to come over?"

  Despite still having my Computer Science final that afternoon, I felt light and happy, a combination of the successful Chemistry test and the sunny Friday. Back in September, we'd made a pact. To study hard first semester and then enjoy the fruits of our bor the second half of the year. (And yeah, sure, there'd been a lot of talk about not graduating virgins.) Despite a rocky, confusing start to the year, it was ending better than I could have hoped: I'd gotten into my dream school and Talon and I had said we'd liked each other, and the weekend was parentless and full of possibility.

  "Invite them," I said happily to Marty.

  "What about Logan?"

  "Wacwski?"

  "That's the one, buddy."

  "Sure." I didn't know Logan as well as Matt and Gio, but he seemed like a chill guy.

  "Maybe Dhruv and Aaron?"

  I hesitated. For one thing, I couldn't imagine Dhruv Bhandari in my living room. For another, the amount of people was quickly mounting.

  "Since it's my birthday," Marty said.

  To the right of our house were the Birkensteins, a happy older couple. They must've been in their sixties, maybe seventies, but they were lean and fit, all sinewy muscle and silvery hair. Both of them attended our church and Dad knew and trusted them. A retired academic librarian, Mr. Birkenstein volunteered at the downtown branch on the weekends. He was fine, but I held a simmering grudge against Mrs. Birkenstien, who'd helped with Cire's cupcake fundraisers to help fund her ticket to Australia so she could attend Bible College. Given their age, the Birkensteins' athleticism surprised me; they skied and snowshoed in the winter, hiked and camped and pyed pickleball throughout July and August. Connected to their desire to constantly be outdoors was the fact that they went to bed delightfully early, their home usually dark by eight in the evening.

  On our other side was Mr. Cheng. A weathered, stooped man whose age rivaled the Birkensteins, he was their por opposite: he preferred to stay indoors seemingly at all times, declining any invitations my parents extended, whether to church or over for dinner. Typically, he was visible through his front window, curled into a rge leather chair, tea in one hand and sage e-reader in the other. His chubby, grey-streaked tabby sat on the windowsill, meowing at birds and bugs, paws against the gss. Oftentimes, Rachel and I spied Mr. Cheng at his mostly unused dining table, clearly on a video call, hands filing to emphasize his statements; we could never decide if he was teaching a css or enrolled in a very passionate online book club. When his grown children came to visit—which wasn't often—he seemed to regain an entire decade's worth of energy. Fortunately for us, he also went to sleep long before we did.

  With the neighbors' schedules in mind, I told Marty to rey to the guys not to come until nightfall and to enter through the back gate.

  "They can come over," I said, "but everyone has to be gone by midnight. It's not a party."

  "On it," Marty said, thumbs flying on his screen.

  Between csses, I texted my co-worker Brayden. Hey man, I wrote, remember when you said you owed me one? Since I'd done him a couple favors recently, he said it was no problem to cover my four-hour morning shift. I still had one more loose thread.

  With five minutes left of our lunch block, I found Rachel sitting with her friends at a picnic table. Although it was vaguely embarrassing for both of us, I approached them.

  Rachel looked at me over her sungsses. "What?"

  "I'm having a few extra guys over tonight. We're going to drink. I wanted to tell you in case you'd rather go to one of their houses." I nodded at Sasha and Hilry.

  The three of them shared a look.

  "That's fine," Rachel said, "but the deal is we get to drink, too."

  "Absolutely not."

  "Ryan!"

  "No. You're fifteen."

  "We're sixteen," Sasha and Hilry said at the same time.

  "Shockingly, that doesn't change Rachel's age," I said.

  "I turn sixteen in August," Rachel said tightly.

  "Yeah? Well, sixteen's still three years too young to drink, so good luck."

  "You're only eighteen! Talon's not even eighteen until October!"

  I rolled my eyes. "If you can get alcohol, you can have one drink each. That's it."

  Hilry leaned across the picnic table. Her braids were vivid red in the sunshine. "My older brothers can probably get us stuff. We'll just have to pay… a lot. Like, too much."

  Shit. I forgot: Hilry's older brothers were twins with the same gingery hair. They'd been seniors the year before.

  Sasha pushed her gsses up. "I got babysitting money, Hil's been saving her allowance, and Rach, you still have Christmas money, right?"

  The three of them high-fived.

  "A single drink each," I said, looking at them all somberly. "I'm not kidding. Or I'm calling your parents."

  Hilry blushed and Sasha defiantly crossed her arms.

  Talon had his final band performance right after lunch. He gathered his sheet music, humming under his breath. The st few years, Talon pyed keyboard in band. But for her finals, Ms. Pearson also allowed vocal performance. That's what Talon had chosen, extremely st minute. I watched him for a moment, picturing him singing, his rich and full voice.

  "Can you stay over tonight?" I said.

  We shared a charged look. Sure, we wouldn't be completely alone, but my mind was already formuting excuses to ensure Talon and I could have privacy in my room.

  He smiled at me, eyes crinkling. "I'll text my dad."

  I tried to keep my tone casual, as though I was asking about a regur parent-child dynamic, so Talon didn't feel that I was interrogating him. "Is there a pattern when he wants you to say home?" I said. "Or does he sort of decide spur of the moment?"

  Talon sent off the text. "He's hard to read."

  I nodded, hopeful that Stephen would say yes. "Hey, does he know you're moving to Vancouver?"

  "Not exactly," he said. "Every time it comes up, he freaks out. Only Griffin knows."

  "Why does he freak out?"

  "He has this notion that I'm going to live with him forever," he said. "I mean, I'm sure not literally forever. He knows I've thought about moving but he—yeah, he doesn't like the idea."

  "Make sure Griffin doesn't tell him," I said.

  This felt urgent to me, although I couldn't articute exactly why. After Talon told me his father hit him, that he'd done other, unspeakable things to him, I'd scoured the Internet for clues about how to handle the situation. I'd read articles on abuse written by psychologists and survivors. The details were faint now, but I recalled something about the significance of safely leaving your abuser. Hadn't I read some statistic that leaving their partner was the most dangerous time for women? Was that true only for abusive romantic partners? Or did the same logic apply no matter who your abuser was?

  "Don't give your dad any concrete details about Vancouver," I said. "We can figure that out with Griffin. I think you should leave first and tell your dad the truth only once you're on your way. Okay?"

  "Yeah, okay." Talon looked less bothered than I felt, perhaps buoyed still by the knowledge that he was graduating after all. He held up his binder. "Wish me luck."

  At the three twenty bell, the guys gathered by our lockers. The hallways were mayhem. Sometime between fourth and fifth block, seven or eight enormous helium balloons appeared from the back of someone's car and were being passed between outstretched hands. The balloons—silver, bck, and gold—said CONGRATS GRADS in swirling letters, dotted with stars. Graduation wasn't technically for a week, but the heightened energy was palpable. I tossed a silver balloon threatening to nd on my head and Marty rocketed it towards the middle of the hallway. A football had emerged from a pyer's locker and flew over peoples' heads. Mr. Rathert-Hill flinched as the football shot past his shoulder, but he didn't have time to chastise the thrower because he was busy comforting an utterly devastated student who was pleading with him through sobs to let her redo her French exam.

  "Por favor, Mr. Rathert-Hill?" she said, sniffling.

  "It's s'il vous pit," Mr. Rathert-Hill said gently, "and I'm thinking this is why you'll indeed need to retake the course over the summer, Sally. Summer csses are an incredibly productive, supportive environment, you'll see—"

  Another student had dropped his entire art portfolio on the ground and watched in horror as his enormous pop culture colge got trampled on and his papier-maché skull burst like a watermelon. Two guys who couldn't have been more than fourteen compared the sparse hair above their upper lip, debating who should be the one to show the clerk the fake ID. Each time the school doors opened, summer air and light spilled in.

  "What do you guys want for booze?" Marty said.

  "Who's buying?" I said, closing my locker.

  "Lucas," Marty said, grimacing.

  "When are the girls coming?" Casey said.

  Right, the girls. Hadn't I told Marty not to invite them?

  "Maybe tonight should be a guy's night," I said. "You know? This is becoming bigger than I want it to be."

  Marty and Casey gaped at me.

  "How else are we getting alcohol?" Casey said. "You know my sister is this close to, like, calling the police on us."

  Rob looked up from his phone. "Moustache disguise?"

  "No!" we all shouted.

  "You thought my girlfriend wasn't going to hang with me on my birthday?" Marty said.

  "No, I… yeah, it's fine."

  Look, it wasn't so much the amount of people coming over. That worried me a bit, yeah, but I figured if we kept it down and turned the lights low like Kip Lamb's party, our neighbors would sleep through the night none the wiser. But I hadn't had a chance to expin to Talon that I hadn't technically ended the Lily situation, that I was going to tell her we could go to prom as friends but nothing more. In fact, like a coward, I'd managed to avoid Lily most of the week, dodging her when I saw her weaving through the hallway, turning my face into my locker when she pced her hand on my arm, which I understood to be a signal for a kiss. How was I going to keep the facade going for the night?

  "They're not coming until ter, anyways," Marty said. "They have to wait until Lucas is off."

  Talon pulled on his backpack. "I have some beer in my room. It's not much, but it could hold us over until they get to Ryan's."

  "Hell yeah, man, we owe you," Casey said.

  Marty nudged me and waggled his brows. "Tonight could be the night, dude."

  I knew what he meant so I didn't respond.

  "You can finally join the ranks of men," Marty continued. "We'll make sure to give you and Lily some privacy."

  Casey patted his bag. "I have condoms, man. Just say the word and I got you."

  "Don't have sex at my house," I said. "That's a firm rule."

  Casey thought about this. "Does the backyard count?"

  "It absolutely counts."

  "What kind of food situation are we looking at?" Rob said. "Should we make a snack detour before your pce?"

  As we walked to Rob's car, we floated ideas. I offered pizza; Marty wanted Chinese food ("it's my birthday," he said, "and I'm not sure why my opinion isn't being prioritized"); Rob said we should stop at Safeway and get our usual assortment of frozen food, maybe chips (he heard there was a new fvor, fried pickle and ranch, and we all made barfing noises); Casey and Talon said they were good with anything but that they were both starving. We shoved into Rob's messy car. Marty said he was going to have a nervous breakdown if Rob didn't clean up and Rob said, just do it, man, get it over with, have the breakdown! Casey fiddled with the music and overshot the volume, and we all leapt in the air when the bass kicked in. Talon rested his hand on my knee to lean forward into the front seat and said he'd choose the music, and Casey said you don't trust me? And Talon said okay, what's the st song you listened to? And Casey went red and wouldn't answer but silently plugged in Talon's phone. It felt like old times, all of us ughing and shouting and talking over each other.

  To my left, Marty was tapping his watch, sending Kat directions to my pce.

  "Tell everyone to be quiet when they come over," I said. "You know my parents will kill me if they find out."

  "Don't worry, dude," Marty said, kicking a half-full Coke bottle under Rob's seat. "Tonight's gonna be super low key."