"How far is this thing? We've been walking for thirty minutes now," I complain to Luke.
"Are you going to be like this the entire time? Unless you've forgotten, it's not exactly legal to throw an underage kegger in the woods. Everyone got busted a few weeks ago so they had to move it. We're almost there," Luke tells me.
Luke has had his head down for at least the last ten minutes now, fixated on his phone screen. We're following the tiny pulsating blue dot to the party of the century. Somehow, I have a feeling that I am going to be disappointed.
"Stop making that face," Luke says without looking up from his phone.
"What face? I'm not making any face," I say.
"The pissed off, 'I'd rather be anywhere on Earth but here' face. I don't need to look at you right now to tell that you've got it on," he says.
"How much further?" I ask.
"Are we there yet? I have to go potty!" Luke mocks. "Wait, do you hear that?"
We stop in our tracks and can hear the distant pumping of bass and what sounds like the chattering of a crowd. It's the party, and it can't be far from where we are.
"Come on," Luke says as he begins hurrying his pace.
We reach the party and while it pains me to admit it to Luke, he's right. This is no middle of the woods kegger. This is a full blown rave. What Luke's confidential party sources didn't inform him about; was that this is actually the party of Troy Gordon, a graduating senior and the spoiled son of very rich, and also very absentee parents.
There were strobe lights, (cold) beer, and an actual honest-to-God DJ. Troy and his Trust Fund buddies had hitched a generator to one of their ATVs and brought all of this stuff out into the woods yesterday to begin setting up. No wonder, it was set so deep. Any closer to civilization and the cops were certain to have found it. One thing was for sure: this was definitely not my scene, nor do I belong here.
"Calm down, man, it's fine. The entire school is here. Grab a beer and relax! It's summertime!" Luke tries to convince me.
"Hey! Jimmy! Jimmy! I can't believe it, that's Jimmy! We went to kindergarten together! This is crazy. Jimmy!" Luke yells above the thumping music as he wanders off.
Great. Now I'm completely alone at a party I'm not even invited to.
"Where's your friends, Professor No-Friends?" A voice behind me asks.
Thirty seconds into this party, and I'm already about to get bullied. Even better. I swing around with half a "just leave me alone" already loaded into the barrel of the proverbial comeback gun when I see who said it. It's Lexi.
And she's smiling. I'm immediately and completely dumbfounded by just how absolutely adorable she is when she smiles. I stand there thinking about this without saying anything for what I'm sure is an uncomfortable amount of time. It was a joke, I guess?
"I'm just messing with you," she says. It was a joke. Ha. Yes, of course. "I don't think I've ever seen you out at one of these before. Didn't think they were really your thing," she tells me.
"Oh, well, yeah, I mean usually they're not, but you know, it's the last day of school so I figured why not mix it up a bit?" I manage to stammer out. 'Mix it up a bit'? Who do I think I am? I don't talk like that. I don't think anyone actually talks like that. I am officially an idiot, and my true inner idiot seems to really come out and shine whenever Lexi is around.
"Well it's cool that you're here! Never thought I'd see the day. Can I get you a beer or something?" she asks. 'Can I, Lexi McRae, get you, Jason Pittman, a beer?' I think to myself. What the hell is going on. Am I in some type of alternate universe where everything is like real life but opposite?
"Uh, yeah, sure," I blurt out.
"Cool, what do you drink?" she asks.
"Ah, ya know. The hard stuff," I say. 'The hard stuff'? I am losing my mind. What the hell does the 'hardstuff' even mean? I've heard it in movies before, sure, but I'm not actually sure what that is. Is it more solid? Like a milkshake or something? Did I just ask her for a beer milkshake? Does that make me sound incredibly sissy?
"Oh, I don't know if they have any liquor here, actually," she tells me. Right! Liquor. That's what the hard stuff is. I knew that.
"Ah, too bad. Whatever you're having is cool then," I tell her.
"Great, I'll be right back," she says as she walks off into the crowd.
Did I actually manage to sound cool just there. Maybe I did. 'I'll take whatever you're having.' That does sound pretty cool, I guess. What if what she's having is girly though? What if she comes back and hands me a pink drink in a martini glass with one of those little umbrellas in it? I can't insult her by not drinking it, can I? I guess I'll just have to cross that bridge when I come to it.
"What the shit do you think you're doing here?"
Before I even turn around, I know who the words have come from. Evan Campbell. One of Troy Gordon's football teammates. I don't think Evan even knows my name, but that hasn't stopped him from trying to make my life a living hell for the past year. I turn around and can tell by the way he's swaying that he's already had too much to drink.
"Seriously Pittman. Who do you think you are, man? Were you even invited?" He asks me.
Huh. He does know my name after all.
"It's the last day of school, I thought everyone was invited," I tell him.
"Everyone was invited. You're not everyone though. You're nobody, so you're not invited," he tells me in probably the most creative wordplay he's ever put together.
"Funny," I say.
"Seriously bro. You're not invited, get out of here. If Adam sees you, he's gonna flip," Evan says.
"It's a party in the middle of the woods. No one's supposed to be here," I say.
"This is your last warning, bro," he threatens.
I look through the crowd to see if I can spot Lexi, trying to decide which is the worse fate: leaving without even saying goodbye and looking like a total jerk, or staying so she can come back just in time to see three meatheads pummeling me. Of course, I choose the path of least embarrassment and leave with my tail between my legs.