The Party 130 a.m.
The Party
Billy stood near the half-empty bottles of booze with Ethan and Dylan, trying to remember the words to some Billy Joel song his dad used to sing to him when he was young.
“Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn’s got a winning team,” Billy sang, his voice off-key. “What’s next, dude?” He elbowed Ethan in the stomach.
“How should I know? I’m a Bruce guy.”
“Long Island traitor!” Dylan wrapped an arm around Ethan’s neck, and Billy threw his head back, laughing.
But when he opened his eyes, he realized the crowd on the back patio had thinned, his classmates slipping away into the night. He still couldn’t find Erica, who this whole party was for. “Yo, did Erica leave?” he asked.
Dylan looked around and pointed to a small black purse. “I think that’s her bag. She’s probably around here somewhere.”
Billy wanted to look for her, but Ethan clapped him on the back. “Didn’t you want to find Justin?”
He did, Billy remembered, and as luck would have it, Justin was sitting in an Adirondack chair, vaping with one of his buddies from the football team.
“That, my dude, is an excellent call.” Billy wiggled out of Ethan’s grasp and leapt across the lawn until he was standing directly in front of Justin.
He could do with a little blow. Maybe a bump of ketamine.
He wanted something that would keep him up, that would keep this party going and make him a little more confident when he finally talked to Erica.
“What do you have tonight?” Billy asked.
Justin shook his head. “I’m not your vending machine.”
“I’ll pay. Obviously.”
“Not tonight, man.”
Annoyance prickled the back of Billy’s neck. He pulled out a few crisp bills from his back pocket and held them up over Justin’s head, then released them so they fluttered in the air, landing on his face.
“C’mon,” Ethan said behind him in that worried tone of his.
“Be nice about it.” But Billy smirked, waiting for Justin to do something.
If this kid—this trust-fund baby who was just as well-off as the rest of them—wanted to act hard all year, like he was a real-life Scarface, then Billy wanted to see him do something other than hand over a bunch of pills he swiped from his mom’s medicine cabinet.
Billy could do that, too, based on his own mother’s stash.
Justin stood up, the money floating to the ground. “I’m not selling you shit.” The kid turned his back on Billy and started to walk away. But that wasn’t going to work. Not for Billy.
“Hey!” Billy called, reeling his elbow back in space, and when Justin turned around, Billy leaned forward and made sure to land his fist right on Justin’s jaw, hard enough to hear a cracking sound split through the air.