Chapter 9
Benson
I hit print. The printer wheezes once and starts sliding it out — twenty by thirty, in the bright red Blue wanted, with the words across it in a font we picked because it looked the most like an actual house rule someone would type up unironically.
Blue picks it up off the printer tray and holds it up at arm’s length.
“That’s the one.”
I nod, staring at it. “That’s the one.”
“This is going to piss him off.”
I press my lips together. “Or make him laugh.”
From the dining room, in a neutral voice, Percy adds, “I bet he’s secretly in love with a girl, so he’s going to lose his mind when he sees it.
” He’s at the table with our largest punchbowl in front of him.
He has a handle of rum, a handle of vodka, three two-liter bottles of Sprite, a bag of frozen mango chunks, and a single cut lime.
“That’s the point, Pers,” Blue says, walking the poster over to the laminator.
“Mm.”
Rowan comes through the back door with a case of beer on each shoulder and stops, looks at the poster, looks at me, looks at Blue. “Boys.”
“Yeah?” I mutter.
Rowan says, staring at the poster, “I want it noted, on the record, that I think this is going to backfire on you both.”
“Noted, Laurens.”
Blue, sliding the poster into the laminator. “Rowan. Take the W.”
Rowan walks past us into the kitchen, sets the beers on the counter, exhales like a man who has been the only adult on a road trip for thirteen straight hours, and starts re-organizing the kitchen island in a way it does not need.
The laminator hums. Blue feeds the poster through. It comes out the other side glossy and rigid. It’s exactly as bad as we want it to be. I look at the kitchen clock. Six-forty.
“Where do we hang it?”
“Over the keg.”
We walk it together to the dining room. The keg is in the corner where it always is for a Hawthorne House party, in a galvanized tub Stanley bought at Lowe’s two years ago and named Geraldine for reasons he has not explained.
Blue has already pre-taped the top of the laminator.
He hands me the right side. We line it up over the wall above the keg. I press it on.
We step back. It is, against the white wall, beautifully terrible.
“Percy.”
“I’m coming.” He stops in the dining room doorway and looks at the poster. He sips whatever he has put in his cup so far and nods once. “It is going to age well.”
The front door slams.
We freeze, all three of us in the dining room, like third graders.
Stanley’s voice comes down the hall.
“Reeve. Laurens. Golding. Deveroux. I’ve had a day. I’m going to shower, and I’m going to be funny again in approximately—” He walks into the dining room and stops. He stares at the wall above the keg.
“What the hell is that?”
Blue, who has somehow already arranged himself on the couch in the next room with a beer he didn’t have thirty seconds ago, “What is what?”
He points. “That sign over the keg.”
I glance up at it like I’m noticing it for the first time. “Oh. The house rules.”
“That is not how I—”
“It’s a direct quote, Stan,” Blue calls.
“It’s—”
Percy, walking past with his cup, voice mild, “Ratified by majority vote.”
“It’s fucking beautiful. Good job, boys. Let everyone at the party know what’s up.” He goes up the stairs three at a time. The bathroom door slams.
Blue, still on the couch, sips his beer. “Do you think he had a hard day because of a girl?”
Rowan chuckles. “I don’t want to know.”
I laugh, “I do. I want to know who it is and why.”
By eight-thirty, the house is full enough that the front door doesn’t bother closing all the way.
Freshmen always come first. They come in a clump, and they always hover near the kitchen.
They don’t drink anything for the first twenty minutes because they don’t know who is going to look at them sideways for drinking.
And I always have to tell them — this year I tell Wexler, because Wexler is the one staring at the wall — to grab a beer and go stand somewhere that is not the kitchen island. He goes.
The upperclassmen come next. They come confident.
Walsh slaps me on the shoulder hard enough that it wakes up an old bruise.
Carlson tells me he heard Coach in the office last Tuesday saying I’m playing the best hockey of my life right now, which I don’t believe Carlson actually heard but appreciate him saying.
Two of the defensemen show up with girls.
The girls are nice. I know two of them by face.
A group of four girls comes in together, and one of them waves at me. I know her face too, but I don’t recall her name. I wave back but don’t add a smile because that insinuates an open door.
Rowan is at the kitchen island with Jess on a stool next to him. He’s listening to her tell a story with his whole body angled toward her. She’s in a green sweater that she keeps pulling at the sleeves of. He hasn’t introduced her around, but it doesn’t matter to me.
Stanley is already on his second beer. He is the loudest person in any room he enters, and tonight is not an exception. He appears at my elbow with two beers.
“Pong. You and me. Walsh and Carlson.”
“Stan, I—”
“We’re going now.”
He pulls me to the dining room. The table is already set. We take the end nearest the keg, which means we are taking shots directly under our own poster. Stanley hasn’t looked up at the poster again since he came back downstairs.
“Walsh. Are you ready to lose?” Stan barks.
Walsh nods. “You ready to be embarrassed in front of your captain.”
“The captain is my partner, Walsh. I cannot be embarrassed in front of him because if I lose, then so does he.” He turns to me and puts his beer up. “Cheers, cap.”
I throw first and sink it. It was effortless.
I’ve been throwing into red Solo cups since I was sixteen, and at this point, my hand-eye coordination does this without me even trying.
Stanley throws his. He sinks his. We are up two, no shots taken, and Walsh and Carlson are already looking at each other.
Stanley grabs a beer off the windowsill behind us, takes a sip, and sets it back down.
I sink my second and my third.
Stanley, mid-toss, “You are carrying me, Reeve, this is humiliating, slow down—”
He sinks his. We are up three. Walsh sinks one. Stanley drinks. Carlson misses. Walsh misses. I throw. Stanley throws. We are up five. Stanley reaches for the windowsill. He stops.
“Where’s my beer?”
“What?” Walsh says.
“My beer. Where’s my beer? I literally just set it there.”
“Maybe you drank it.”
“I did not drink it. I had three sips.”
He scans the room. Across the dining room, leaning against the door frame to the kitchen, is Percy. He is holding a Solo cup. He sips out of it, slowly, looking at Stanley. He raises the cup an inch.
“Deveroux.”
Percy says, “Je ne sais pas de quoi tu parles.”
“I don’t speak French, but I don’t like your tone.”
Blue is leaning against the wall near the keg with his shoulders shaking. Walsh is holding the table to keep himself upright. Carlson has fully sat down on the floor.
“Reeve.”
“Yeah.”
“How long has Percy been stealing my beers?”
I line up my next shot and shrug. “Blue, get this kid some water.”
“Water?”
Blue walks over and hands him a beer.
“Thanks, man.” Stanley takes a sip and curls his top lip in his mouth. He looks at the bottle. “Is this watered-down beer?”
“Pace yourself, bro,” Blue says.
“That’s genius, Blue. Might mean he won’t be hurling all night.”
Blue smirks, knocking his fist with mine. “I know.”
“Fuck you, and fuck you,” Stanley calls out.
We all laugh. The guy who cracks the joke can’t take a hit himself.
I sink the last cup.
“Reeve,” Stanley protests.
I mutter, “Stan. Drink your water.”
He picks up the beer with the rules of the game and downs it. He slams it on the table. He points at Percy across the room.
“Deveroux. Reckoning.”
I put the ball down and walk to the side of the dining room. Blue is already there with my beer. He hands it to me without saying anything, and we lean on the wall together. We watch Stanley try to start a fight with our goalie in a language he does not speak.
Blue takes a drink.
The front door opens. And I see my sister’s face.
She is in her Wolves crewneck and jeans, and she has her hair up in a high ponytail.
Behind her is Mara, whom I have seen at this house a few times.
Mara is in something black and short. She’s holding her phone and a half-empty White Claw. Behind Mara is Lucy.
My throat tightens at the sight of her. I didn’t expect to see her here. She’s in dark jeans and a black top. Her hair is down. She is laughing at something Mara said, and her cheeks are pink, and the laugh is — it’s a real laugh. It’s not the laugh she did over the chocolate yesterday.
Gianna spots me and lifts a hand. I lift mine back.
Lucy hasn’t seen me yet.
Blue, who has been watching me watch the doorway, “Who’s that?”
“My sister and her friends.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Reeve.”
“What?” I mutter.
“I know that’s your sister, and I know that’s Mara. She always comes with G to these things.” He leans in. “I mean, who is that in the black top?”
“My tutor.”
His eyes widen. “That is your tutor?”
“Yes.”
He looks at me one more time over the rim, and then he pushes off the wall.
“I’m gonna go talk to Percy.”
“Subtle.”
“That’s me. The subtle one.”
He goes. I stay at the window.
Lucy is in the kitchen now. I can see her through the doorway. She’s talking to Gianna who hands her a Solo cup. I’m certain that it has Percy’s punch in it. I shouldn’t walk over there yet. I drink my beer and come up with a plan.
The plan lasts two minutes.
Wexler corners me on the way to the bathroom. He has been working up the courage for thirty minutes, because I saw him drift toward me twice and abort both times, and he is now standing in front of me with both hands wrapped around his Solo cup.
“Reeve.”
“Hey, Wex.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”