Camden
Ihiss at the sting of whiskey hitting my throat as I stare at the flames flickering in the fire. My irritation only grows with each sip.
We lost. We shouldn’t have lost, but we did.
It was a close game, but it never should have been close at all. We should have clenched it right from the first quarter. But mistake after stupid mistake left us down three points. They took home the win, and we went home with our tails tucked between our legs.
Kingston is dancing with Kennedy, beer in hand and a smile on his face. Not a damn care in the world as he holds her by the waist and sings off-key to the song blasting from someone’s truck.
A flicker of irritation hits me for an entirely new reason when Kennedy leans in and steals his lips, whispering something in his ear after he swallows her tongue. He shakes his head, though, and she huffs with an obnoxious pout.
Great. They’ll be in a full-blown fight by the end of the night. I’m sure of it.
But it’s not my place. I can’t get in-between them for so many reasons. Reasons I try to drown with the whiskey, but I make sure to keep each sip small. I can’t get blackout drunk, no matter how much I want to.
What if someone needs me?
Which is entirely possible in my life. I keep my phone turned up, just in case something happens with Mom, and she needs me to watch Lucy. Or if something happens with Lucy and my mom needs my help.
Kennedy stomps off, her friend LeAnn right behind her, and Kingston just chuckles with Dixon and Bates, who are already completely drunk off their asses. Kingston signals for me to join him, but I just shake my head and hold up the whiskey bottle.
I’m not moving.
It feels like the first time I’ve been able to sit in the same place for longer than twenty minutes all damn week. And at eighteen, I swear my body is tired. Maybe it’s actually my soul.
Not long after that, Kingston parks his big ass next to me on one of the logs we all dragged to place around the fire. He takes a swig of beer and stares at the fire with me, seemingly also transfixed by the flames.
“What’s up with Kenn?” I have to ask, even though I don’t really want to know.
I love both of them, but I’m tired of hearing about their bullshit fights over him not wanting to go to school dances or her not wanting to always hang out with a bunch of football players.
I kid you not. They once got into an all-out fight over what they would do if they won the lottery.
A fight. About a million-in-one chance of either of them actually winning the lottery. You can’t get crazier than that. And yet, they were legitimately pissed at each other for two weeks. The school thought they were breaking up.
Over. The. Lottery.
He just shrugs, though, and he doesn’t go into full detail like he normally does. “Nothing. She’s always pissed for some reason.” That’s odd. I mean, not that they’re fighting, but that he doesn’t want to talk about it.
“What’s up, Kingston?” I prod.
He swallows another gulp of beer. “I don’t know. You ever think we aren’t a good fit?”
Shit, I didn’t think I’d ever hear him say that. My heart does this stupid little dance in my chest, which I try to squash immediately. They’re both my friends. “It’s you and Kennedy. It was determined long ago that you’d be together.”
I lift the whiskey bottle up to my mouth as he responds. “Yeah, but it’s like I’m never good enough. She barely likes me.” He takes a drink of his beer, staring at the fire, his voice sad. “I swear she only wants me for my dick.”
I snort whiskey through my nose, and it stings like a motherfucker while I sputter and bang on my chest with my fist. “Fuck. Don’t say that shit when I’m drinking.”
He pats my back and laughs. “What? You don’t think it’s true?”
I finally stop my coughing fit but try like hell not to think at all. I don’t want to think about his dick. Or Kennedy using it. “Too much information, man.”
He turns to look at me, his head cocked slightly to the side. “It’s not like you don’t know. I told you about us.”
“Yeah.” I take a slow drink and look away from him. “You said it was awesome, and I said I don’t want any more details.” I really, really don’t. I know the guys love to talk about sex. Locker-room talk, hallway talk, party talk. I know, I’ve heard it all, but I don’t want to hear about it.
I can’t stand to hear about it. Not about Kingston.
I swear I can see him roll his eyes at me, even though I’m not looking at him. “Yeah. Yeah. Camden Prescott, the forever virgin.”
I stiffen slightly, hating the conversation, but I know he’s just being himself. He’s just kidding around. Still, I don’t want to talk about why I’m still a virgin. “We’re not talking about me.”
“LeAnn would totally fuck you.”
And here we go. Kennedy and Kingston have been trying to hook LeAnn and me up for years.
Neither of us are feeling it, but it doesn’t seem to matter to either of our best friends.
“No.” There goes the eye roll again. “Why are you and Kenn fighting this time?” I try to steer the conversation in another direction.
“I think I’ll go dance.” He pops up off the log, swigging the rest of his beer and tossing the bottle into the back of his truck as he walks off without any more explanation.
Yeah, that’s really fucking weird.
Not long after that, a hand with painted red-and-black fingernails grabs the neck of my whiskey bottle, and Kennedy’s small body sits next to mine. She takes a long pull of my whiskey. “What’s up, Cam?”
“Not much, Kenn. What’s up with you?” We’ve known each other for so damn long, and she’s a cool chick. I can’t hate her for being with Kingston, no matter how much I sometimes want to.
I don’t want to overanalyze why that is either, so I grab the bottle back from her and take a drink. “Your best friend is a jackass.”
I groan loudly and shake my head, passing the whiskey back to her. “You know I don’t get into the middle of shit.”
“I think he likes to party more than he wants to be alone with me. How the hell do you get him to hang out alone with you all the time?”
My chest clenches at her totally innocent and slightly tipsy question. “I’m just that damn awesome.” I opt for sarcasm.
She just looks sad in the direction of that damn mesmerizing fire. “I just wish he’d get more serious about things.”
I scrunch my nose at that, unsure what she’s talking about. Fun might as well be Kingston’s middle name. Not William. But she knows that. She’s always known that, and she loves to have a good time too. That’s why they’re a great match. “What do you mean?”
Her small shoulder shrugs next to mine. “I mean, we’re all adults now. Eighteen. We’re graduating in May. He needs to think about college and what’s next. But whenever I bring it up, he gets mad.”
“You want to go to college?” I’m not trying to be a dick. I’ve just never heard her mention it before. It’s not really that common around here, believe it or not.
“Maybe. I mean, my grades are shit, but I could probably get into community college. I don’t know. And he doesn’t even want to go to the homecoming dance or prom. I mean, these things are milestones. But it’s like he thinks if he goes, high school will really be over.”
“It will be, no matter what,” I add unhelpfully.
“Tell that to your jackass best friend.” She sounds really annoyed now, but I don’t get it. Kennedy usually gets her way, eventually. She has to know he’ll cave and go with her to both dances. And I don’t think that’s what their fight was about tonight anyway.
“You know him just as well as I do, Kenn. He doesn’t take shit seriously. It’s just who he is.”
“You ever wonder what it would’ve been like if you were the one to ask me out first?” I narrow my eyes at her as she turns to face me, her bottom lip poked out. I look over and see Kingston in the distance, drinking another beer with Dixon, but his eyes are on us.
Out of respect for him, I move away from Kennedy on the log, even though we weren’t sitting that close to begin with and she was the one that sat down next to me. I don’t know. But I don’t like where this conversation is going. “No,” I answer honestly. She was never on my radar.
She rolls her eyes. “Gee thanks, Cam. Way to help my ego.”
I shoot her an annoyed look. “You don’t need an ego boost, and you love Kingston. You always have. You two have been obsessed with each other since junior high.”
She snorts a laugh, taking a drink of the whiskey and then thrusting the bottle into my chest and standing up.
“You think that it’s him and me who’ve been obsessed with each other?
Please. It’s always been Camden and Kingston.
” An uncomfortable feeling rolls through me, but I try to remain calm.
“And sometimes I think you and I would have made the better match. I mean, you want out of Kensley.”
I’m beyond annoyed now. It’s like she’s acting like I’m her ticket out, when I doubt I’ll even escape this town.
Regardless, it doesn’t matter. She’s with Kingston, and I’m not interested.
She’s smarter than this too, so I’m doubly annoyed.
“If you really want out, you’ll find a way.
Why don’t you go make up with Kingston? I don’t know what you two are fighting about, but you’ll fix it. ” They always do.
She tosses her hair haughtily. “Yeah, I’m not so sure about that this time. I don’t think he even really wants me. And I don’t know if I really want him.”
I roll my eyes at her over-the-top dramatics. Yeah, I really fucking hate this conversation. It needs to end. “He loves you.”
“No. He doesn’t. He never says it.” I swallow hard, not knowing that, but I’ve never asked. “Ever. It’s like I’m just a pain in the ass for him. The cheerleader matched with the jock he forever wants to be.”
I don’t know what she wants me to say or why she’s telling me all this, but now I’m annoyed.
“It’ll be fine, Kenn,” I say half-heartedly and then add, “and he’s more than just a damn jock.
” My words are said with more than a little irritability as I stare past her and look back at the raging flames.
She just stands there, glaring at me like she’s willing me to make everything better.
But I can’t.
I don’t even want to.
And that makes me a shitty human being.