Darkheart

The Past: Sticks & Stones

"I've got somewhere to be," Kevin told Topher.

"Seems like you always got somewhere to be."

"It's usually just work."

"Twenty-four-seven, they keep you there all damn day. You know Shawn's been asking about you?"

Kevin shook his head a bit, tapped the ash off his cigarette. "Has she?"

Topher sat next to him on top of the picnic table, their feet on the benches, looking out over the lake. There weren't many people out, now, it being near ten-thirty and the public beach technically closing half an hour earlier. The area wasn't much policed, although just in case, the two of them had chosen a table impossible to see from the lot due to the restrooms and pavilion blocking it. Kevin had wandered around for a while after shutting up the Snack Shack, waiting for Topher to show up, and they'd been sitting there about half an hour, just smoking (he tobacco, Topher weed) and talking.

"You know she's fine, Kev. Drove into Detroit with us last weekend; stayed the night. You missed out."

Kevin cared, to a certain extent. More precisely, he cared that he didn't care. A couple of months ago, he'd have felt that little twinge of pleasure to know Shawn Mandell was bringing him up. She was a year ahead of them, worked at an embroidery shop in town logo-ing sweatshirts and bags and blankets and other random items for the schools as well as the resort, which had its own imperious image of a lighthouse and acronym, PKRA--Port Killdeer Resort Association. Shawn was, as Topher had mentioned, attractive in the obvious physical ways, and while Kevin had never quite had her on his radar, he certainly wouldn't have turned her down, whatever she wanted; he'd have gone as far as she'd let him. He never pushed too hard, let the girls draw the boundaries and appreciated what he got.

That was something he liked--clear lines. He'd had his share of girls who were friends and girls who were friends with benefits, girls who just wanted to make out and girls who'd go all kinds of ways in the back seat of a car. But he'd never struggled with knowing what he felt for any of them. Never like now, never with the stakes so high--one wrong move, and he'd probably end up on a list no one wanted to be on. He was eighteen, after all, an adult in every way except all the ways that mattered. And now that damned resort had dirt on him, too--or at least said they did. Waking up in his birthday suit surrounded by booze and drug paraphernalia definitely hadn't been his plan, if he'd really had a plan at all that night they'd tried to record the resorters. That was part (or most) of the problem--Kevin had never really had plans for anything in his life, let alone for what to do with the information they'd stumbled upon about the resort.

He was so angry at himself for letting the others think he knew what to do and ending up in such a compromising situation. He'd tried to contact them after the night of that resort party, but neither Heather nor Jeremiah seemed to be coming into work, and Crystal never wanted to talk to him without the others there. She really didn't like him, didn't trust him.

And maybe her lack of trust wasn't so far off the mark, considering . . .

Kevin's hand went to a pocket in his jacket, closed around a folded piece of paper, a note. He'd found it under the door of the shack, when he'd gone in that morning.

"Toph, do you ever . . ."

Topher exhaled a sweet, skunky cloud. "Yeah? What?"

"I just feel like there's a lot of--a lot of shit that goes on, and we don't even know half of it. You ever feel like that?"

His friend gave a brief laugh. "We're in the asshole of the world. Hell yeah a lot goes on we can't stick our heads out far enough to see."

"What are we supposed to do about it?"