Chapter Two

The first time I met Nate Hawthorne, I was standing on the east side of a gas station where my cousin worked the night shift. The wall I was leaning against was disgusting, coated in unwashed slime and graffiti and wads of chewed gum.

Rain punched against the metal awning as I hovered underneath it, the wind fighting against the flame of my lighter as I struggled to light my only cigarette. I was on the brink of giving up in defeat when a long-fingered hand cupped around mine, allowing the fire to consume the end of the stick. I inhaled.

"Sigmund Freud was an avid smoker," a deep, husky voice said as they dropped their hand and shifted under the awning.

When I looked up from my navy painted nails, I half expected to meet with a sallow, bearded face with gray hair and craters on his cheeks. But instead, I found a pressed-lip grin on a square jaw with high cheekbones.

I scoffed. "Sigmund Freud was kind of an asshole."

"He also had cancer."

I rolled my eyes, pulling at the edges of my black hoodie and taking a long drag off the cig. "Not really in the mood for a lecture, dude."

"I apologize. It's habit."

I knew he was watching, so I tilted my neck back and blew out four rings of smoke into the air. We both watched them struggle to survive until the rain sliced them into nothing.

"Can I help you with something?" Though I couldn't focus on his eyes through the raindrops, I could still make out the sharp blue against the contrast of the black rim of his glasses.

He shoved a hand into his back pocket and pulled out his IPhone. Lit up on the screen was a beige and green map, with a red flag marking our current location. "Do you know where I can find the Shadow Pointe Apartments? I followed the GPS, but it led me to this gas station instead."

I point across the street to the crumpled piles of deep fried wood and brick. "You found it."

The man frowned as he stared upon the rubble. If anything, he actually looked horrified.

"That can't be correct," he said, eagerly thumbing at his phone.

I started laughing. "Calm your shit, cowboy. The old building burnt down last summer. They ended up moving it to the other side of town."

Back when those apartments were first built, this part of Albrook was expected to just explode in an industrial movement. But according to my mom, there was this big ordeal with the city council denying everything modern to preserve the history of the town. So when the corporations were able to get licenses north of the University, the south half of Albrook seemed to cement itself in 1960.

"Thank you," he nodded. He genuinely looked relieved at this new information. "The landlord failed to mention that."

"You just move here or something?"

"Yes, exactly. From the city. And you?" He reached up and pulled off his glasses, swiping them on the inside of his fleece-lined jacked. "

Now that I could finally see his eyes, part of me wished he kept his glasses on. They were so intensely blue...overwhelming with this brazen self-assuredness that I'd never seen in anyone my age.

"Hardly new," I snort, forcing myself to break away from our silent staring contest. "I've lived here basically since birth."

His brows furrowed in a way that almost resembled confusion, but just as I gathered a retort, the green door to my right swung open.

"Sweet, sweet freeeedom!" My cousin sang into the cloudy night.

She plucked the cigarette out of my mouth with an exaggerated gasp before shoving it between her own teeth. "Like hell I'm gonna be the one responsible for your lungs shriveling up. That's on your own shit."

"Gee thanks, Penn." I mumbled. I was suddenly so embarrassed that I got this all-pervading itch to walk away from the gas station.

Penn gave me a sly smile and shrug. Then, her eyes locked on the man still standing next to me. Knowing Penn the way I did, I already knew she had noticed the guy before this point. She was good like that. She knew how to play what hand to achieve whatever she fancied, and the way her eyelids fluttered playfully from my face to his, I realized that this would be no exception.

She smiled sweetly, "Well, hey there. I'm Penn Lindquist."

His body crossed over mine as he offered his hand to hers. Even through that petrichor smell, my senses were overwhelmed by the delicious earthy scent of sandalwood and leather.

"I'm Nate. Pleasure to meet you, Penn." Again, Nate looked to me. "And I presume you're Charlie?"

I nodded, but didn't remove either hand from my pockets.

Penn shook her head, placing a chilled hand on my shoulder. "Sorry, Charlie's always been a bit standoffish, having four older brothers and all."

I never prayed so hard for someone to choke on a cigarette.

Nate gave us a polite grin, but didn't say anything, and I hoped that he felt just as awkward as I did.

I leaned over to Penn and whispered, "Are you ready to go? We're gonna be late."

She practically squealed out a giggle. "You can't be late to a frat party, Char."

I sighed, kicking at a crack in the sidewalk with the tip of my red ballet flat. You can if everyone's schnockered by ten.

Penn pushed herself forward, and that leathery smell was suddenly in a battle with a sickly-sweet floral odor. "Nate, what are you doing tonight? Wanna go to SUI with us?"

He combed those long fingers through his damp and curling hair. The charming motion was oddly boyish, a break in his rather poised countenance. The small act made him seem just as young as the rest of us instead of a college kid straining to be taken seriously. I already knew he was older than me—that was obvious by the way his face lacked that lingering baby fat that differentiated a boy from a man. It was exactly how many years older that I underestimated.

"I don't know, Penn. I'm sure he's got a lot of unpacking to do."

She practically brushed me off her shoulder like an invisible angel to make room for the devil. "It's going to be a blast, I promise. They're doing like this End-of-Days theme to signify the end of summer, so they filled up the basement with sand with a blow-up pool and have a bunch of like, apocalypse decorations and stuff. I know how rad it is because I got to help set up for it."

Nate chuckled. "You had me at apocalypse."

* * * * *

Instead of greeting us like a normal person when we arrived, a girl in a neon pink bikini asked if we had bathing suits, and when we all said no, she gave us the option of "panties, ponchos, or birthday suits."

Penn, being the least self-conscious woman in the world, chose to go with just her thong on. Of course, she opted to host her own private strip-show on the front porch, immediately disrobing to display her pierced nipples as a group of half-naked guys lined up behind us.

I dipped my head in mortification as she grabbed a Halloween army prop from the girl and strutted into the frat house. Nate had already taken off his jacket and was pulling off his white t-shirt by the time the girl asked me what I was choosing, and I was so distracted by the trail of hair that lead from his navel to below the rim of his Calvin Klein's that I almost had a heat stroke on the front porch.

For the first time in my life, something twisted below my gut in a searing tingle. I could feel my cheeks flushing from the foreign emotion, and then the redness intensified as I realized what was happening—that this stranger that I'd met in the sketchiest part of town had somehow managed to do what my ex-boyfriend had been so desperate to do. He turned me on.

Nate's warm hand touched my shoulder briefly as he said, "I'll meet you inside."

I nodded dreamily like a love-struck idiot and watched him walk into house in nothing but his black briefs.

"Panties, poncho, or birthday suit?" The door girl repeated with an obvious annoyance toward me.

I just sighed and held out my hand.

The party was as full as the beaches on a blistering day in July. Sweating bodies were everywhere, filling the basement with hot, stale air as they danced in their swimwear and mismatching army attire. There were plastic bombs and landmines shoved into the sand, green army nets hanging from the ceiling, and they had one of those cardboard cutouts of a camo hummer with holes in the window for the photo-ops. Someone had even dressed up a blow-up doll in a sharpie-d bikini and shoved her in the mouth of a radiation-mutated shark.

Needless to say, this was the strangest themed party that I had ever been to.

I found Penn almost immediately. She was already positioned at the keg, with two incredibly buff guys dressed as zombie lifeguards at each side. Each had their large hands wrapped around an ankle and her waist, holding her upside down as she chugged cheap beer from a tube. Of course, her boobs were on full display for the surrounding people to sneak pictures of with their cellphones.

"Hey," that newly familiar voice called out. When I pivoted around, Nate was halfway across the room, walking toward me. He had two ribbons of fake bullets crisscrossed over his torso, and the site alone made the room feel like the Sahara.

"Hey," I called back. How he was so graceful walking in the loose sand, I had no idea.

He extended his arm and handed me an unopened can of Rolling Rock. I didn't have the nerve to tell him that I'd never actually tasted beer before, let alone alcohol, but I took the green can anyway and let him pop open the tab for me.

"Thanks," I said, and took a small sip of the beer. I must've cringed because Nate chuckled the second I swallowed down the liquid.

"Yes, I don't hold much enthusiasm for Rolling Rock either, but the lesser option was PBR." He popped open his own tab and clinked his can against mine. "Cheers."

I took another small sip, pretending that it didn't taste like murky water lightly flavored with malt and dirt.

"Nice suit, I might add."

The heat surged to my cheeks once more as I looked down at the stark white poncho covering my mismatched underwear. It was one of those ponchos with a cartoon body drawn on both sides, the ones immortalized by woodsy tourists visiting the ocean for the first time in their lives. They reminded me of that one summer when my Grandma came to visit from the East Coast. She had on one of those ponchos with the American flag bikini and an airbrushed sexy cartoon body. She loved every second of it.

Mine, however, was manufactured and distributed solely for my own personal humiliation. If not wanting to parade around half-naked wasn't enough of a statement, the party hosts wanted everyone to see that I was my own personal, saggy-boobed billboard. I might as well have written massive prude in Sharpie on my shell-shaped camo helmet.

I gave Nate a smile and flipped the blonde hair off my shoulder, "Tres magnifique, no?"

"It's very...adorable." He said it with a joking tone, but the way his eyes lingered on mine had my gut twisting the way it did on the porch. At second glance, he was way more attractive than I allowed myself to believe. Maybe it was the way a dimple formed on the left side of his cheek or how oddly hot I found the curve of his Adam's apple.

This is about the time I thought myself a crazy person.

Someone brushed past Nate, forcing him to close in the two feet of space between us. I was both surprised and nervous when he didn't step back into his original spot.

"Is this your normal scene?" He asked after taking a drink, eyes scanning over the beach volleyball game going on through the open archway.

I shook my head once, subconsciously scratching at the aluminum lip of my can. "I'd like to pretend it is, but really, I just say yes to this shit to get myself out of the house."

"I take it you don't like to be alone."

I shrugged. "Actually, I love it. The thing is, I'm more alone in places like this than I ever am at home."

His eyes narrowed on me, as if he were surprised by my expression and was trying to decode it.

"What?" I asked, taking a large drink of my warm beer this time.

Nate tilted his head and didn't answer for a moment, like he was weighing his words carefully.

"You should just say what you're thinking. People need to say what's on their mind more often. Things would get done faster."

His brows arched upright. "I'm not entirely sure how to interpret you."

Interpret, like I'm this puzzling mess of a thing that cannot be salvaged. I'm not sure if I should be insulted or proud.

"I think some things aren't meant to be interpreted—" I took a step forward and then pivoted, slowly walking backward to the volleyball game, "—but simply looked upon in wonder."

The rest of the night went like this: Nate and I spent most of our time together—whether this was playing volleyball, beer bong, or just chatting on the couch made of sand—counting how many people chose to wear ponchos (I seemed to be the sole person save a frat guy who wore one because it came with a coconut bra), and watching Penn drink to the point where she projectile vomited into a hot tub full of couples.

We had talked about almost everything regarding my life. I was spewing out my life in a flood of words, like Nate had somehow blown up a dam inside my brain that I didn't know existed. I told him about my family life and how, after my mom died, I moved in with my stepdad. From that point forward, the fight for my Dad's attention became the Game of Thrones—minus the incest. I talked about my half-brothers, that they were all exceedingly talented in some form or another, and how this didn't help in the former war.

He listened intently as I babbled on. Never trying to direct the conversation into a new topic or turning it into a story about himself. He just kept his eyes on mine, listening and asking questions that seemed derived from genuine interest.

We sat on the sand couch for almost two hours, just bullshitting and drinking that horrible beer and it couldn't have been more perfect.

And then Penn started screaming.