Page 44 of The Summer of ’98

“Soda, shelter, and potentially some bargains,” she listed on her fingers before she stood up. “Come on. We’ll come back before Leroy leaves. Or he can come and pick us up.”

“Should we tell him that we’re leaving?” I asked, glancing out to the field where he was in the middle of throwing the ball. Cass thought about it for a moment.

“Leroy!” She shouted with her hands cupped around her mouth. Almost the entire team turned and stared at us. “We’re gonna bounce. Get us from Rocky Ryan’s!”

He gave us a thumbs-up after Cass was done screaming our plans for the entire state to hear and we headed out through the wire gate and across the school parking lot.

“Town isn’t far,” she assured me once we were out on the footpath beside the main road. We walked past the large park that was across the road from the school and the closer we got to town, the more business establishments and buildings we passed.

Cass was good at filling in the lull with idle chitchat as we walked. “How was the alone time on Saturday?”

I had an onslaught of different emotions attack me in full force. The first was the happiness that I felt over dinner and how well it had gone. The next was the minor anxiety over how we’d ended up throwing down with someone’s dad. And finally, the thought of Cass asking me what Noah had been doing and why he didn’t arrive at her place.

“Hello, Earth to Ellie,” Cass waved her hand in front of me.

“It was really nice.”

“Really nice? Give me some details. Did he like the burritos? Did he eat your burrito for dessert?”

“Chill out, Cass,” I blushed and gave her a swat on the arm.

Her singsong laughter was contagious as she shrugged but made no apologies for the crude comment. “Come on. Give me the four-one-one. I don’t have a lot of girlfriends to do this with. Tiff is out of town and all boys talk about is how they rock everyone’s world with their giant penises.”

“That sounds delightful.”

“No, it’s a load of horseshit,” she laughed and skipped ahead of me before she started walking backwards. “Come on, share. Don’t be so coy. I’m not going to tell anyone.”

“Fine,” I threw my hands up. “Things got kinda heated after we cleaned up dinner. We were in the kitchen—”

“The kitchen?” She stepped back into place beside me as we passed a crowded sidewalk of outdoor restaurant patios with chairs and tables. “That’s hot.”

“Yeah, I guess. So, like, he was in the middle of um, fingering me,” I winced as I said the words. Before I met Leroy, I was a virgin and I hadn’t partaken in this kind of conversation before. It felt weird. “But then the phone rang, and we had to go out.”

I spun around and flailed as she gripped my arm and pulled me to a stop. It was clear that she was not impressed. “That is so anticlimactic! A bit of a finger blast and that’s it?”

My eyes widened as I glanced around at the passing patrons on the footpath. “Keep it down, Cass.”

She flicked her wrist before we continued our walk. “Okay, so what was so important that the phone couldn’t be unplugged so that Leroy could plug you instead?”

“You have a way with words, has anyone ever told you that?”

“Of course,” she said. “Now stop dodging the question. What was it?”

My heart was thumping at this point. I either had to come up with a lie—which I didn’t feel that she deserved—or I would have to put up with Noah potentially flipping out on me when he found out that I spilled the beans.

It was clear that she should know. The guy that she had been sleeping with was caught in the sack with a minor. Sure, he was only two years older than her. But that wasn’t the point. If I were Cass, I’d want to know.

“Can we sit for a sec?”

Cass furrowed her brows, and though she was wearing shades, I could tell that she was confused. We moved over to a bench seat that was outside a tattoo parlor, a bookstore, and a small café. We turned our knees into each other, and I took a deep breath.

“The reason that we couldn’t continue our um—finger stuff, was because we had to go and help Noah. He was at the Weismanns, being threatened to be beaten by Peter or whatever his name is.”

Cass’s shoulders rose with a large inhale. She pursed her lips and I could see that she was aware of where I was going with the story. “Natalie.”

“Oh, he wasn’t with Natalie.”

“Her mom?”

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