Page 13 of Owen Gardner is Losing It

Just then, I spotted Abigail pouting as she came around the corner of the porch, scanning the yard like she was looking for someone specific. Her eyes stopped on me. “There you are.” She jogged up the steps toward me, giving Lena a quick wave before leaning forward to whisper in my ear. “You need to intervene with this Xander and Beth situation.”

I caught her eye. “What happened?”

“Just come to the fire pit.” She turned to Lena. “Lena, girl, you look effing gorgeous in that skirt, by the way.”

The compliment made Lena laugh and blush. I’d been so distracted by her face, I hadn’t even noticed she was wearing a skirt the same ocean blue as her eyes. Had I ever seen her in a skirt before?

I swallowed. I certainly hadn’t seen that much of her thighs before.

“Oh my gosh, thank you,” she told Abigail. “You do, too. In that outfit, I mean.”

“Thanks!” Abigail shot her a sweet grin before hopping down off the porch. I turned toward Lena, beginning to step away with my hands back in my pockets.

“I have to go take care of a situation. But it was great talking to you.” And then, deciding there wouldn’t be any harm in platonically complimenting this girl, I added, “And Abigail’s right. You look really pretty tonight. Anyway, see you later.”

Feeling a little embarrassed, I turned around and walked away before I could witness her reaction. Bailey, whose phone call was now over, glanced from me to Lena with her mouth hanging open like she might have heard what I’d just said and had some thoughts about it.

They were going to talk about me after I walked away, weren’t they?

I made my way through the house before joining the others by the fire pit, grabbing a new cup of beer for myself and a Smirnoff for Beth. Then, I stepped out the sliding glass door to the deck, taking in the scene before me as I pulled it shut behind me.

Xander was crouched next to the already crackling fire, using a long stick to poke at the logs to make the flames bigger. I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, but his deep voice carried across the yard. Whatever he said, it made Beth throw her head back in laughter beside him. “Oh my God, no! You’ll burn yourself if you do that!” She gave Xander’s shoulder a hard shove, and I could see the resulting grin on his face all the way from the deck.

Even more prominent, however, was the scowl on Abigail’s.

Chapter six

“Fireflies” by Owl City

“You look thirsty,” I said, twisting the cap off the Smirnoff and handing it to Beth. But as I bent over to pick up my own drink from the flimsy plastic chair where I’d put it, she frowned.

“Thank you, but I’m still working on the drink Xander made for me. I’m sorry.” She nodded toward the red cup on the hay bale behind her. “But I’ll drink this next.”

“Oh, okay.” I stood near the growing fire and gulped down my beer, hoping it could loosen me up and make it easier for me to talk to Beth. Because at the moment, I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to her. Why was this so hard for me, when it came easily to guys like Xander?

As more and more people arrived, it started getting a little crowded around the fire, and soon I was surrounded by people I’d never seen beyond the walls of Woodvale High School. A couple of people questioned Xander on how he thought he was going to get away with throwing a party half a mile from his own house.

“Won’t your parents notice?” Davin Reedy asked.

“They don’t give a fuck,” Xander answered, stoking the fire with one hand, a red cup in the other. “I’m almost eighteen, anyway. Pretty soon they’ll have no control over me at all.”

He rattled on about how independent he was, stealing glances at Beth with every other sentence. It couldn’t be more obvious he was trying to impress her. I glanced Abigail’s direction to see how she was responding to all of this, but she was distracting herself by making a dandelion crown in the grass nearby. I sighed and turned back to Xander. He tilted his cup back before tossing it onto the fire, causing the flames to briefly shoot up higher. And, like clockwork, he turned to Beth to gauge her reaction.

He was supposed to be helping me lose my virginity that night, but his presence was more of a hindrance than anything.

The crowd around the fire had grown even more, with people seeking warmth as the night became increasingly chilly. “I can barely hear the music from my speaker,” Abigail complained, wiping the dirt off the back of her shorts. “I should just turn it off.” She threw her dandelion crown to the ground, having given up on that, too.

From the other side of the fire, someone said my name. “Owen.” I looked up to see Lena sitting on a hay bale beside Bailey, who was facing away from her, talking to some guy. “Isn’t this the song on your MySpace profile?”

I held my breath, as though that would somehow help me hear better. Sure enough, “Fireflies” by Owl City was playing up on the deck. “Yeah,” I said with a chuckle, meeting her gaze through the billowing smoke. “It is.”

“Noooo!” Beth protested, stomping her foot. With a smile, she rolled her eyes at me and said, “This song issooverplayed, and it doesn’t even make any sense! Have you listened to the lyrics?”

“I put it on my profile to be ironic,” I lied, but her smile told me she could see right through me. I maneuvered closer to her,pleased to see she was finally drinking the Smirnoff I’d brought her. “I should probably change it.”

“Definitely. Your MySpace profile song should give people a little taste of who you are, you know?” She took a sip. “And unless you’ve got a sock hop underneath your bed, I don’t think that’s the right song for you.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay. You’ve spent the day getting to know me. If you had to pick a song for me, what would it be?” I turned to look into her eyes, and she met my gaze, blinking as she considered her answer. The noise of the party faded away, and it felt like we were the only two people there. The glow from the fire illuminated the side of her face as she lifted her hand to tuck her hair behind her ear.

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