#famous(41)

“Ladies! Come on inside,” he boomed. It was Lamont Davis, the absolutely massive captain of the football team. He put an arm around my shoulder. His hand felt about the size of a baseball glove. “You know Anderson, right?” He tilted his head toward Beau, standing just inside the door and grinning at us. “It’s his party, so you better be nice to him.”

“Okay,” Monique squeaked. She cleared her throat and pasted on a huge, stagey smile, ready-made for a dance recital, or an audition. “As long as he’s nice to us.”

Lamont roared with laughter and pushed me into the house, which was impossible to resist since his arms were approximately the size of tree trunks.

“Feisty, huh?” He followed us in and closed the doors. “I like that. I’m Lamont, by the way.” He extended a hand. “Who do you know here?”

“I’m Monique,” she said, smiling and thrusting her hand forward. “And this is Rachel. Kyle Bonham told us to come.”

“Oh man, I thought he was making that up,” Lamont said, chuckling.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Nothing. Here, let’s do a ‘nice to meet you’ shot,” he said, pulling a bottle off a thin table running along the back of one of the two couches that dominated the right half of the basement. “Anderson, you got glasses?”

Beau crossed over to a dated, wood-paneled wet bar at the bottom of the stairs and returned with four glasses, each painted with the name of a different spring-break location. They had clearly been used recently. I could see the ghostly outline of a lip crescenting the top of “CANCUN!”

“We don’t need a shot, we . . . pregamed at Mo’s,” I lied. I hated shots.

“Who cares. Now you’re at the game!” Lamont poured rum into the glasses, filling the first so full it spilled over the top. Beau handed it to Monique. She smiled at him, ignoring my glare in her direction.

He passed the next glass to me. I took it. Even if shots sucked, I needed the liquid courage before I found Kyle.

Lamont filled the last two glasses and looked down at Monique with a wolfish grin.

“To new friends!” he said, clinking his glass against hers. She raised her glass toward the center and pounded back the rum. There was really no other option but to do the same. It burned going down but left a pleasantly warm feeling behind.

“All RIGHT,” Lamont shouted, slamming his glass down through the air, throwing himself forward and a little off-balance. He giggled as he stumbled forward. “Now you guys are ready to party! Keg’s in the kitchen, and there’s booze up there and pop for mixers. Pool’s off-limits, at least till Anderson STOPS BEING A WOMAN.” He turned to Beau, who was swaying slightly and grinning, apparently unaware he was being insulted. Score one for feminism? “And . . . I dunno, don’t do anything really stupid.” Lamont laughed at himself. “Hey, you guys ready for another shot?”

I didn’t look at Monique, in case she was. “Maybe later. Do you know where Kyle is? I said I’d meet up with him.”

“Don’t be booooring.” Lamont slapped his mitt down on my shoulder. “It’s still early. You have to catch up.”

“I will, for sure,” I said, trying to smile the way Monique had before. “I’ll just get this out of the way then find you again.”

“Okay, cool,” Lamont said, nodding slowly.

“So . . .”

“You need something?” He smiled at me. Jesus, drunk people were the worst thing in the world when you weren’t drunk.

“Do you know where Kyle is? Kyle Bonham?”

“He’s . . .” He scrunched his face in thought. “I dunno, upstairs probably? I think I saw him going into Chad’s room with . . .” He trailed off, confused. “Maybe upstairs-upstairs?”

Clearly Lamont was going to be incredibly informative.

“Thanks,” I said. I turned to Monique. “Keep your phone on you, okay?”

“Okay,” she said reluctantly. She kept glancing toward the far corner of the basement, where Sean Langford was hooking up someone’s phone to speakers. He was a football player in our year, but he was in all Mo’s advanced classes. She would never admit she had a crush—athletes were officially “not her type.” But she’d also never had the chance to drink with him in a basement. She pulled her phone out. “I’ll be here.”

“All right,” I said, running up the basement stairs before anyone sucked me into more drunk “conversation.” “I’ll find you. Soon.”

Upstairs was more crowded, especially the kitchen, where the basement stairs let out. I squeezed around a knot of sophomore girls huddling into one another over their drinks and almost got clocked as I tried to edge around Scottie Tarlington, one of the football seniors, animatedly replaying some extremely elbow-centric story for the benefit of a couple of guys my year.

From what I could tell, Kyle wasn’t in the kitchen. I wove my way into a dining room, occupied only by a couple making out against a wall, then wandered out into the massive, tiled foyer, a giant staircase leading up the center and splitting off into two half-flights to the hallway that ran around the entire second floor. Every couple of dozen feet white-painted doors led into what had to be bedrooms.

Upstairs-upstairs. Maybe Lamont wasn’t as worthless as I’d thought.