Be Not Far from Me(5)

“You said, one time,” he answers, a blush that the growing shadows can’t quite hide spreading through his cheeks.

“Okay, but where are you, like, from?” Tom pushes, not picking up what the rest of us are throwing down.

“Jesus Christ, just tell him you’re from India,” Duke says, and I don’t know if it’s meant to be insulting to Tom or Kavita. And I don’t like that I don’t know.

“I’m not,” Kavita says stonily.

“I’ve got to pee,” Meredith says, turning to me. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I ask.

Natalie throws a stick onto the fire. “Yep,” she says. “Real glad I’m here.” And she smiles at Duke.

Which really makes me wish she wasn’t.

More beer doesn’t improve things, and a few hours later I’m well aware I need to get away from the fire before I hit someone. I don’t even know who it would be. Kavita has lapsed into a moody silence, though she did scoot a few inches closer to Jason, at which point he apparently held his breath and hasn’t let it out since. Duke is drinking so much so fast that his glances toward Natalie are getting long enough to verge into staring, and he’s not even trying to hide it. Meredith has both Tom and Cory captivated, which leaves me pissed at all three of them for some reason, and Stephanie has settled for making small talk with Natalie, a conversation mostly made up of giggling.

Meredith does a hair flip that I suddenly hate her for, along with the fresh eyeliner she snuck off to reapply before the sun went down. I try to get a grip on the rush of anger, reminding myself that Meredith is not a bad person. Under all that makeup is my friend, and she’s played point for me when I’m not in my element. Sophomore year someone nominated me for homecoming attendant and apparently enough people either agreed or thought it would be amusing to see me win that I actually did. I’m more comfortable with a backpack strap across my chest than a sash, so when Meredith helped me pick a dress, perfected my hair and face, and taught me how to walk in heels, it didn’t matter to me that it rained on the parade—literally.

I tried to tell everyone on the float that I smelled a storm and they should maybe put a tarp up, but the other girls didn’t like the idea of not being able to be seen from all sides. They didn’t like looking like drowned rats either, but that was their problem. I was happy enough to be right. Screw my hair.

I grind my teeth and finish the last of my beer, trying not to care that Duke has put some space between us as the night went on. We’ve never been clingy, and he’s always said that his favorite part about me is that I’m not a girly-girl. I don’t play with my hair when I talk or try to drink beer in a sexy way. My hair is usually in a ponytail to keep it out of my face, and the beer belongs in my gut in order to serve its purpose, so why be coy?

But all the stuff he’s always said he likes me not doing seems to look pretty good on Natalie, because all she’s done since she got here is toss her mane around and lick aluminum like it’s got some kind of nutritional content. It’s a show, put on for my boyfriend. And he’s watching.

I can be cool and let it slide. Duke likes that I’m low-drama and that I don’t freak when I see him checking out another girl, and he returns the favor by not giving me shit when I spend a lot of time at the boys’ pole vault during track season. Arms have always been a weakness of mine, and some of those guys have the best triceps I’ve ever seen. Better even than Duke’s, but that doesn’t change the fact his arms are my favorite, the only ones that have ever been around me, or touched me, skin to skin.

Out in the dark, something rustles.

It’s nothing, my bet is an old limb just fell, and the way Duke stays relaxed next to me I can tell he’s thinking the same. But Meredith shoots into the air like somebody set her ass on fire, and Natalie actually makes a move toward Duke, like maybe it’s his job to shield her.

“The fuck?” Jason says, alarmed even though he’s not sober enough to come to his feet to show it.

“It’s nothing,” I tell him.

“Nothing, like actually nothing?” Natalie asks. “Or nothing like that time Duke told me it was nothing and a bear ate all our food?”

I do not like thinking about the fact that Duke has taken Natalie camping and they probably only packed one sleeping bag. I like it less that Duke laughs at the memory.

“Oh my God,” he says, dimple flashing. “Your face when I unzipped the tent in the morning.” He mimics pure shock, and she leans over to smack his arm. I wince at the sound of their flesh meeting.

“It’s nothing,” I say again. “Actually nothing.”

“How you know?” Cory—I finally put a face to the name two beers ago—says. And by the way he looks at me, I think maybe if Duke had said it he would’ve just taken it as gospel. From me, it gets questioned.

“Because I know,” I tell him, putting what I’m thinking—This is my woods, pansy-ass—into my tone.

His brother doesn’t care for that.

“Could be something; could be anything,” Tom says. “What’d you say about bears?”

I look to Duke to clarify that what we just heard was not a bear, but catch him holding a hot, smoky stare with Natalie. I’m forcibly reminded that she’s who he lost his virginity to.