The Storm King(58)

The fire was bigger than it had been.

Put it out, Tom almost cried. They’ll see it. They’ll know. Then he remembered he wasn’t in the Night Ship. This was the other world he lived in, the one with simpler secrets.

Nate sometimes called Tom the Creature of Catastrophic Futures. He was so worried about the ramifications of the present that it was as if he didn’t live there at all. The Storm King had tried to teach Tom about the thrill of the moment. But for Tom this always came with a hangover of regret.

And no matter how he pretended otherwise, Tom knew that Nate was in no way a native of the Now. Tom could tell this from the look in his friend’s eyes when he drifted.



But Tom tried his best to appreciate the treasures of the present as he absorbed the sights, sounds, and smells of the clearing. He watched his class, his friends, writhe and jump and laugh. For a few moments he stood outside of the current they were all caught in. It’s never going to be like this again. And Tom didn’t know if this made him happy or sad, grateful or wistful. It was so many things.

There were three kegs, and bottles of whiskey, vodka, and some flavored liquors being passed around. Pot was smoked along the periphery, and every few minutes a group of three or four would return from the woods pawing at their noses. The substances and their combinations addled them in movement and voices and dance, as though each dwelled within their own pocket universes governed by different laws of physics.

Of course, Nate was at the center of the dancing tangle. In the crowd he seemed to give off a light that rivaled the bonfire. His shirt was off, and most of the other guys had followed his example.

Lucy was in Nate’s arms, and they were the gravity well around which the others orbited. Whether they were a sun or a black hole depended on the day. Today, Tom thought they might be something else. A neutron star of irresistible luminescence.

Girls ran their painted fingers across Nate’s back as he twirled Lucy past them. Michelle Duchannes and Sarah Hernandez cut in for a moment to sandwich Nate between them. Grinding up against him, Michelle was unable to stop herself from touching his chest.

“There you are!” Emma appeared out of the crowd and threw her arm around Tom’s neck. She kissed him wetly on the lips. “Let’s dance.”

“I don’t really—”

She grabbed his arm and yanked him closer to the center of the gathering.

“Aren’t you hot in that?” she asked. She ran her hands over his flanks.



Tom realized he’d sweated through his shirt. Emma pulled at its hem, and it was so wet it took them both to peel it off.

“I’m hot, too. You know what? I don’t even care.” She tugged her top over her toned stomach.

“Are you sure you really—”

She whipped off her tank top to reveal a lacy black bra. She twirled the shirt above her head as if she were a cowboy. When a bunch of baseball players from the class below them whooped from the sidelines, she chucked it at them.

Tom wrapped his arms around the small of her back and drew Emma to him. Her mouth tasted of cinnamon. It was okay, Tom realized. Dancing with beautiful Emma Aoki, next to a bonfire, half-naked in the forest on a summer night with people he’d loved his whole life. It wasn’t bad at all.

“Buddy!” Nate cried, and wrapped him in a sweaty hug. “Where’ve you been? Are you having an okay time?” He peered at Tom with grave intensity, as if this was the most important question in the world.

There was an uncertainty in Nate’s balance and a wayward energy in his eyes. The pills and who knows what else had been making the rounds.

“Shots!” Nate shouted. “We haven’t even had a drink together yet.” He called for whiskey, and bottles traveled toward them across a sea of waving arms.

“I think you’ve drunk enough, McHale,” Lucy said, materializing between them. Her smile was less smug than it had been.

“I have to have a drink with Tom.”

“Let’s take it easy, huh? I’ll get you some water.”

Nate laughed at this. The Storm King did as he wanted.

“What happened to your shirt?” he asked Emma.

“I threw it away!” she said. Everyone within earshot ranked this among the funniest things they’d ever heard. Everyone except Lucy.

Nate handed Tom and Emma bottles that had come their way.



“He’s had too much,” Lucy told Tom.

Too much.

Too much booze or drugs? Too much misery or joy? Nate himself was too much. That was why he was so fiercely loved.

“He needs to slow down,” Lucy said.

Tom stared at her. Was she asking him to help manage Nate? Was his friend really in that rough a state? If so, Tom must have been even worse off, because he couldn’t do anything but laugh at her. Snorted at her like she was a dim child who’d managed to say something so stupid that it exceeded all previous standards of idiocy.

Lucy’s eyes hardened to emeralds.

While he, Nate, and Emma clinked the necks of one another’s bottles, Tom watched Lucy storm into the crowd.

It was clear Nate had no idea that Lucy had stalked off. Nate said something to Emma, and they both laughed. The three of them took another pull from their bottles and jumped to the music and were so happy. They were all so happy.

This is what life is.