Playing with Fire Read online

  As if reading my mind, Cole leans over, whispering, “What is it with girls who eat like birds?”

  I glance around. Not one of them is over a size six, I estimate, but by the way they are moving food around their plates and not ever really taking bites, you’d think they’re counting calories or something. I stab a big chunk of potato and stuff it into my mouth unapologetically, making a face at Cole, who chuckles. Oliver stands up to toss his plate and soda in the nearby trash can, and Georgia slides into his empty place at my side.

  “So, how are you liking CPHS so far?” she asks kindly, her voice light and singsongish.

  I swallow the food in my mouth quickly, getting it wedged in my throat, forcing me to take a swallow of soda to wash it down. “Um, it’s good so far. I’m not completely sucking at any of my classes, always a bonus, and I haven’t gotten in a knife fight or anything. Yet,” I add with a wry smile.

  “I saw you at lunch sitting with those emo kids. I was afraid you were one of them,” Jenna interjects haughtily.

  For a second, I’m sure I’ve misheard her. But as I stare at her, my mouth hanging open just a fraction, she continues.

  “I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with them, I guess, but they don’t really… I don’t know. It’s like they just hate everything. You seem nice. If you want, you can sit at our table from now on,” she offers cheerfully.

  Bianca perks up for the first time. “Don’t be a brat, Jenna. They’re really nice.”

  Jenna waves her off. “Please. You just hang with them because you have an unrequited girl crush on Cassy.”

  Georgia reaches out, smacking Jenna on the arm sharply. I glance over and see the warm flush rising to Bianca’s cheeks, something clicking into place in my head. That’s why the rest of us got the cold shoulder. Bianca is into Cassy. I can feel the awkwardness hanging in the air, a strange, unspoken stillness.

  Trying to shift the focus off her, I shrug. “Can’t blame her. Cassy’s super cute. Sweet too.”

  Jenna swings her gaze to me, looking confused. “Are you into girls?”

  I flick my hair back over my shoulder. “I’m straight, if that’s what you mean. But I get it, is all I’m saying.” I speak flippantly, as if I couldn’t care less, and honestly, I couldn’t.

  Jenna’s smile falters, replaced with a confused frown. Beside me, Georgia lifts her soda can. “I agree.”

  “All the same, you’re welcome at our table any time,” Kelsey offers.

  Georgia leans over and whispers in my ear, “Don’t mind them. They’re still getting used to having a lesbian on the squad. Plus, I think they share a handful of brain cells between them.”

  I laugh tensely. Hyenas, much like cheerleaders, are pack animals. If one of them smelled blood, they’d all move in for the kill.

  “That Reid boy is cute though, in a nerdy, hipster kind of way. He helped me with a bio project last year. He was nice. Shy, but nice,” Patty offers, her smile dazzling. Georgia visibly flinches at the mention of his name, but says nothing.

  I nod. “He is nice. They all are.”

  It’s then I realize all the guys have vanished from the table. I look around and see them getting ready to play a game of flag football in the park next to us.

  I stand, toss my plate in the trash, and walk onto the grass to join the game. Oliver sees me approaching and waves me over.

  “All right, guys, touch only. And the first person who smacks one of the girls on the ass gets to deal with me.” He levels the threat through the huddle. At first, they chuckle, but then, realizing he isn’t joking, they all nod.

  We get off six plays, the last a long bomb from Oliver to Cole. He breezes past me and I lunge for David, who is hot on his heels, managing to get both hands on his side before getting tripped up and falling to the ground. Looking up, I see Cole cheer, spiking the ball and shouting just before a bolt of lightning splits across the sky, which has darkened substantially without my noticing. Everyone looks up, waiting.

  Less than three counts later, the thunder rolls, and the rain lets loose like a torrent from the sky. I feel a hand on my arm and realize Oliver is trying to help me to my feet. The freak rainstorm pours down on us as we bolt off the field and to the shelter of the pavilion, hitting the tin roof over the picnic area like nails.

  “Well, I think the victory party is over,” Oliver says, craning his neck to look at the sky. There’s a bustle of movement as people clean up the tables, scraping the last of the food from the grill and filling the nearby trash can with garbage. With muttered farewells, they begin to disperse, ducking into the rain and running for their vehicles. Trey grabs Georgia, scooping her into his arms like a baby and running for it. She waves over his shoulder, and Oliver nods in her direction. Bianca tucks her computer in her oversized designer purse and scuttles for her celery-green Prius. Finally, there are only three of us left. Cole turns, offering Oliver a friendly fist bump.

  “Later man,” he says. Turning his attention to me, he jerks his chin upward. “Nice chatting with you Farris.” Then, zipping his black hoodie and pulling it up over his head, he strides into the rain, walking slowly, deliberately, toward his black CRV.

  Oliver waves as Cole pulls out of the parking lot, gravel spitting from his tires as he peels off, and then grabs me around the waist, pulling me close to his chest. The gesture is surprising, but not unwelcome. I’m soaked and cold and I can feel his body heat radiating off him like a furnace so I snuggle against him, trying not to shiver and failing.

  He smells good in the rain. Spicy, like curry. Between us, I can feel his heart beating frantically, as if struggling to match speed with my own, which I can feel in my face. My head swims in the scent of him, his closeness, the feel of his arms around me. At first, I think he’s going to kiss me. Our faces are so close, his eyes searching mine for something…

  If he’d tried to kiss me then, I would have let him. The sound of the rain on the roof is hypnotic, lulling me into this mellow, calm place. He lifts his chin, resting it on the top of my head, so I tuck my nose into his chest. As we stand there, pressed together, I feel myself tingling, first in the tips of my fingers, then along my arms, and finally up my back into my neck. I’m not sure if I’m warming up or having some kind of episode. For the first time in what feels like forever, I take a breath, a clean, full breath that draws oxygen into the lowest parts of my lungs, and I feel completely at peace. Safe. Like the world can keep turning and everything can go back to normal.

  I forgot how good it felt to just be held. As if somewhere, deep down, the damaged pieces of me are carefully sliding back into place.

  I’m not sure how long we stand there like that, but the rain begins to slow, the patter of droplets on the roof growing soft. When he finally pulls back, just a little, he cups my face in his hands. I feel my fingers slide up his chest, across his red flannel shirt. When he lowers his face again, I rise up to meet him, our lips connecting in a sweet, chaste kiss.

  And then another, less chaste kiss.

  For a while, there’s nothing else, just us, suspended in our own little bubble universe. Nothing else matters. I let myself drown in him, in the taste of his lips and the feel of his fingers in my hair, pausing only to catch my breath and start again.

  By the time we head for his truck, hand in hand, my lips are swollen and tender from the kissing, a silly grin plastered to my face. This time when he starts the truck, he drapes his free hand on my knee, looking at me bashfully. I smile, covering his hand with my own.

  We make it back, and I pull my cell from my pocket to check the time on my cell when the base alarms go off.

  The sound paralyzes me, freezing the blood in my veins.

  “What is that?” Oliver mutters, glancing around.

  The echoing wail of the sirens is part foghorn, part tornado-warning alarm, and all bad. It means something is happening, and it isn’t something good. It can be anything from a terrorist attack to a plane crash to a biological weapon disbursement. The
re is simply no way to know.

  “The base is locking down. Something’s going on,” I say. I haven’t heard this sound since September eleventh, the day that terrorists had flown planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. That was the first time I’d heard it, and hearing it again now, I can actually feel ice forming in my veins, cold and hard.

  “What do we do?” he asks.

  “Right now, all we can do is head to our houses and wait for news.”

  Oliver is surprisingly calm as he drives toward my house without another word. My knuckles are white as I cling to the handle over his passenger window. A dozen scenarios run through my mind on the short drive home. I cling to the hope that whatever is happening isn’t happening here. That whatever’s going on, my dad is safe.

  When my phone goes off, the vibration nearly makes me jump out of my seat. It’s playing U2’s “Vertigo,” my dad’s ringtone. I answer quickly.

  “Dad?” I ask, my voice an octave higher than usual. “Are you alright?” I know better than to ask for details. No matter what’s happening, he won’t give details over the phone. And honestly, that’s fine. Because he’s calling. Which means he’s alive. Which means I can breathe.

  “Yeah, kid. It’s me. Listen, go straight home and wait for me there. I don’t know how long I’ll be.” His voice is tight, nervous, making unease bloom in my stomach.

  I feel like I could cry, a strained mixture of relief and worry flooding my system. But I don’t cry. That won’t help anything. The Lieutenant Colonel has trained me well. We are clearly in some kind of emergency situation and instantly, like the flipping of a switch, I go into crisis mode.

  “Yes, sir,” I say, asking nothing else.

  Click.

  “Your dad okay?” Oliver asks softly.

  I nod, my teeth grinding against each other too tightly to answer out loud. I just need to get home, to get everything together.

  We come to a screeching stop in front of my house almost a minute before I realize we’re there. My brain is too busy making plans, going over contingencies.

  “Thanks for today, Oliver. I had a good time,” I say earnestly.

  He smiles. “Me, too. We should do it again. Like next weekend,” he hedges.

  I blink. There’s something going on that weekend, I vaguely remember. It’s fuzzy, hovering in the corner of my churning mind. Then it hits me. The brightly colored posters hanging around the school. Saturday after next is homecoming. I frown.

  “Are you asking me to homecoming?” I ask, raising one eyebrow. “Geez. You make out with a guy for five minutes and he thinks you’re an item.”

  I don’t want him to hear the fear in my voice. Parties I can handle. Clubs? No problem. Sketchy raves? I’m in. But school dances are a little outside my wheelhouse. Mostly because I’ve never actually been to one.

  “Yeah. The game is Friday, if you’d like to come watch me play, but I was referring to the dance Saturday.”

  Wow. Homecoming.

  “Unless you’re holding out for a better offer,” he says with a wicked grin.

  Okay. No pressure there.

  “Dance. Wow. That implies things like dresses and corsages, right? I’m not sure…”

  The truth is, I don’t own anything more formal than the white cotton skirt I occasionally wear as a bathing suit cover-up at the beach.

  He laughs. “You don’t have to wear a dress if you don’t want to. We’ll both show up in holey jeans and wife-beaters. It’ll start a whole new trend. Plus, while I’ve never gone to a homecoming dance myself, the movies imply there’s a good chance there may be zombies.”

  I laugh, a little of the tightness slipping away, even as the sirens continue to ring out. “Well, I wouldn’t want to miss the zombies,” I say with a shrug. “Sure. Sounds fun.”

  He darts across the seat, kissing me quickly before I close my door and he speeds off.

  The journey from the door of his truck to my front door is a blur. All I know is I’m still wet from the rain and hot from blushing. Gradually, my faculties return and my head clears. I walk to my living room, flipping my TV on to the local news. There’s nothing being reported. Not a huge surprise, but a disappointment.

  One might assume that, like the old adage, “no news is good news” in that sort of situation, but actually the opposite is true. When alarms are blaring on base and none of the local news stations are mentioning it, it means someone is being told to keep it quiet. So it isn’t a national incident, I tell myself. Whatever had happened is only happening here.

  Making a beeline for my bedroom, I pull a green duffel bag out from under my bed and toss it on top. I tug the zipper down and methodically examine the contents. One change of clothes—gray sweatpants, socks, underwear, and a T-shirt; a fully stocked first-aid kit; a SAT phone; a roll of money—three hundred dollars cash, small bills; a credit card; a small black address book full of names and numbers of friends and relatives; a flashlight; two MRE main meals; a jug of water and finally, a bag of toiletries. The idea behind the emergency bag is that if the worst happens, it will be enough to get me somewhere safe. I repack the bag carefully, trying to keep the more important things near the top. I count and recount the cash before folding it over the credit card and twisting the rubber band around it, click the flashlight on and off to check the batteries, and hit the green button on the phone, checking to make sure it is working before turning it off again with a beep.

  I really should keep this in the trunk of my car, I think. If I’d gotten locked off base, it would have been nice to have. Of course, it still wouldn’t have done me much good today, seeing as I hadn’t driven. That is an oversight I’m not likely to make again. I stuff the bag back under my bed and sit down on the edge of my frilly comforter, pulling my tablet out of my bag. Staring at it, I realize I could know exactly what was happening in a matter of minutes. I still have the paper with Dad’s work IP address. It wouldn’t take anything to hack in and take a peek. He’d never even know I was there. Staring at the still, dark screen, I think about it.

  I’ve never considered myself a hacker. Ability, I tell myself, does not mean intent. I’ve never broken the law or created chaos for the sake of chaos. Hacking is all about ego. And that’s one place where I’m not fucked up. Finally, with a deep sigh, I flip it on. Desperate to take my mind off the ticking minute hand of my alarm clock, I open my browser.

  Realizing that with the base on lockdown, I’d never make it out this weekend to go get my new bedroom stuff, I decide on the next best thing. Online shopping. Generally, I’m not a fan, as it’s so hard to pick stuff out without really seeing it and feeling it, but my options are slim. I wander site to site before settling on a sleek white bed set with a black paisley pattern. I find a couple of shiny black table lamps and matching curtains. The screen jumps to a writing desk that’s white with black iron embellishments. Why not? I think, clicking on the purchase button.

  From there, I browse a few gown places that have local outlets. I still can’t believe I agreed to attend the warped social odyssey that is homecoming. With any luck, Oliver would be right and there’d be zombies. I can only hope.

  Still unable to sit still any longer, I get up and roam the townhouse, wandering aimlessly in and out of rooms. When I flick the light on in the spare bedroom, I blink in surprise. I expected it to be full of storage boxes and Dad’s junk, but it isn’t. A sturdy oak desk sits in the middle of the room, a small antique metal lamp on one corner, a set of tall, wide monitors in the center, and a tiny desktop fridge on the other edge.

  My throat constricted. Dad had done this for me, probably while I was out today. He set up this whole room so I’d have a place to work on my game design. My old computer had been damaged during packing; a careless mover dropped it and they’d had to cut us a check to replace it. I round the desk, looking at the computer. It is just like my old model, only two years newer. I hit the power button and the face lights up bright green.

  Leaving only long enough
to grab a cup of coffee from the kitchen, I sit down in the new, high-backed, cushioned rolling chair and slide myself up to the desk. I set to work installing my personally tweaked version of Linux, my preferred operating system, and stripping out all the random things that come pre-loaded on my hard drive. It takes several hours to get it exactly how I want it, a task that keeps me distracted and my brain occupied. Then, when all that is done, I retrieve all my software from my data cloud and begin the process of installing all that as well.

  It’s after eleven when Dad gets home. My fingers ache, my back stiff and protesting when I rise from my desk to greet him at the door. I don’t remember the sirens stopping but at some point, they did. I wait, meeting him at the door, a cold beer in hand, which I quickly hold out to him. His proud shoulders slump as he shrugs out of his green jacket and hangs it on the wooden coat rack, taking the beer with a grateful smile. I step into him like I had when I was a little girl, throwing my arms around his broad shoulders and squeezing him as tightly as I can. He hugs me back, my feet leaving the floor before he sets me back down gently.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “In there.” He nods toward the living room.

  I move to the living room sofa and sit down, bracing myself for bad news. He’s home, I keep telling myself. How bad could it be?

  He takes a seat in his favorite recliner and slowly unlaces his boots before sitting back, twisting open his beer, and taking a long drink.

  “I got an in-flight discrepancy report today from one of the planes.”

  I sit back, sucking in a breath. “In English, please.”

  “When something goes wrong with one of the jets, the onboard computer sends a message to the maintenance department letting them know what the problem is, so they can fix it.” He rubs the back of his neck. “We had thirteen flights go up today. They each sent the same error message.”

  I bite my lip. “What message?”

  “Catastrophic engine failure.”

  I sit back. “All of them? Were they, I don’t know, sabotaged or something?”

  He shakes his head. “We pulled one of the engines apart. There’s no issue we can find.”