Sunshiner

I smirked. “Ha. You want to live forever? And you say my answer was boring.”

I instantly regretted saying that because the drunken grin fled her face and was replaced by a frown. “I’m going to play beer pong with them,” she said bitterly and stood up to leave.

“Wait, wait,” I said and swiftly looped a finger through her belt loop as she turned away, and then pulled her back down to her seat. “I was just kidding. It was a very interesting answer. It was…sophisticated. And stuff. Interesting and sophisticated.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re drunk,” she protested. The glare she was giving me was full of such hatred I almost wanted to laugh. Normally it was a bad thing when she gave me that sort of look, since it meant she was going to throw something either very sharp or very hard at my face; but right now I doubted she could accomplish such a feat since she could hardly sit still without swaying.

“You’re drunker than I am,” I countered.

“Shut up,” she snapped and crossed her arms, and I couldn’t help but laugh at how childish and insult-less she was when she was intoxicated. It was new and appealing and – and actually sort of cute. The tough Candace was gone, and she was replaced by…well, I wasn’t really sure who. She was replaced by a girl, I guess. Just a girl. And that was new and appealing, too, because Candace was so much. She was always so much of everything all of the time. It was nice to see the laid-back, raw version of her.

“So…” she said after a long moment, and – I swear this was true – I could hear a hint of awkwardness in her voice. For the entire twelve years that I had known her, Candace never felt awkward about anything. She was always confident (to the point of hubris, actually) and she could laugh off even the most embarrassing things.

I could distinctly remember an event that occurred when we were ten, when I accidentally walked in on her as she was changing. It hadn’t even bothered her more than a bee sting would. Then again, neither of us had even hit puberty yet, so it wasn’t like there was much for me to see anyway. But still. That sort of situation – whether she had boobs or not – would have normally been extremely humiliating and most girls would scream and probably slap me across the face. Afterwards, however, Candace had walked out of the dressing room with even more poise than before, as if it hadn’t happened at all. And then she pants-ed me and ran away. Candace just wasn’t like most girls; she didn’t care. She was invincible.

And now I was making her feel uncomfortable. I was making her blush. And I wasn’t even doing anything.

“Well,” she started again, clearing her throat. I noticed that she avoided making eye contact. Normally I would have smirked for making her feel like this, but I was so confused that I had no idea what to do. “This is my first time out on Devil’s.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said bluntly. “So?”

“So…isn’t there some sort of a tour that you can give me or something?” she asked, biting back a small smile.

I almost scoffed but I managed to catch myself right in time. I knew that if I made fun of her I would only get her angry, and I didn’t want that. The thing was, though, people from Dayton didn’t need any tours. Dayton was small enough so that we just knew everything about, well, everything. I couldn’t even remember my own first time experience out on Devil’s; it was another one of those childhood things, something that I had been doing for so long that I couldn’t even remember starting it. Of course, I hadn’t been drinking out on Devil’s since I was a kid – obviously not, I mean, come on – but there had been plenty of times throughout my adolescence when I had convinced one of the Older Kids to take me out in their boat, through the secret path and then up the hill, so that I could explore Devil’s. Candace, I suppose, had never joined me on one of those exploring adventures.

“Uh, well, sure,” I said and stood up, surprising both her and myself as I took her hand to help her up. “Okay, so, a tour. Yeah. As you can see, this is…the bonfire.” I pointed to the flames, which were now slowly dying out. “Don’t touch it, it’s hot. And this is a rock. And that, that over there – “ I pointed randomly in the distance. “That’s a tree.”

“This is a fascinating tour, Kasey,” she deadpanned and gave me an impatient look.

“All right, all right,” I laughed. “I’ll give you a real tour. It’s not like there’s much to see, though. It’s just a random hill of dirt in the middle of the Lake.”

“I want a look around anyway. I was afraid to go anywhere else before in case there were bears in the trees or something.”

A gave her a quizzical look. “Bears?”

“Yeah. You know. Those big fuzzy things that eat people.”

“On a desolate island?” I asked, amused, and she nodded. “You think there’d be animals living here? What would they eat?”

“They would eat people! Duh,” she rolled her eyes.

“Candace, when I said that this was a hill of dirt, I actually meant that this is really just a hill of dirt. I don’t think squirrels can even live here.”

“Shut up. Give me the damn tour,” she barked and I had to hide a grin again.

“Fine,” I gave in and, with my hand still grasping hers, I led her over the picnic table where Chad, Quincy and Finn were playing pong. “This is where we usually play our drinking games. Sometimes we sit around here and just drink and talk, but we usually just do that around the bonfire, since it’s warmer and the smoke keeps the bugs away. Uh,” I led her over to the back part of the clearing, where the trees were thicker and everything was shadier, “This is…the woods. People piss here.”

“Lovely,” she commented dryly.

I just shrugged. “It’s not like we have any toilets out here. And if you ever manage to find a house to throw a party in, please, invite all of us. Partying outdoors is nice, but it would be nice to be under a roof every once in a while.”

“Haven’t you ever partied on boats before?” she questioned.

“Booze cruise?” I grinned. “Yeah, we have. But Lesneski is the only one with a patio boat big enough to hold all of us, and most of the time he won’t let us use it because he’s afraid his mom will catch him.”

I looked down and saw that she was smirking again. “You should steal it for a night,” she said, the mischief back in her voice. “Throw your own party.”

“But he would tell on us – “

“And that’s why Lesneski isn’t invited,” she stated.

“He’s not invited to a party on his own boat?”

“Nope,” she shook her head. “No pussies allowed. We should do it sometime next week. We can wait until everyone’s asleep, and then we can sneak out and pick at the locks – oh, but we’ll need to break into Lesnkeski’s house to steal his boat keys…Well, that’s easy enough. And then we can take it out – “

“You are way too drunk right now,” I said. “You’re not actually serious about this, are you?”

Now it was her turn to laugh in my face. “When I said that the Prank War was on, I meant it,” she informed me and flicked my nose.

“But I’m not on your team,” I countered.

She seemed to think about this for only a second before she shrugged. “We’re breaking the rules enough already. I can invite your team.” She must have seen the disbelieving look I was giving her because then she asked, “What?”

“This does not sound like you. How much have you had to drink?” Before she was talking coherently enough to make me think that she was only a little tipsy. But now I was afraid that she might be totally smashed.

She just rolled her eyes. “Fine. You be on your team, I’ll be on mine. You just won’t be invited to the booze cruise.”

“Have it your way,” I retorted. “Then I won’t finish the tour. And we were just getting to the best part.”

“The best part?” she asked. “But I thought you said that this was just a hill of dirt! I don’t want to miss out on the best part.”

Oh yes, she was definitely very drunk. She would never be begging me like this if she was sober. She was even pouting.

“I don’t know,” I sighed, trying to look upset about it. “I mean, I’m not invited to that party and all…”

“Fine, you can come, whatever,” she said hastily. “Just show me the best part.”

I smiled and took her hand again, leading her past the picnic table, past the bonfire, and through a curtain of shrubs. We now found ourselves standing in a new, smaller clearing.

“It’s a rock,” she stated, sounding a bit disenchanted.

“It’s a big flat rock,” I corrected her. “And it’s a surprisingly comfortable rock when you’re drunk. It’s also a very good rock to lay down on and…do stuff.”

She made a face. “Do stuff?”

“Yeah, you know…” I said slowly. “Stuff.”

“Oh,” she said slowly, and then her face contorted into an expression of comprehension. “Oh! This is Lucky Point, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “We Dayton kids were never good at making up original names.” I didn’t feel like explaining it to Candace, since she probably already heard the story, but it used to be called Kissing Point. However, as we matured and our hormones took over our entire lives, it was more like Hook-up-and-pray-you-get-lucky Point. And then it was just called Lucky Point.

“Aw, when I was little all the girls used to talk about this place,” she cooed. “I can’t believe I’m here.” Her smile disappeared and she looked mildly disappointed. “And I can’t believe it’s just a rock.”

“And I can’t believe you had friends that were girls,” I said and was unable to hide the surprise leaking into my voice. “When did that happen?”

“Oh, I was five, I think,” she said thoughtfully. “It was before I started playing with you and all of the other boys, back when I wore dresses and I didn’t like dirt. I was friends with Cindy and, um, and whatsherface.”

“You and whatsherface must have been very good friends.”

“Best friends,” she grinned. It was moments like these when I appreciated the fact that Candace and I shared the same sort of dry humor. We could be sarcastic as we could possibly be and we still managed to catch on when the other was joking. Most people, on the other hand, didn’t seem to understand sarcasm and they never realized when I was joking because I was always able to keep such a straight face. On more occasions than I could count, people had taken my words far too seriously and I had received either a harsh insult in return or a nice slap across the cheek.

“So what else did the girls say about Lucky Point?” I asked. I leaned up against a tree casually and watched as Candace took small steps over the surface of the rock.

“Silly things,” she responded vaguely.

“Silly things such as…?”

“Such as…well, the Older Kids used to tell us stories…I’m sure they were making fun of us or something, because we were so little, but whatever.” She chanced a glance at me before continuing hesitantly, “They said that if a boy liked a girl, then he would take her to Lucky Point and then…and then they’d kiss.”

“You’re right,” I chuckled, and I barely noticed as her head snapped in my direction. “That is a stupid little kid’s story.” As I said that, Candace’s shoulders slumped and she seemed a bit deflated. “What’s your problem?” I asked her, stuffing my hands in my pockets.

“Oh, nothing,” she sighed and hopped off the ledge, landing only a few feet away from where I was standing. “I was just thinking…about how people come out here to hook up and everything.”

“I bet that rock had more STDs than a prostitute,” I laughed.

“And I was also thinking about how Chad and Quincy and Finn are still out by the picnic table,” she went on, slowly stepping towards me and decreasing the space between us. “And how they’re so far away from us and they wouldn’t be able to hear anything we’d be doing.”

“Do you want to go back to play pong with them?” I asked. “We can if you want, I guess.”

She just stared at me, looking even more deflated than before.

“Oh,” I nodded. “It’s the bears again? I told you, there aren’t any out here – “

“I was also thinking,” she went on, speaking louder and slower than ever, as if she was speaking to a two-year-old, “about how this is the place where the boy kisses the girl that he might possibly like.”

Now she had come so close to me that there were only a few inches of space left between us. Her chest was brushed against mine like a whisper and I could feel the heat radiating off of her body like the sun. She tenderly bit her lower lips, half nervously, half seductively. As I was staring into her wide honey eyes it finally hit me.

“Seriously, Candace, you really are drunk, aren’t you?” I asked.

“You, Kasey Ray, are by far the most oblivious boy I have ever met,” she spat.

She proceeded to let out a frustrated groan and then stepped away from me, running a hand through her tangled blond curls. I frowned; what had I said that pissed her off so much? When she had spoken, her breath was fresh and clean, and I could hardly pick up any trace of the beer we had been drinking. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t hammered, right? Could she really be sober right now?

Before I could ask what the hell I had done, she was already walking away, back to the clearing with the bonfire and picnic table. I could hear the identical laughs of Quinn and Finn jumbled with Chad’s chuckles, reminding me that there were still other people on this island with us.

“Take me home,” Candace told me as she continued to walk away. “This party’s getting boring.”