Noelle August - Boomerang

I take a long pull of my beer and consider my little brother. College has changed him for the better. It’s subtle, in the way he holds himself, his shoulders a little squarer, his voice a little deeper, but it’s there. I freakin’ love the kid. It’s so damn good to see him, but I don’t need him playing mother hen.

“Drop it, Chris. It’s done. No need to make it a huge deal.”

Dinner with the family—and Alison—is behind me. Two hours and three Jack and Cokes later, and I’m still alive. Feeling the booze, definitely, but otherwise no worse for the wear.

“It’s obviously not done, Ethan. She’s still here.” Chris leans closer, and I realize he’s taller than me now. That sucks. “None of us like her. And we sure as hell don’t like her after what she—”

“You’re ruining my buzz, Chris.” I’m swaying a little, my head too light. Which is the opposite of how my stomach feels. The rib-eye steak I put away at dinner has settled like an anchor in my stomach. I lean my back against the bar, and now the crowd blurs behind Chris, all rust-colored flannels and jeans. Everything looks faded and worn compared to LA’s sparkle and shine.

Chris assesses me like he’s making a forensic analysis of my clothes, my face, my posture. I don’t know what he sees, but judging by the worry in his eyes, I’m guessing it’s the opposite of the growth and maturity I just saw in him.

“What’s gotten into you?” he asks, lowering his voice so I almost can’t hear him above the bar noise. “Is it because you’re not playing ball anymore?”

He’s dead-on about me feeling off kilter, but it’s not because I miss soccer. At least I don’t think so. And I know that I don’t want to know. The whole point of the vodka, the whiskey, and the beer in my hand is to get away from knowing.

“Please shut up, bro.” I take a sip, almost missing my lips. “I’m asking you to—just stop.”

Across the crowded bar, I see Alison rise from my parents’ table. As soon as she turns her back, my parents and their closest friends, the Davises, exchange looks of relief.

At dinner she mentioned wanting to take my family to Palace Arms in Denver sometime—a restaurant that’s ten times fancier than where we were. It was a passing comment, but it was enough to put a damper on things. My mellow working-class parents don’t see things the way she does, like there are quality ratings on everything. They were just happy to have us all together.

Beside me, Chris lets out a muffled curse when he sees Alison coming. “Great . . . The Anti-Christ cometh.”

As I watch her thread toward us through the crowded bar, her tight body wrapped in designer leather and denim, it occurs to me that both Rhett and Chris are convinced that Alison and I are hooking up again this weekend. Then it occurs to me that the thought would never have occurred to me otherwise.

It wasn’t anywhere in my thoughts.

But now it is.

And I wonder.

What if we did?

Beside me, I feel Chris looking from me to her. “Well, this sure looks like it’s going to end well. It’s painful to watch. In fact, I’m not doing it. Give me your phone.”

“My phone?”

Chris holds out his hand. “My battery’s dead and I’m trying to get ahold of Jake and Connor.”

His high school buddies. I fish my phone out of my pocket.

Chris takes it and then snatches the beer from my hands. “I’m taking this too. Your judgment’s already impaired.”

He leaves to join my parents, who are now laughing and doing Jell-O shots with the Davises, happier than they’ve looked all night.

“Hey,” Alison says. “Did I interrupt something?”

“Nah, he was just leaving.” It’s crowded, and I have nowhere to stand except either behind her, or wedged right beside her. I take option two, because option one would bring Mia instantly back into my thoughts, and that’s the last thing I need, remembering how she felt at the bowling alley, or how she looked at work today in a green dress blouse that matched the color of her—

“Ethan?”

“Yeah?”

“I asked if you’d have champagne with me if I ordered a bottle?”

I glance around me. Jimmy’s isn’t a dive, but it’s not a place for drinking champagne either. Not by a long shot. But then this is the girl who got a manicure before she went on safari.

“Sure,” I say. “Why not?”

The bartender gives Alison a mildly irritated look when she orders and leaves the bar to retrieve a bottle from their stock in the back.

“So,” Alison says, smiling at me.

We’re getting pressed in from all sides, so our legs are smashed together.

“So,” I say back. I’ve got nothing else. I don’t want to talk to her. A dark, primal urge to just get her naked hits me. It slams into me, but it’s gone in a flash. I know how she feels. I was with her for two years, but she’s not who I want. Alison never made me feel the way Mia does. No one makes me feel the way Mia does—except Mia.

Fuck. So much for numbing my brain with alcohol.

Suddenly it feels like the rib-eye steak is sprouting thorns in my stomach.

“You okay, Ethan?”

“Absolutely.”

Not.

The bartender sets an ice bucket down in front of us with a clank. He hands me two champagne flutes filled with bubbling liquid, the rims spotted with dishwashing soap. I hand one to Alison, sweat breaking out along my spine.

“To new beginnings,” Alison says.

I repeat the toast, or maybe I don’t. The bar is spinning in one direction and my head is spinning the other way.

As I bring the flute to my lips, someone jars Alison from behind. She jerks forward, and her champagne spills over my shirt.

“Watch it!” she snaps over her shoulder. Then she looks at me, her hand settling on my chest. “Shit. I’m sorry, Ethan.”

I can’t look at her. I can’t look up from my shirt.

The memory of Mia spilling red wine on me in her mother’s studio flashes before my eyes. But then the sweet smell of the champagne reaches me, and it takes me further back. Opens up a door that’s been shut in my mind for weeks.

This, I realize. This is what happened between us.

My mind is barraged by images, tastes, and smells. Champagne and Mia’s sweet violet scent. The feel of her curly hair in my hands, her soft lips kissing my jaw. My hands exploring every inch of her.

“Alison, I need some air,” I say.

It sounds like an excuse, but it’s the truth, and then I’m moving through the crowded bar and out into the street.

I need a place where I can be alone, where I can let myself remember, because it’s here. It’s all coming back to me. Mia, and what we did after we left Duke’s. Finally, I remember our first night.

Mia

Q: Dancing queen, or dancing fool?

My plans to lie in bed all weekend and treat myself to a cinematic pity fest (Love Actually; Pride and Prejudice; (500) Days of Summer) are thwarted by my two best friends, who seem intent on torturing me, even though I am always sweetness and light with them, in addition to respecting their private time and their need to marinate in their own emotional juices every now and then.

Tonight’s torment: Operation Get-Mia-Off-Her-Ass-and-Out-to-the-Club. Its first stages included shoving me into a gold sequined tank and black mini, teasing my hair to ceiling-scraping heights, and loading my purse with condoms.

Yeah. No.

Its second phase, now in effect, includes the bar at Club Tonga, a drink the size of a fish bowl, and Skyler’s super subtle efforts at matchmaking—repayment for Brian, I think, which consists of slinging dudes in my direction and saying, “This is Mia. She’s hot, right?”

So far I’ve scored general—if confused—agreement, except for one gay guy who says, “Oh my God, so hot,” and tries to feel me up. An act I shut down by offering the analogy that being a dog person does not give you the right to molest cats.

Miffed, he bounces away, and Skyler gives me a sharp nudge to the ribs. “Be nice.”

“Ow. I am.” Just not nice enough to give strange men a free thrill. Sue me.

“No, you’re not. You’re putting off a stink cloud of bitchiness.”

Drink straw clamped between her perfectly veneered teeth, she watches the parade of guys, no doubt looking for further opportunities to humiliate me. Her eyes light up, and she starts to slide from her seat, gaze riveted on a slouchy actor type with a well-trained five o’clock shadow.

I jump up before she can move in for the kill. “Let’s dance.” Beth’s been on the dance floor for an hour, and suddenly that seems like a much more appealing place to be.

Lifting my drink, I push the straw aside and go for a full-on gulp. Okay, several gulps, until I drain the giant glass and thunk it back on the bar like I’ve just proved some point.

The liquor burns on the way down and then spreads a soothing heat through my belly, warming every bit of me and giving me a pleasant buzz, like my brain’s been coated in cotton candy. This might be exactly what I need.

“Come on,” I say and grab Skyler’s hand, almost pulling her out of her striped oxford kicks.

The crowd pulses around us, and I’m hit with rolling waves of body heat, Axe cologne, and fruity perfume. I feel enveloped, buoyed, and I get a sharp visceral pull to be in the middle of it, moving to the thump of the music that throbs inside my own chest, becomes part of me.

We push through the crowd, and I’m hazy, body tingling in a way that feels turned on but not. I’m hungry for the closeness of people but not one person. I want to dive into a sea of flesh and lose myself.