It didn't take long for Maze's casual mention about the bridge to Bryan to spread through the ranks of their friend group. It started with Josie overhearing them, since she had been talking to Kass, who was sitting a comfortable distance away from Maze—the other side of the chaise lounge, that is.
Josie relayed it to Brielle, who casually confessed how she had always wanted to spray paint her initials on the bridge (a subtle yet obvious flirtation device that didn't quite float the way she wanted it to). Brielle admitting this reached Amelia's ears, who immediately shrieked, "So are we going to the bridge tonight or what?!"
Maze grimaced the second Kass slowly twisted around to glower at her. Bryan slapped a hand over his face.
Thus... was how Maze and Kass found themselves on the railroad tracks leading up to the bridge surrounded by their friends.
They had ditched their cars half a mile away, down the tracks and down the road in the parking lot of a park Maze distinctly recalled watching cross country races at in high school. Now, though, it was a prime pitstop on the way to vandalizing the bridge.
Maze and Kass lingered behind the group, who had run off with Kass' spray paint can. Neither of them spoke, and Maze was content with that—if she wasn't so guilty for getting everyone else on board with this, that is.
Maze spared an uneasy glance at Kass, who walked with her hand in her pocket, her eyes on her phone. She didn't look up until Bryan approached them with a smokey, grassy blunt from Josie pinched between his fingers.
The end of it prickled to life with bright orange ashes as Bryan took one last drag from it. He breathed it in, holding it in his lungs as he held the blunt out to Maze, who took it. Kass rose an eyebrow at her as smoke curled through Bryan's teeth.
"Not exactly an athlete anymore," Maze said as she put it to her lips.
"Never stopped you from drinking alcohol," Kass said, and Maze resisted the urge to laugh. The smoke was warm in her chest, and she felt it permeate, prickling her esophagus until she released it.
She grinned at Kass, smoke pushing underneath her teeth. Kass waved the smoke aside as Maze laughed. She turned her head away to cough, and Kass took the blunt from her.
Bryan dropped an arm around Maze's shoulders, swaying her to the side. Maze smiled, holding onto Bryan by the back of his hoodie as her friend said, "I'd like to congratulate you on your marriage."
Maze laughed. "Oh, thank you," she said, teasingly.
"Yes, and I didn't come over here just to pass the metaphorical torch, no no," Bryan went on, and Maze grinned at Kass, who rolled her eyes off to the side and away from them. "Oh really?"
"Yes, really."
"So what was this all about then, might I ask—"
"I know, I'm getting to that part," Bryan said. He slapped a hand above Maze's chest and gave it a few, firm pats. "I came here to submit my resume to be your best man at the wedding so I can give a speech on what a dumbass you are."
Maze cackled with her entire heart. She slapped Bryan back on the chest and said, "I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm not accepting applications at the moment."
"Fine, then I'll just say it off the record then—"
"No, no, you really don't—"
"But I must," Bryan insisted, and when Maze slapped a hand over his mouth, it turned into a cat-fight, slapping-fest in which Bryan smacked her over the mouth right back and Maze swatted his hand away. They duked it out until Maze half-tripped over a plank of wood on the railroad and if it weren't for Bryan having her in a half-Nelson, she might have face-planted.
Grace was holding her Bluetooth speaker over her head like a boombox. Bryan and Maze stumbled into the beat, and rather than smack each other around again, they bounced into a prance that followed the song Grace had switched to. They hopped from plank-to-plank in quick, parried successions.
Kass intentionally avoided them, falling a few paces back.
And then, the beat warped down, and Bryan threw his hand up to stop Maze in her tracks. "Oh, wait wait. I—I do know your hoe?" he said, and Maze put a hand to her offended chest, hip cocked to the side, and pointed a finger up to herself.
"You talkin' bout—You talkin' bout Tracy?" she said, which Bryan dismissed with a wave of his hand, saying, "Nah, nah nah nah—"
Maze cocked her hip to the other side, slapping her ass. "Like, Tracy with the ass?" She threw her fist around the arc of an invisible steering wheel. "Tracy with the Honda?"
Bryan threw his head back, howling with laughter as Maze swayed her shoulders like an absolute fuckboy, hand stroking her nonexistent beard. "Shiiiit, well..."
Kass sighed behind her and said, "I have regrets."
Grace propped her speaker on the bridge ledge—precarious, but certainly on brand for Grace. From afar, the bridge looked like an open cardboard box laid out between two ends of a ravine—a flat-topped tunnel. The top of the tunnel, however, was comprised of iron crossbars that did little to cover the tracks. Josie was already attempting to climb up the wall to sit on top of the crossbars.
Maze took the spray paint from Amelia as Kass slipped out of view from the corner of her eye. She hurried around the wall of the tunnel and to the ravine's ledge.
The wall was set in from the metal lip that jutted out from concrete boulders. Their destination was eye-level with their friends where a muddied canvas awaited them. Kass clasped a hand onto a beam over their heads. She swung off of the boulder, her feet connecting to the metal lip. The metal boomed like a gong.
Kass reached a hand back. Maze slapped the spray paint can into her hand before swinging onto the ledge after her.
They shimmied along the metal lip until they came to a column that required Kass to hug with both of her arms and sweep her legs over to the opposite side. Maze glanced over her shoulder down at the bottom of the ravine, where the river flowed off of the dam near downtown. She could hear the roar of the water crashing in from afar, echoing down the ravine. It hummed against the metal wall as she hooked her arms around the beam and followed after Kass.
The wall rattled overhead. Maze leant back from the wall, her hands hooked on the bar welded above her. She laughed at the sight of Josie's hand emerging from the rafters with a grunt. Josie huffed, arms shaking, and swung her ass onto the ledge with a satisfied harrumph.
Josie waved down at her. Maze waved back.
"Oi, both hands," Kass chastised, and Maze immediately slapped her hand back down onto the ledge. "Where are we thinkin'?"
"Wherever that dick is that you and Willa drew," Maze said, and up above, Josie cackled.
Josie rolled onto her stomach, her elbow propped up on the ledge and her feet dangling down either side of the beam. "I was wondering who put that there," she said. Kass rolled her eyes. "For the record, it wasn't me."
"It was, too!" Willa shouted from over the wall.
Sure enough, farther down the bridge, near the very center of it, they came upon the testicles of a crudely drawn dick profile. The tip was uncircumcised, and someone had drawn a smiley face on the end in what looked like marker paint.
Kass rattled the can fast, tipping back from the ledge. Maze reached over to point at the shaft, dragging her finger along the fuzzy line. "Use this like a signature line," she said, and Kass agreed.
"'M + K' or 'K + M'?" Kass asked, dotting an experimental dollop of paint on the beam.
"'MGK' like Machine Gun Kelly," Maze said.
Kass glared at her. Maze smiled. "I hate you," Kass said, and promptly arced the straight edge of the 'M' at the exact height of the dick's width.
Her graffiti was geometric in style. She followed up by swinging a cheeky little heart behind the dick so it looked like a heart-and-arrow (albeit, the arrow being the dick shaft).
Maze laughed and said it looked amazing. "Oh, wait," Maze said, which prompted Kass to hand the can over. Maze hesitated— she was never very good at spray paint—but took it. The nozzle was dripping and slick against her fingers.
Beneath their initials, Maze marked the year. She handed the can back. It kind of just looked like a splotch of paint to the untrained eye. She should have held the nozzle a bit closer.
"Works for me," Kass said.
Maze looked to Kass, her breath momentarily lost at the faint smile lines bracketing Kass' grin. The straight slope of her nose before the peaked button end. Maze reached a hand out to it, her fingers still clutched around the can. She traced a finger underneath Kass' chin, just to turn her attention away from the dripping paint on their initials.
Kass' lips fell open instantly, her tongue pressing flat against Maze's the instant their lips collided. Her head tipped to the side, tongue curling and—
"Ew, the girls are frenching now!" Josie shouted to the others.
Maze grinned against Kass' mouth, and she caught Kass' tongue lightly between her teeth when she did. Kass pulled back with a scowl and glared up at Josie. They could hear
Amelia shouting, "Lemme see!"
Maze's fingers left Kass' jaw, and she cursed with a laugh when her fingerprints showed up in bright paint on Kass' skin. "Oh, shit," she said, and reached in as if she could do something to fix it.
Kass rubbed her wrist against her jaw, but it did nothing. The nozzle of the paint can had smeared a stripe across Kass' throat, too.
"Sorry! Oh my God," Maze started, but she was laughing too hard to finish—
—until Kass slapped her paint-smeared hand over Maze's face.
Maze gasped, horrified, as Kass dragged her fingers down Maze's cheeks. She felt the tacky tension from the drying paint tug at her skin when Kass lifted her fingers off.
"Serves you right," Kass said.
Before Maze could retaliate, Kass jerked away with a curse, wobbling back. Her foot skidded off of the ledge.
Maze yelped. She caught hold of Kass' hoodie without thinking, the paint can smearing a stripe down the front of her shirt on its descent. It pinged off of the metal ledge and spiraled down into the ravine.
"Oh, shit!" Josie shouted. "Maze dropped the paint can!"
Amelia's shoe was scraping against the wall on her way up. "Aw, man! I wanted to paint a peach on the wall!" she cried.
Maze swore she could feel Kass' heart hammering through the fibers of the hoodie. "You good?" Maze said.
"I'm fine," Kass gasped out, letting out a hollow laugh. "Let's get off this thing."
"Agreed," she said, and led the way back to land.
After hopping onto the rock, Maze spotted Kass on the edge of the cliff. Kass' grip on her hand was bruising, and Maze could feel her knuckles popping under the pressure, but she didn't mind. She just didn't expect Kass to keep hold of her hand from that point on at the bridge.
It wasn't until they headed back down the railroad that Kass let go and Maze commented, "Are you afraid of heights?"
Kass scoffed. "Like you wouldn't be after almost taking a leap like that?"
Maze shrugged. "I dunno. It's kind of exciting."
"Fucking adrenaline junkie," she said as she popped a stick of bubble gum into her mouth.
As Maze laughed, Declan leant in, hands clasped behind his back, and said, "Are we talking about cliff-diving?"
Brielle snapped her fingers. "Oh, that's right! We were planning to check out that White Rock Park south of Indy! My uncle's got a cabin over there."
Maze had heard of it, only because she had gone there as a kid, once upon a dream. Her parents' faces were fuzzy in the memory, and she hadn't been old enough to jump off the platforms. She would sit cross-legged on the floating dock and watch her dad point to her from the very top of the cliff and say, "Eyes on me, kid! Let's see whatchya think 'a this one!" Maze's mom had made numbered signs and laminated them so they wouldn't dissolve in the water. Maze would hold up a 10 every time her dad did a flip.
Maze swallowed down the annoyingly painful lump in her throat.
"I am not cliff-diving with you idiots," Kass said.
"If I hook us up with a race down there, would you come?" Declan said, and followed up with his hands clasped beneath his chin, batting his long eyelashes at her. "Pretty please?"
"Might be nice to swim in water that isn't polluted," Maze hummed.
Kass glared at her as she blew a bright pink bubble and popped it.
Maze tipped her head to the side and smiled, her bangs caught in the breeze that buffeted through the trees.
Distantly, she heard Grace whispering to Felix, who was a quiet bystander during their vandalism. "Ope, is it gonna work? Is she gonna do it?" Grace whispered, which just seemed to cause Kass' scowl to tick with more irritation.
Kass shut her eyes and sighed. She dropped her head down and scuffed her shoe against the pebbles between the wooden planks as they walked. "Alright, fine," she said. Grace gasped, shaking Felix by the arm.
"Oh my God, it worked! My girl's whipped!"
Kass immediately shot down to grab a rock. Grace bolted and Felix ducked before he could get stoned in the back of the head. When Kass chucked the rock, she did so with all the force she used to use as their pitcher during summer softball matches.
The rock pelted into Grace's lower back. Grace went down with a shriek.
As Grace and Kass started battling with rocks as ammunition, Maze smiled down at her hands.
One of the knuckles on her middle finger was swollen around her rings. She closed her other hand over it, resisting the urge to grimace as she held the joint in place. By the time they reached the road down from the park, she could close her fist again, slowly, and stretch her fingers back out the way that they were. She did so enough times to convince herself that it was fine. Everything was the way it should be.
At the parking lot, Maze hugged Brielle and thanked her for letting them hang out at her pool (and also smoke her weed). She squeezed Maze back tightly, smiling against her hair as she said, "Anytime, hun. I'll see you at work tomorrow—and I'm happy that you and Kassandra are happy."
Maze laughed. "What is this, a wedding reception?" she said, and Brielle rolled her eyes and said, "You know what I mean! Tomorrow—I'll see you."
Maze agreed, and just as she did, Amelia slapped her in the ass. She jumped, shrieking out a curse as Amelia skipped her way to Brielle's convertible.
Amelia blew her a kiss and said, "Good luck with Kassandra!" Josie rolled her eyes from the back seat of Brielle's convertible.
Maze stuck her tongue out at them.
After saying farewell to everyone, it was just Kass and Maze in the parking lot. Just the two of them.
Maze yawned. It was absurdly early in the morning, and she could already feel the pain of waking up for work as she leant back against the hood of Kass' truck. She stretched her arms over her head, her warm, aching muscles twitching. Her heels ached from standing all day, like her bones were nothing but rods pushing through the soles of her shoes.
When she dropped her arms back down, they landed over Kass' shoulders. Kass leant into her, her hands braced against the hood on either side of Maze's hips.
"Sorry I dropped the spray paint," Maze said.
"S'fine," Kass said, voice groggy with exhaustion. Maze's eyes settled on the subtle shadows under Kass' eyes, and then to the paint visible on Kass' jaw. "I'll grab a new can tomorrow. Mr. Peters won't even tell the difference."
Maze laughed. She propped one elbow up on Kass' shoulder so that she could rest her cheek against her hand. "I can pitch in. Those are expensive, right?"
Kass shrugged. They studied each other for a long moment. A slow, easy grin slid onto Maze's lips. It was far too easy now for Maze to smile, and each one loosened something that had remained tightly screwed in her chest, clogging up her arteries, and leaving her suffocating. It was just a little easier to breathe now, like she wasn't on the brink of tears.
Before Maze could reiterate something embarrassing—like how much she missed Kass, how much she loved hanging out with Kass, how much she cherished this moment —Kass tipped her head against Maze's shoulder and sighed, her breath against Maze's throat.
Maze dropped her hand from where it had been tucked under her cheek. Kass' mouth left a warm, wet mark on Maze's throat, just where it met her shoulder. She licked a clean stripe against it, and Maze shivered at the hot, wet moisture of Kass' tongue against her skin. She shuddered again, eyes widening when Kass' teeth bit down on her skin.
"K-Kass—" Maze said, startled, but it was cut off by the hum at the back of Kass' throat that Maze felt through Kass' teeth. A vibration that set a fire off in her gut. She could only imagine how red her face was now.
Kass stepped closer, her feet straddling one of Maze's shoes. Maze shuddered at the pressure of Kass' entire front flattening against her own, of Kass' arms hooking beneath her arms, her hands flattening against Maze's back. Kass dragged her hands down to the small of Maze's back before gripping her obliques hard enough to elicit a startled sound from Maze's throat that was borderline erotic.
Maze could feel the bruise setting in on the base of her throat. Definitely a hickey, Maze thought with a groan, feeling more and more unhinged by the second.
Sure, Kass had kissed her throat before, but never with this force—never harsh enough to leave a long-lasting bruise.
Maze combed her fingers through Kass' hair. When she gripped onto it, that just seemed to spur Kass further. Kass combed her fingers through Maze's hair, tossing it over her shoulder and holding it back in her fist so her teeth could nip just beneath Maze's ear. She sucked a warm, speckled bruise where her hairline nearly started.
Distantly, Maze heard herself insist against it—she had to work, and it wasn't like she could blame the bruise on a curling iron the way her friends used to back in high school.
Kass' lips parted from her neck. A second later, they were making out like the air in their lungs depended on it. Maze was dizzy from the sudden wave of exhaustion flushing from her system. Any fantasy she had about passing out in her bed back at home vanished the instant she heard a low, heady groan escape Kass' lips and resonate against her own. The taste of Kass' sugary gum between her teeth. Spitting it out on the pavement.
When they parted, they were both panting, eyes bright in the utter darkness of the park. The most Maze could make out beyond the parking lot was a gazebo in the distance, the hill off on the horizon, and the forests surrounding them in thick, black blobs. It was all hazy to her beyond the crystal clear focus she had of Kass' eyes dragging up from Maze's chest to meet her gaze.
"You wanna crash at mine?" Kass asked.
It took a second for Maze to process it. Just as she was about to mindlessly agree, the minor part of her that took teen dramas to heart insisted that she knew where this was going. It insisted that everyone else knew, too, judging from all the looks she got from the girls. The comments.
Why must I always be the last to know? she wondered, momentarily petrified.
"I—" she started, and it dragged on. All of her training from her depressive episodes that past semester came sprawling back with excuses. The way her heart fluttered with nervous energy insisted that she wasn't ready. "I work tomorrow, and my mom's place is closer. It's literally above the diner."
"Right," Kass said, almost like she didn't believe a damn word that came out of Maze's mouth.
Guilt proceeded to suck the life out of her.
"I'll drop you off then," Kass said, and Maze watched as Kass stepped back from her, put her hands in her pockets, and walked around to the driver's side.
Maze let out a sigh.
This was good, she told herself, because while Kass might be disappointed with her, it was better than pushing herself to her whit's end.
Right?
a/n: This chapter is dedicated to the folks on my message board reminding me that I exist or something XD