11:26 pm
If there was ever anything you had to remember about Branchside Heights, it was that your personal business got out.
It got everywhere.
Steve Portsmouth, thirteen-years-old and red-haired, was caught making out with Elizabeth Harrowing under the bleachers at the middle school when he was supposedly in a relationship with Madison Baker. Kyle Winters, owner of the local home improvement department store, was drowning in debt and was too afraid to tell his wife. Heather Washington, formerly an elementary school teacher, was in the process of being convicted for tax fraud. And Georgie McAdams, 20-year-old community college student who worked part-time at Bentley's bistro, was in a really shit relationship with a really shit guy.
His name was Sommers, and he came with friends.
Georgie and I were sitting at the bar in DiegoDiego on Thursday night, obviously sipping ginger ales, when her boyfriend and his crew walked in. Jamie, owner of the little sports bar, only let us sit at the bar because we weren't taking up space, and, in her words, we did a better job at entertaining her than the soccer matches that played on the television screens mounted around the joint. Jamie was dark-skinned and bright-eyed, with a dry humor that only appealed to a specific species of people. Always teeming with new gossip and information about the locals, she was great to spend an evening with as well.
Clearly, Jamie was one of my favorite women in Branchside.
Jamie, Georgie and I were deep into a discussion about Mrs. Martins' affair with Gilly Abeson when Sommers and his friends waltzed through the front door. I wasn't aware of their presence at first; like in any sports bar, the place was dimly lit and the chatter of diners or people who'd come to watch the late night game kept you from hearing anything besides your own conversation. I nearly dropped my soda glass in surprise when Sommers swept in behind Georgie, coiling his thick arms around her from behind and forcing his face--beard and all--up against the side of hers. Georgie squealed. Jamie glanced at me, at our new company, and then away with an eye roll.
"Enjoying yourself, babes?" Sommers cooed, voice low and raspy. He reeked of alcohol. Surely, he'd been out drinking at another bar before coming to this one to meet his girlfriend of two years.
Georgie giggled, muttered some girly things that Sommers pretended to be interested in and I didn't care to listen to. Sommers wasn't the issue for me; he was too stupid to be afraid of. It was his three friends that gave me the creeps. They went wherever Sommers went, always hovering nearby, like gnats you couldn't swat away. And Georgie was always trying to set me up with one.
They were there that night as well, taking seats at the bar to my left since Georgie was in the one to my right, closest to the end of the bar. The tallest one was the one that creeped me out the most; he called himself Kicks, and he stepped over his stool to settle in right beside me. Fortunately--or, as fortunate as you could get in a situation like this--Sommers' tiniest minion Jay was the one with the thing for me in particular. He was stocky, wrinkly, and hairy all over. He took the seat between Kicks and their third companion, Hank, but not before flashing me a yellow-toothed grin and a wink.
I turned back toward Georgie and Sommers without response, raising my ginger ale to my face as Jamie drifted over to serve the already-intoxicated newcomers.
For a few moments I sat there, feeling awkward and alone as my body faced toward my coworker and her burly BF as they made out and made inappropriate grabs at one another through growls and giggles. Oh, so they liked each other tonight. My attention was directed toward the soccer game on the television screen above the bar, and it was a game that I really was interested in watching, but the sound was so low that I couldn't discern anything over the sound of Georgie and Sommers sucking face to my right and Kicks, Hank, and Jay sharing and laughing at rude jokes to my left.
Jamie hurried back over with their drinks. "Would you three keep it down?" she whisper-shouted, as she served them, eyebrows drawn in annoyance. "You're getting rude looks."
"Aw, don't worry about us, babes, we can handle ourselves," Kicks slurred slightly. He raised his beer to his face with a grin while Jay and Hank laughed as if he'd told the joke of the century.
Jamie grimaced, glanced to my right.
"And you two," she snapped, borderline viciously. Sommers' large head popped up and away from Georgie. If anything was enough to control him, it was Jamie's scolding. "Stop coming into my bar to dry-hump on my stools. People eat here. You wanna suck face? Take it out back. Have some respect for yourselves and for everyone else."
Georgie blushed deeply, but Sommers put on his best charmer face (which wasn't very charming at all) and leaned the weight of his body on the bar toward Jamie. With a wanna-be-seductive smirk and folded hands, he said lowly, "Jamie, baby, don't stress yourself. We're just trying to have a good time."
"Too good a time," I muttered into my glass.
Jamie wasn't unnerved by Sommers' sickly-sweet voice. She was never unnerved by anything. She replied, just as lowly, "Well take your good time somewhere else, buddy, because you haven't bought a drink and you're grossing out my customers."
A shadow crossed darkly upon Sommers' unshaven face as his expression morphed into one of irritation, but Georgie tugged feebly at his shirt. "Baby," she said quietly, "baby, I wanna go anyway. Let's not take up space at the bar."
Sommers spit, "'Take up space,' my ass. This shit joint ain't gonna last much longer anyway." Jamie prepared to hit him with another snappy comment, but Sommers rose to full height and howled in an unnecessarily loud voice, "Boys, let's go, we're heading back to mine."
The relief spread through me warmly when the foul-smelling guys to my left began to rise from their barstools and stretch out, paying their tab and still making distasteful political jokes. I was only just settling back into comfort, making a kind of all-knowing eye contact with Jamie, when Georgie started to rise from the seat to my right. Was she going with them?
I swallowed part of my panic in a sip of ginger ale as I turned to her quickly. "Georgie, are you leaving? You're my ride home!" In hindsight, I should've known something like this would've happened. Georgie had been borrowing Sommers' sedan since hers had broken down, and as I watched her hand the keys back over to him now I knew he wouldn't opt to drop me back at my place.
Georgie knew it too, and she looked at me with a semi-distraught expression on her face. "Right, well... Kicks, Hank, and Jay are all riding in Hank's car back to Branchside Villas," (the motel complex they sometimes resided in) "so maybe they can drop you at home?"
I raised an eyebrow at them as they made toward the exit. "Georgie, they're drunk as hell."
Shyly, she rubbed her folded arms. "They're not that drunk..."
Sommers called across the restaurant, from the door, "Georgie, let's go!"
Georgie was never the loud type, and would never be, so she just flashed him an apologetic smile. Then she turned back to me. "You know what, Nova, ride with me and Sommers to the Villas and catch that bus that stops right there. You've been on that bus before, haven't you? The 463."
I have ridden that bus before, when I used to visit my mother regularly. But I wasn't the biggest fan of riding the bus late at night because people like Sommers and co. rode public transit late at night. Not that I couldn't handle myself.
I found myself agreeing with Georgie's plan anyway because I had no other option, saying goodnight to Jamie and drifting out into crisp night air after her. For being a small town, Branchside Heights was spread out quite a bit, and sometimes, walking to your destination wasn't an option (especially at night, when you had types like Jay hanging out at every corner).
So, I was sitting stiffly in the backseat of Sommers' car, him behind the wheel and Georgie beside him in near-midnight darkness. Hank pulled out of the DiegoDiego lot first, seemingly in a rush, and Sommers made to pull out after him, but another car—as dark as the midnight sky—came out of nowhere and cut him off. Georgie gasped aloud when Sommers stomped on the brake pedal melodramatically and pounded his horn.
"Shit!" he exclaimed, flipping the smaller car off out his open window. But the black sports car had tinted windows all around, and not one of them was lowered. "Dickheads like that out here are gonna get us killed!"
Georgie asked, "Who is that? I don't recognize the car." That was another thing about Branchside. You get to know everything and everyone so well that you can usually tell who's out on the road by the ride.
"Probably some idiot and his girlfriend who took a wrong exit off the highway. See shit like that all the time nowadays."
"License plate looks weird," Georgie murmured, squinting to see it through the windshield. But Sommers was keeping his distance as he drove behind the car down the road.
As we rode toward Branchside Villas, Georgie and Sommers arguing about something quietly in the front, I groped my hand through my bag, looking for bus fare. I had enough on me—I always had money on me for cases like these—so I decided to let myself relax for a moment. Closing my eyes and leaning back into the cushioned car seats, I figured that this wasn't anything to stress over; we'd pull into the complex, I would tell Georgie goodnight and go wait out front for the Night Owl stop at the motel.
I wasn't listening to much of Georgie's conversation with her boyfriend; I was far too familiar with their pointless arguments. But I did pick up on Sommers' strange tone of voice when he wondered aloud, "Who the fuck is this guy? Been following Hank all the way here."
I opened my eyes and peaked out at the road, at the all-black sports car that was still in front of us. His turn signal blinked at us in the darkness as he made to turn into the motel's back parking lot after Hank, and he pulled into a spot on the far side of the building.
"Suppose whoever it is has decided to turn in for the night, maybe find their way out of here tomorrow," Georgie offered.
As Sommers parked his car in its usual spot beside Hank's, he huffed. "They better, with an expensive-ass ride like that. You know them kids will be on that shit in an instant."
It was true that the elementary and middle school kids entertained themselves by vandalizing new or freshly-washed cars with toilet paper or eggs or silly-string from the dollar store. That's why it was always so much easier for Branchside residents to keep their cars average-looking and uninteresting.
As I got out of the backseat of Sommers' car (Georgie had to help me tug the rear door open from the outside; it was prone to jamming), Jay called over to me from the threshold of his room, "You coming in, babes? We've got room for you."
I didn't even try to make my smile appear genuine. "That's okay. I've got to catch the bus."
"Night Owl stop isn't for another half an hour," Hank rasped, locking his car and tugging up the waistband of his jeans. "Let us get you a drink before you go."
"I'm fine," I promised them, somewhat forcefully. It was frightening how I figured I'd feel safer sitting in the darkness alone at a bus shelter than in a room with those three half-drunk idiots. I wanted to turn on my heel and run to the stop around the front, but I thought it only right of me to jog over to Georgie to offer her a hug. After all, she had been driving me around all day.
"Goodnight," I whispered to her as Sommers unlocked the door to his place. As he slipped inside, muttering something about taking a leak, I added lowly, "Be smart with him. I heard the two of you arguing."
Georgie exhaled half a chuckle as we pulled apart, whispered, "We always argue, Nova. Don't worry about me."
I smiled at her one more time before turning to walk around the side of the building. Jay called a final farewell to me as well, from where he was outside his shared space with Kicks and Hank, lighting up a cigarette. I waved half-heartedly and continued round the building.
The orange fluorescent motel lighting cast eerie shadows upon the sidewalk and struck the few cobwebs hanging around at odd angles. I was almost too busy being cautious of where I stepped that I nearly didn't notice the man leaning against the back of his car in the dark, facing out toward the street and speaking on the phone. If the circumstance had been different—if the car wasn't the black sports car we'd been wondering about and if the man hadn't been speaking with such a curious accent—then I wouldn't have paid any attention to him. But because I knew that there was only one person in Branchside at the moment with a British accent I stopped so abruptly that I practically stumbled off the curb.
Simon started up immediately once he'd heard my quick squeal from the sidewalk behind him. I knew he was watching me, probably with shock and confusion mixed on his face, but I didn't look over at him as I regained my footing and continued on my way, his broken sentences and all of my humiliation left behind me.
"No, Josh, I... Yeah, I know, I heard about that already.... Yeah, he called me. I know.... No, it's fine. I'll call you later, yeah? Goodnight...."
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[A/N: Okay, more background done and out of the way. And now... it begins. Super excited to dive into this. And actually, you know, add Simon to the plot lol. But anyway, thanks for reading! ]