Pointe by Brandy Colbert Page A

gazebo, spills ashes through the rails and onto the ground. I inhale and hold mine out in front of me, see how long I can go without breaking the long tube of ash that has grown on the end. I let out a stream of smoke and lick my lips. Nobody I know smokes cloves besides Hosea. I’ve only smoked them once, a long time ago, but I’ve never forgotten how they make your lips taste like sugar.
    Our gazes gradually shift to the house in the distance. Joey Thompson has muscled his way into the crowd of fringe people and is lording over a keg with one of his football cronies, David Tulip. There’s a ripple in the crowd and Lark Pearson breaks through, grabs Joey by the forearms, and shouts something incoherent in his face. Everyone on the patio cheers, then Joey and David each grab one of her legs and up she goes. Kegstand time.
    I tried it once and lasted about two seconds. Something about the unique combination of being upside down and chugging beer doesn’t mix for me.
    Lark makes me think of Ellie, which makes me think of Trisha, which makes me think of what I was supposed to tell Hosea when I first saw him.
    â€œKlein was looking for you.”
    â€œYeah, I know.” Hosea shakes his head. “He’s been texting me all fucking night.”
    I don’t know how he deals with basically being at Klein’s beck and call. I guess you’re supposed to bend over backward for your customers, but Klein gets off on pushing people to their limit. Even his best friend.
    The color in his face deepens in the light cast down from the moon. “Listen, would you mind not saying anything to Klein or Phil or . . . anyone about my gig at the studio?”
    I bite my tongue against asking him why he doesn’t want people to know one of the best parts about him. “Sure.”
    â€œCool,” he says, his eyes moving back out to the lawn.
    The lawn, where another person is walking in our direction. A girl this time. Short, with legs that travel very fast. Ellie Harris.
    I should have known she wouldn’t be far behind Lark. Who has been released from the kegstand and is now wiping her mouth, burping into her forearm before she goes up for round two.
    Ellie plants herself in front of Hosea, one French-manicured hand holding on to a bottle at her side, the other smoothing down the fabric on her hip.
    â€œKlein’s been looking for you everywhere,” she says in one of those false-bright voices that makes it apparent nothing about the situation in front of her is okay.
    â€œSo I’ve heard.” Hosea stands and stubs out the clove on the bottom of his boot. “I needed some air.”
    My phone buzzes in my pocket. A text from Sara-Kate:
Where are you?
I write back that I’m in the gazebo, put out my clove, and stand up, too.
    â€œYou guys know each other?” Hosea motions in my direction as if Ellie’s stare was not already boring into me like hot fire.
    â€œMmm. Thea, right?” She turns away before we can make eye contact and pulls on the bottom of her skirt, trying to tug it down to cover more of her bare legs. The fabric hardly budges and she gives up after a while, takes a long drink of cider as she looks at Hosea. She lowers the bottle and rakes her fingers through her chunky blond highlights. “Babe, we should go see what Klein wants.”
    He takes her hand and I stare too long. At their intertwined fingers, how things are so easy between them. I wonder if I could have that, too.
    They start to walk away but I don’t want Hosea to leave without a goodbye, so I blurt out, “Thanks for the clove.”
    I’m not talking to her but Ellie turns her suspicious eyes on me and I don’t care. Trisha may be a burnout but at least she never pretends she doesn’t know who I am when we’ve been going to school together our entire lives. One day, I’ll leave girls like Ellie and Lark behind, and then they can’t say shit