In the sea of dancing fools and slouching addicts, she stepped into the warm glow of the firelight right across from him. Only a few yards away, she stopped just in front of the bikes and became as still as he was. Her hands were at her sides, and she was seemingly lost in her own struggle of waiting for something. It was as if the bobbing bleached hair and shaved heads of the bonfire guests had magically parted like sea foam to create a sudden perfect, eerie clearing.

 

She was the most beautiful woman Scott had ever seen. Of all the women who had launched themselves at him, every woman who had ever followed him home and yowled at his window like an alley cat, she was the most incredible of all. Her face, in the light of the bonfire, reminded him of the girls in the velvet paintings he had grown up with. When he was a little boy, he used to stare as his mother painted them and wonder what could possibly make someone so adorable so very sad. Their impossibly large eyes, their sweet round faces, and soft mouths turned down with such disappointment, it was as if this girl had stepped out of those childhood pictures and presented herself to him. Was her hair black or dark brown? It was inky in the night, like the velvet she must have been painted on, and pulled back into the kind of ponytail that made him want to grab it and drag her back to his cave.

 

“What the fuck?” he mumbled to himself, blinking rapidly as he tried to gather himself. Was this how the rest of them felt? So powerless and gob smacked? Oblivious to everything around him, he took the few steps between them. He needed to get her attention, to talk to her, but about what? What the fuck was he going to say to her? She was from Detroit, a land as foreign to him as fucking Pluto.

 

Her eyes registered nothing. Neither did her face. She simply looked at him, like the tiny porcelain doll she was, patiently waiting for the embarrassing boy in front of her to offer some sort of explanation. Where was the glow of lust that he was so used to seeing on all the others? He hadn’t realized how little he knew about doing this kind of thing by himself. The other girls had always taken care of that and helped him along. He cleared his throat.

 

“They’re burning the car.” Was that my voice? That was my big opener? He could feel sweat growing on his brow under his unwashed hair. His heart leaped a bit in his chest. Jesus, he hadn’t even had a shower and probably smelled of the road. “Can you smell me?” he blurted.

 

Her eyebrows knitted together as she tried to make sense of him. This close to her, she was even more beautiful than from at a distance. Her neck was like a swan, and so white it almost glowed in the half-light. Her legs, smooth and shaped like a ballerina’s, weren’t teetering on top of those ridiculous shoes that almost every other woman at the party had strapped on. She stood, flatfooted before him and, from the look of her, extremely confused.

 

“I can’t smell you,” she said slowly. “All I can smell is the burning car.”

 

She was speaking! He smiled broadly. Would she notice that? That smile had always been a deal-cincher.

 

She looked around him to stare at the flames as they leapt for the sky. “Not really a bonfire, is it? It’s more like something you would see in Mad Max or Terminator.”

 

His smile turned genuine with her observation and before he could think about it, he offered his hand. “Scott. Scott Murphy.” Without hesitating, she took his hand and shook it, a slight smile curling her lips. Although her bones felt small in his hand, her grip was firm and surprisingly strong.

 

“You’re blushing,” she said. “Are you okay?”

 

“What? Oh! Yes. Fine. It’s just…well, don’t take this the wrong way, but you are the first beautiful thing I have seen since I arr—”

 

“OMG! Jessica, you’re so pretty! Who are you?” a woman’s voice gushed from behind him, a familiar phrase uttered with a familiar enthusiasm, breaking their quiet connection and cutting him off.

 

The girl’s friend, a platinum pudding covered in tattoos, stepped from behind him to stop at her side. Just as drunk as the rest of them, she looked at Scott with unabashed admiration. “Who’s your new friend, Jess? Oh my God.” She reached out and pushed Scott lightly in the chest. “You’re are so gorgeous!” she slurred, her syntax mangled by liquor.

 

In his smitten state, the chubby girl’s push caught him off guard and he had to take a half-step back to catch his balance. The swan instinctively reached out to stop him falling, that warm, tiny hand of hers wrapping around his wrist to steady him. He would have gladly fallen time and again if she would reach down to pick him up.

 

Her friend burst into cackling laughter and oozed in close, apologizing. “I almost knocked you over! I’m so sorry!” She reached up and started petting his face, “He’s so pretty, Jess. Isn’t he pretty? Do you like him?”

 

Jess, now blushing just as much as Scott, pushed her drunk friend’s hands off his face.

 

“Yeah, okay. His name is Shaun. Stop harassing him.”

 

“It’s Scott, actually,” he mumbled, grateful that Jess was prying her friend off of him.

 

Jess looked embarrassed and flashed him a small smile. “Scott, sorry.” She transferred her attention back to her sloppy drunk friend. “Do you need to sit down?”

 

So much bigger than her, the other girl wrapped herself around Jess, her ring-coated hands traveling all over her face and body.

 

“You’re so pretty, too,” she cooed into Jess’s face before looking back at him. “Hey! The two of you should have babies. You’re both so gorgeous, think of how pretty they would be! Pretty, pretty, babies!” The woman began to laugh at her own joke before turning, stumbling in her inebriated state and ridiculous boots, her size threatening to drag Jess down with her.

 

“Whoa, hang on there!” Scott gasped as he quickly stepped in and caught the woman under the arms to steady her.

 

“Thank you,” she gasped as she became steady on her feet again. “Are you Jason’s friend? I can tell you’re not from here. You must be one of the guys from Atlanta? I just love the way you talk. You sound so sexy. Southern boys… is it true what they say?”

 

Scott had no idea what she was talking about, so he ignored the question. “Yeah, that’s me. Southern fried… look, we need to get you sitting down before you fall down, okay?”

 

Jess looked at him gratefully. “Scott, meet Angela,” she said softly.

 

That tiny skirt of hers had ridden up, exposing a bit more length of lean thigh. He couldn’t help but look. She immediately she blushed even deeper and tugged it down. Oh god… this girl is going to kill me.

 

Angela leaned back against Scott, pressing her head against his chest and raising her face to the night sky. He heard a far off rumble of thunder just as a few drops of rain started to fall on them, dropping onto Angela’s face like as she grinned at him moronically.

 

“I’m so fucking high!” Angela shouted, drawing out the last word and breaking down again in an obnoxious peal of giggles.

 

“Okay… ” Jess said, glad for the distraction. “Let’s go, honey. It’s starting to rain.” She swung one of her friend’s arms around her shoulder while Scott held up the other side, taking most of the Angela’s weight as she slouched between the two of them. The first few drops were the herald of a coming rain, and as they began to maneuver her into the nearest building, the drops began to fall faster. As they hurried her along, her legs became wobbly and she dragged her heels.

 

“Fucking boots!” Angela hollered as she stumbled and kicked debris out of the way. “You’re smart, wearing those grandma shoes.” Angela turned to look at Scott as she got her feet under her again. “I told her not to dress like a grandma, you know. She always dresses like a fucking old lady.”

 

Scott and Jess made eye contact again. She damn sure didn’t look like a grandma tonight, he thought as he struggled to pull his eyes away.

 

“I do not!” Jess protested

 

“Do fucking, too!” Angela stated firmly as they pulled up under an overhang.

 

It wasn’t raining hard, but the crowd between the buildings began to seek shelter just as they had. Scott and Jess slowly eased Angela’s arms off their shoulders. She wavered a moment as she lost their support, but then steadied. She looked around, then flopped down onto the dirty concrete floor and began to pull her boots off.

 

“Fucking boots. I’ve been falling in them all night,” she said as she yanked one boot, then another off, stood, and hurled them into the darkness before Scott could stop her.

 

“You’re going to step on—” he began, worried that without her shoes, Angela would cut her feet on the trash lying about. He was beginning to move in the direction she had thrown them, intending to go get the boots for her to put back on, when the problem resolved itself.

 

Above the muffled roar of the crowd and the thumping beat of the band, a male’s voice roared in their direction. “What the fuck, man!”

 

A large, bearded man emerged from the darkness, roaring toward them like a furious boar. In one hand he dragged a scrawny girl behind him who was holding her forehead where blood streamed from between her fingers. Instinctively, the crowd formed a circle around what promised to be an unfolding drama. Years of experience kicked in and Scott immediately stood to his full height and stepped forward to put Jess and Angela behind him.

 

Jess could almost feel him change as he stepped from beside her. It was if he had transformed to stone. Even his face had altered. Anything soft and warm beneath those dreamy features disappeared in an instant and he became nothing more than an intimidating mask.

 

“Who fucking threw this boot? Who’s fucking boot is this?” he demanded, shaking the boot in their faces.

 

“Take it easy, man,” Scott said, putting his hands up, trying to defuse the situation. “It was an accident. She’s drunk and didn’t realize what she was doing.”

 

“Stupid bitches!” the scrawny woman beside him spat as she looked at Jess and Angela’s feet. She pulled her hand away from her head and looked at it. It was covered in blood.

 

“That one. The fat one. She fucking threw it right at me.” She pointed toward Angela with her bloody hand, flicking it to send a spray of hot red across Angela and Jess’s faces.

 

Jess gasped, falling back as she felt the wetness dapple her forehead. The smell. Please don’t let it be the smell. She frantically rubbed her forehead and she brought her hand down to see. In the flickering light of the fire she could see her fingers were smeared with blood. She gasped as her knees went weak. Don’t pass out, she begged herself. Please don’t pass out.

 

“You fucking bitch!” Angela screamed, suddenly full drunken, drug-fueled, rage. She blew past Scott in a surprisingly fast rush and barreled into the bleeding woman. Angela outweighed the other woman by fifty pounds or more, and her rush carried them through the circle of men and women and out into the rain before they tumbled to the ground.

 

Frozen with panic, Jess was carried with the crowd as it reformed around the two women, tearing at each other, kicking and screaming as they rolled in the filth that littered the ground. The junkie clawed at Angela’s face, causing her childhood friend to rear back with a scream, her hands coming up to face. She fell back, and rolled away, but bounced to her feet with surprising speed and grace, before charging in and catching the other woman as she was still rising. Grabbing her by her shirt, Angela pulled on her hard, tearing the woman’s shirt as she swung her around in a fast arc. The woman went down in a tumbling roll as Angela stood panting and bleeding, holding a remnant of the woman’s shirt.

 

The bearded man moved to step in, but his woman pushed him back. “No!” the woman screamed, tearing off the rest of her shirt and exposing her small breast. “She’s mine! You game, sweetheart? You and me. Last one standing? Come on!”

 

“Angela! No!” Jess cried, but Angela ignored her.

 

“You and me, bitch! Last one standing. I’m going to kick your scrawny ass for what you did!”