Luke pulled away so he could flash me an expression that said,That’s what you think?
In response, I smirked at him, grabbed his arm, and tugged him into the mass of sweaty people with me.
And man, Lukecoulddance. His body moved effortlessly to the beat, lost in the music, and before long, I grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him to me. I was smiling and he was smiling, and when the song called for it, I spun around and shook my hips.Only when I heard Jack Healy’s voice did I remember we were in a crush of people, that it wasn’t just the two of us.
“Hot stuff, Sage!” Jack shouted, bopping by us. “You? Me? Turf? Ten minutes?”
Still dancing with Luke, I shook my head and flipped him the bird. Ididplan on visiting the turf field tonight, butnotwith Jack.
“Where are we going?” Luke whispered.
“The turf field,” I whispered back, grinning into the darkness. “The primo hookup spot on campus.”
Ahead of me, Reese snorted. “I would call the turf a lot of things before describing it as the primo spot,” she said, Jennie and Nina laughing.
“Don’t worry, we’re not going to make you hook up with one of us,” I said quickly, squeezing his hand.
About fifteen minutes after Jack’s proposition, Luke and I were mocking the junior boys by doing their favorite fist-pump move when Nina had come twirling up to us. Chestnut hair flying everywhere, she announced that it wastimebefore grabbing hold of Luke’s sweaty T-shirt and dragging him out of the mob.
“Okay, here it is,” Jennie whisper-yelled from a few yards away. The turf field was completely dark, so we blindly followed her voice to the locked metal contraption housing the controls that turned on the overhead lights.
“Fuck!” Reese muttered after I heard the clang of her foot banging into the metal post.
Meanwhile, Jennie illuminated her iPhone so she could type in the four-digit code on the keypad, and then pulled open the door. “One…” she counted. “Two…”
And onthreeshe flipped a switch.
Turning onallthe turf’s high-powered lights.
I didn’t need to ask Luke to know the sight he was treated to was like nothing he’d ever seen before. It was like the scene in the movieRatatouillewhen the chefs come into the kitchen and the rats instantly scatter. There were coupleseverywhere, all in various states of undress. I spotted Lucy Rosales push a guy off her so she could grab her shirt and make a run for it, and by one of the field hockey goals, I saw more of Jack than I ever needed—or wanted—to see.
After about ten seconds of watching our classmates run for their lives, Jennie shut off the lights, and I grabbed Luke’s hand again. “Run!” I whisper-yelled before taking off for the woods to hide. By the time we made it under the trees, everyone’s breathing was heavy with excitement.
“What—the—fuck—was—that?” Luke asked.
The girls and I laughed. “That,” Reese answered, “was Bexley’s favorite use for the turf field.”
“That’s literally the grossest thing I’ve ever seen!” he exclaimed. “I feel sick! I can only imagine what my mother will say when I tell her I’ve been corrupted!” We kept laughing, and Luke soon joined in. “Where did you get the combination?”
Jennie collected herself first. “When I was president of Hardcastle last year, I organized a nighttime Ultimate Frisbee game, so obviously the lights needed to be on, and AD Calder gave me the code that unlocks the control box. It hasn’t been changed since then.”
“How many times have you done this?”
“This is only the third,” Nina said. “We do it really infrequently to make sure people don’t catch on.”
“The next time will probably be in the winter,” I added.
Luke was incredulous. “People come up here when it’s cold?”
“If it means they’re gonna get some,” Reese said, “then yes, they’ll brave the cold.”
There were a few heartbeats of silence before Luke deadpanned: “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’renotin Michigan anymore.”
“Not even close,” I replied, my grin invisible in the darkness, so happy that Luke was here with us. “Now it’s time for the finale.”
Some would say that the finale was anticlimactic, but after expending most of our energy on the dance floor and bringing some unlucky Bexleyans’ illicit activities to an abrupt end, we just wanted to catch our breath and chill.
Before our next destination, the five of us made a quick detour to Simmons, where Nina raced inside to grab the tote bag of essentials we needed. Then we set off for Thayer House, where all the freshmen boys lived. Predictably, their common room was a ghost town when we arrived, since they were still busy showing off their moves at the dance. “Okay, soMamma MiaorMamma Mia 2?” Nina posed, grabbing my laptop from the bag, along with some candy: M&M’s, Sour Patch Kids, and my favorite, Junior Mints.
