"Better keep up, Stephen," Em says. "He's expecting us to be there! I'm not about to be late because of you!"
After our first weekend of weird events, I'm back with Em and the gang for a nightly ride. Everybody else rides a bike. It's fine. Let them. I'm on my skateboard. I follow the others down the middle of the street in a scene that makes us look like a gang of do-nothing goofballs.
Why? Because...why not?
Tonight, I get to see what Kenzie's never really shown me on tours. And...I wish she were with us and not busy vacationing in Arbourton, because...I miss her right about now.
Relax, Stephen. Enjoy the night.
"Come on, dude!"
I'm slowing them down thinking about her. I have to pick up speed.
The eastern side of Maple Park. It's...weird. A lot of shady buildings. I don't think I've gone over this part of the storm channel. I didn't know it stretched this far. I spot a GoPlay at one corner, between a pizza shop and a vacant, broken-down storefront.
Isn't that the one Kenzie works at?
I know it's somewhere out east. We never meet after GoPlay shifts.
"You'll like it, Stephen," Em says. "They left the whole street vacant after the shops closed. Everybody uses them for hangouts and parties. Good stuff."
Her smirk hints at something good. Is it, though? Who meets at an abandoned spot at night?
Scooby-Doo and Old Man Jenkins?
Heading north toward downtown's not my idea of a Saturday night. In all my years of either visiting or living in Portersburgh, I've always taken the boulevard straight up in a car. I've never boarded or biked through downtown's crazy side-streets, because it's too far for that.
Good exercise!
"Hurry up!"
Dad's going to kill me if he finds out.
Don't tell him.
What?
You know how many times you've gone around town with friends in the past? You practically live on the streets.
...That came out wrong.
Okay, not like that. But, you know what I mean.
True. They let me stay out with Peter and Jack back in Evansville. And Kenzie at her grandfather's store. As long as I'm with somebody I know, then I'm okay. That was Dad's general rule.
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Earhart & Noonan: An "Us Club" Novel (#1)(NaNoWriMo15)
Teen FictionFor the first twelve years of Stephen Vaughn's life, just trying to get others around him to pronounce his first name the right way ("Stee-vehn Vawn") has felt like the hardest task he's had to try and cope with. That is, until his perfect life with...
