I left through the back door of the CVS and found Elle, Lacie, Gemma, and Alex waiting for me, leaning against the walls under the dimly lit street lights.
"You guys shouldn't be lurking around here in the dark." I shook my head. "Not after what happened last night. We all need to be careful." I'm the oldest in our group, and sometimes I feel like I'm responsible for all of them. I'm seventeen. Elle is sixteen. Gemma is only fourteen, and she's the youngest one that we all kind of look out for. Sometimes, though, I feel like Lacie and Alex, who are fifteen, require more looking after than Gemma does. They're reckless.
"It's fine." Lacie said. "Now come on. We're stopping into Bobby's before we go to Jacks place."
"And who's brilliant idea was that?" I asked.
"Mine." Lacie grinned, looking proud of herself. Bobby's is the East Side liqueur store. Both Alex and Lacie had a thing for alcohol. Sometimes I worry about them. I mean, I drink too. Like if I'm at a party and someone hands me a beer, I'll drink it. But the two of them are always using fake IDs or flirting with the cashiers at Bobby's, or trying to get some of our older friends to buy them beer. Elle doesn't ever drink, which is something I can respect. Gabby doesn't either. I think maybe she wants to, but the motherly, protective side of me won't let her. Like I said before, if I don't watch out for them, nobody will.
The five of us made our way through town, keeping our heads down and our ears open like we learned when we were kids, maybe eleven or twelve years old. We don't live in a really good town. Grenadia as a whole isn't very safe, but Columbus and the East Side are the worst.
We stopped outside of the liqueur store, careful to stay away from the windows, in a huddle.
"Gemma, you should stay out here." Lacie said.
"Why?" She protested angrily. I smiled ruefully. It must suck sometimes to be the youngest.
"Because you barely look fourteen. You look too young, and if we want to pull this off, you need to stay out here, okay?" Lacie told her. Gemma rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, frowning. "I'm only a year younger than you."
"It's fine, Gem. Let it go." I patted her shoulder.
"Come here, Elle." Alex said, digging into her purse. "I've got to put some eyeliner on you. You look like a 13-year-old."
It was true. Even though Elle had a year and a half on Alex and Lacie, she looked young for her age.
"Forget it. I'll stay out here with Gemma." Elle said. "You know I can't stand it when you drink, anyway." She leaned against the wall next to Gemma. "And I'm a terrible liar, too. Don't get too much, okay?"
"Whatever you say, Ellie." Alex checked her eye makeup in the reflection in the window and followed Lacie and I through the door.
I surveyed the cashier guy. He was a young, tattooed guy wearing thick glasses. He couldn't be more than twenty-five. I smiled. They were the easiest to get past. I grabbed a pack of beer from the wall of refrigerators, nodded at Alex and Lacie, and smoothly brought it up to the counter.
Alex did what she always did when we pulled something like this. She leaned over the counter, gave the guy her signature smile, which was a slight smirk and a bat of the eyelashes, and all of a sudden it didn't matter if we were twenty-one or not. The guy took her cash and gave her the beer and a few coins of change.
"Keep it." She grinned at him and winked, and she grabbed the case of bear and we followed her out of the liqueur store. It's impressive how good Lacie and Alex are at doing stuff like this. Even I'm impressed, even though sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be helping my two kid friends buy alcohol.
