My Desert Haven (BOYXBOY)

Chapter 15

My hand hurt. There was no getting around it. But, under the circumstances it was to be expected, the way that Eddie was repeatedly hurling the baseball, and Luke was repeatedly swinging the bat and missing the baseball, leaving me to catch it with a glove that wasn’t broken in because we’d bought everything we were using that very morning. Eddie had insisted that he didn’t feel like wasting the day away looking for the equipment they already had in the basement, even though Luke swore he knew where it was. I had a feeling that it had less to do with Eddie not wanting to take the time and more to do with the way that something still wasn’t right between him and Jase. Once again during breakfast, they’d both been silent, and when Luke asked Jase if he was coming with us, Eddie had ushered me out the door as if he didn’t even want to wait for a response. I hadn’t liked it. In fact, I was still a little uneasy over it, a fact I tried to ignore as I tossed the ball back to Eddie and tried to concentrate on the conversation he and Luke were in the middle of.

"How many people?" Eddie asked incredulously, hardly catching my throw. He had no trouble tossing it back, though, and once again Luke missed, and I wished that Eddie didn’t have to throw the damn thing so hard. Once I brought up my other hand to hold it in the new glove and I knew the ball wasn’t going anywhere, I decided not to throw it back just yet. Maybe they wouldn’t notice.

"Just thirty or forty," Luke replied. They were talking about Rick’s upcoming party. "I figure that’s as many as we can fit in the basement without getting overly crowded."

"Forty people isn’t overly crowded? Teenagers? With mouths... and stomachs, " Eddie responded. "Luke!"

"What? It’s not that many people," Luke replied. "And you already said we could have the party. No backing out now."

"That was before," Eddie said, and then paused to signal for me to throw him the ball. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but tossed it to him, anyway. "That was before, when I thought you meant a small gathering, maybe with Rick, his family... a friend or two, and a nice little cake. Maybe hamburgers first."

"That’s what Rick’s doing with his family," Luke replied. "We get to have the actual party... and no chaperones sneaking downstairs every two minutes," Luke warned. "You promised. You or Jase--and only one at a time--get to come down..."

"Every hour, and you bet we will," Eddie replied. "I don’t want any funny business. So, did we set a curfew for this invasion?"

Curfew

? I wondered what kind of curfew I had. It was midnight, when I was out with Luke. It came to mind that I’d never figured out what it would be if I wanted to go out with someone else. Someone like Aaron. I’d been thinking about him pretty much ever since I woke up that morning. I doubted that he’d be calling me this weekend, not since he knew that everyone would be around, so I was thinking about calling him. Only, if I did call him, I wanted to be able to tell him that I could get out for a while. Maybe if I saw him this weekend it would turn out Seth-free. Maybe… we could have a real date.

"Jase said that everyone has to be out by twelve thirty," Luke replied.

"Twelve thirty?" Eddie repeated, sounding appalled.

"It’s not like it’s that late," Luke insisted, glancing back at me with a smile as he rolled his eyes, before lifting the bat from where he was leaning on it as Eddie prepared to pitch again. "We’re all up that late on weekends, anyway. And, I already promised we’d clean it all up. You and Jase don’t have to do anything." Luke glanced back at me, then, as if he was looking for assistance. But apparently, I was catching on too slow.